Tiny Trace Of Nitrite

[LionessN3cubs]

ugh. A pattern has been set. I've been doing water changes every other day because every other day...the nitrite goes up to .25.

This is really bugging me. Everything was fine in the tank ...until I found those platy babies. I wonder if those couple extra tiny creatures give enough waste off to have caused the issue? I dont know anything about fry and such.

I would've thought, since there are only 3...that my filter would've caught up with the extra load in a weeks time anyways?

I know I need to just keep doing the water changes but is there anything else anyone can think of that might've caused this to happen, or that I should be doing?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i agree with you it would be surprising if the three little platys have made that much of a difference to it.

however what i'd say is remember how long it takes for the NBacs to grow while cycling? while your tank has gone through the regular cycle, it's certainly not yet mature, the bacteria colony is still weak and takes a while to recover for any little blips.

 

[waterdrop]

And just to review... you're nowhere near full stocking levels, right?

And we decided long ago that your main filter was an ok type and has enough capacity, right?

And remind us, you decided to leave the extra sponge filter in (or not?)

At this point I'm tending to remember that your N-Bacs have always seemed to be extremely slow to develop (just like mine) and so it might still be that...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LionessN3cubs]

And just to review... you're nowhere near full stocking levels, right?

And we decided long ago that your main filter was an ok type and has enough capacity, right?

And remind us, you decided to leave the extra sponge filter in (or not?)

At this point I'm tending to remember that your N-Bacs have always seemed to be extremely slow to develop (just like mine) and so it might still be that...

~~waterdrop~~

Nah Im fully stocked...and then some really. MW said Im not ridiculously stocked..but enough that I probably shouldnt add anything else. 10 gallon, 2 mollies, 3 platys, an apple snail..and now 3 fry. Altogether about eh 12 inches of fish (including babies, excluding any tails) and the apple snail whatever that adds.

I definately have enough filtration with a HOB filter going (not clogged) and the spongefilter.

I DID just see that back a bit MW said something about maybe some gunk got stirred up or something and hubby reminded me that I keep picking things up in there looking for the babies ::shamed look its the mother in me I guess:::: plus I took out the BIG decoration that dominated the tank and had alot of surface area for bacteria to grow...so there is probably the answer all in all

 

[OldMan47]

Lioness, if you only saved 3 platy fry what happened to the rest? My guess is that not all of the misssing ones were eaten and now you are getting ammonia being produced by decaying organic matter. If you can manage, over the course of a few water changes, to vac all of your gravel, this source should be removed and the tank water should stabilize. If my guess is wrong, a clean tank won't hurt a thing and you may remove whatever else is causing the problem.

 

[waterdrop]

I think its a reasonable guess that the answer might indeed be right there in the last two posts, yours and oldman47's: You are fully stocked and then you've potentially had extra decaying material added in and you've stirred things up.

I noticed during my last stretch of fishless, prior to fish, that a big water change and gravel clean and moving things around can definately stir up ammonia and nitrite, making it show up in trace levels for a while -- I could easily see this being prolonged in your situation and oldman47 is dead on correct I think that the best course of action is to get in some good gravel cleans. Things might stay stirred up for a while but eventually this path will win out and you will be back to pure zeros assuming your biofilter capacity is enough for your stocking load.

~~waterdrop~~