Sudden Nitrite Rise

[homerhotspur]

Tank has been running for around 3 months and, to date, all tests for Ammonia and Nitrite have been ok ( as far as I can tell with the colour scale charts) basically yellow and blue. At the weekend we added 3 corys and 4 small banded barbs. Today I was shocked to see the Nitrite test a very purple colour.

I've checked some old links and hope this is not a cause for massive alarm. I changed 30% of the water tonight and intend to do likewise tomorrow. I presume that the adding of 7 fish was just too much, although they are all very small.

Am I doing the right thing and are the fish in imminent danger?

As a side issue, the plants in the tank are looking a bit past their best. Should these be replaced sooner rather than later and could there be any link to the above problem?

 

[Corleone]

It's likely the fish you added were enough to cause a mini-cycle. Sometimes nitrite bacteria can be a bit slow in catching up. Provided you didn't get an ammonia spike along with it, I think you'll be ok. Ammonia is the real killer - nitrite doesn't cause permanent damage in low levels, but is still harmful. Do water changes and keep it under .25 (generally the first step up from 0 on the color cards), and it should settle in a few days.

 

[Ficious]

i think your fish will be ok as long as you continue water changes, even if daily, to bring the levels down.

something i think about is how much slack either way we have until nitrites effect our fish. i use to never cycle the tank or do water changes as often as i do now, and some how ive been lucky to succeed. some people get lucky...it even comes down to how your tap water is...it could be for better or for worse, and people that have a certain combonation of things in their tap water tend to run into more problems and it "ruins" their view of fishkeeping.
water changes will deff help your tank...

something you can "mess around" with is getting a piece of paper and do a nitrite test after one night w/o water changes.

write down the results then do a 30-40% water change (make sure your temp is within 5 degrees)

wait 1 hour and test again. with these tests you can then realize how fast the nitrites go up.

next step, the day after the water change test your tank again. then do a 20% water change..wait 8 hours and test it again. write down your results.

wait 24-48 hours and test it again.

looking at your results on paper after the 3rd day is very interesting and will give you some good experience as to what water changes can do.

if you notice through the tests that your nitrites rise quickly...well i dont know what to do

if you notice that your nitrite slowly boggs down...then continue some sort of water change schedule to put those to rest.


always use dechlorinator too and good luck