Nitrites High

[Ficious]

my tank is new but my 20 gal is showing very high nitrite readings. what to do? i do a 40% water change per day to take care of this.

my filter is a penguin 150 and i put mature media into it. i assume the filter is cycled because its been in my 36 gal for months. my ammonia is ok and i havent tested the nitrates.

i guess my fish will be ok as i do 40% per day. but why arent my nitrites down? i just dont understand. how dangerous is this to my bichir? should i be worried? keep up with the 40% wc's? thanks guys

 

[Corleone]

Keep up the water changes. If you have any other stable tanks beside the 36, you can add some more mature media. I had this happen once myself. I don't know what exactly contributes to it, since I did nothing different than usual, but it's like you lost the Nitrite bacteria when you moved the media.

At least it's not ammonia, since that's where the permanent gill damage comes into play.

 

[shelaghfishface]

how high are they? i know the last 0.25 ppm is very hard to get rid of

 

[celaeno]

what filter did you use in your 36 gallon? if it's another penguin, most of the beneficial bacteria is on the bio-wheel.