Please Help With Nitrites

FRYHOLE · Apr 8, 2008

hi i have an over stocked 10 gallon tank. it has 3 platys, 1 mollie, 1 peppered cory and 2 schwatrz corys. i am going to be transfering fish to a new 38 gallon as soon as it cycles. but right now they are stuck in the 10 gal. my nitrites have consistently been at 1.0 for over a week. my nitrates have been between .25 and 1 and my amonia has been at .25 but last night it went to 0. i have done almost 50 percent water changes five days in a row to correct this and also added prime. my blue filter was dirty so i changed it(is this the problem?) i would think if it was so severly over stocked i would have a much higher amonia level. i dont know what to do. Am i in the middle of a cycle. Should i just leave it alone? Im lost.

Piltdownpaul · Apr 8, 2008

Keep doing the water changes and be patient-if you cant move the fish out of the tank -keep your fingers crossed - good luck

What is your blue filter-if its just a coarse mesh filter-best to wash it in used aquarium water and put it back in the filter system. If it has bacteria on it it will reduce your ammonia/nitrite-changing it for another filter will revert you back to where you started.

waterdrop · Apr 8, 2008

You are doing the right thing to be doing large and frequent water changes. You want to get and keep your ammonia and nitrite (NO2) readings down to zero, more than once a day if possible. You need a liquid-based test kit to get good readings, are you using one? How did you clean your filter? You need to use tank water, not tap water to clean the filter parts. Chlorine/Chloramine will kill the bacteria in your bio-filter. Read the pinned articles and other beginner threads here on TFF. Read everything you have time for. Its all here and you will get the hang of it. We assume you are using dechor and rough temperature matching for the return water when you water change, right? Water changes (50%) can be repeated after an hour if ammonia and/or nitrite still test above zero.

FRYHOLE · Apr 8, 2008

waterdrop said:
You are doing the right thing to be doing large and frequent water changes. You want to get and keep your ammonia and nitrite (NO2) readings down to zero, more than once a day if possible. You need a liquid-based test kit to get good readings, are you using one? How did you clean your filter? You need to use tank water, not tap water to clean the filter parts. Chlorine/Chloramine will kill the bacteria in your bio-filter. Read the pinned articles and other beginner threads here on TFF. Read everything you have time for. Its all here and you will get the hang of it. We assume you are using dechor and rough temperature matching for the return water when you water change, right? Water changes (50%) can be repeated after an hour if ammonia and/or nitrite still test above zero.

i am using aliquid test, i had cleaned the blue filter with carbon in it in the old water i had siphoned out of the tank. the white filter i never touched. i didnt realize i could do more than one water change per day though.

kj23502 · Apr 8, 2008

How long has your tank been set up? Did you recently add new fish? It's probably going through a cycle. While my tank was cycling with fish in it, everyone told me to keep the nitrite and (ammonia...but sounds like you don't have any) down to around .25ppm. That way the bio filter can catch up but the fish aren't "drowing" in toxins.

My nitrites did what you're describing. Sounds like it should be done soon! Keep doing water changes to bring the levels down and soon the test won't show any higher than .25ppm and then it'll look like it's some where in between the two lowest levels and then it'll be 0. When it didn't go any higher than .25ppm without a water change, I just left the tank alone and let the bacteria take care of it. It was done cycling in like 3-4 days after that maybe. It wasn't very long. I know it can get overwhelming. :crazy:

SO...HANG IN THERE YOU'RE ALMOST DONE!!!!

waterdrop · Apr 8, 2008

Yes, good words from kj.

Good that you didn't disturb the filter too much. When trying to recycle it you don't want to disturb it any more than absolutely necessary. You want those two good bacterial species to repopulate in the filter media.

Later on you can read here on TFF about carbon. It really only has specific uses, like clearing the water of a medication and even then is usually only used for 3 days or so. The area in the filter taken up by carbon can be put to good use with other materials, to increase your bio-filter capacity or to increase your mechanical filtering capacity.

~~waterdrop~~