Nitrite won't drop

[twentyleagues]

hello; Forgive me if this has already been covered. I have been lurking on this thread but may have forgotten some of the information.

One point about bb and substrate. That there is now no substrate does not also mean there are no bb on surfaces of a tank. It is my understanding the bb can and do colonize many surfaces even in bare bottom tanks. Pretty much any surface where there is some flow.

On the nitrite test results. Others have speculated on what conditions might promote zero ammonia and at the same time some level of nitrite. My comments will be about using the test kit. As others have suggested clean the vials and use distilled water.

One other suggestion is to run the tests on some distilled water. The pH should be neutral and all other readings should approach null. Best I can recall this was a method I used back in the 1970's as a "standard" to calibrate water test results.
Some have mentioned RO water and I did use a lab that made their own RO water. Best I can recall the chemist told me it can be used in place of distilled water. Please feel free to correct these assumptions if I have this wrong.

Sounds like you have a good idea on what where and how.
Distilled is "cleaner" than ro, ro still has some impurities depending on the filter system. The closest to pure nothingness is distilled or ro/di.
But that is a great idea to test the test. Not sure either if op has done that. But that sounds like a pretty serious test if it goes down that far.

 

[Rghfor]

Sounds like you have a good idea on what where and how.
Distilled is "cleaner" than ro, ro still has some impurities depending on the filter system. The closest to pure nothingness is distilled or ro/di.
But that is a great idea to test the test. Not sure either if op has done that. But that sounds like a pretty serious test if it goes down that far.

I don't have access currently to ro although distilled water is an option I may try . It's odd as my tap water reads 0 nitrite with the kit so even cleaning with that would surely not effect the reading

 

[skjl47]

I don't have access currently to ro although distilled water is an option I may try . It's odd as my tap water reads 0 nitrite with the kit so even cleaning with that would surely not effect the reading

hello; Distilled water is available by the gallon at stores such as Wal-mart. It may not change the results of the nitrite test for the tank but may give more confidence in those results.

 

[Rghfor]

hello; Distilled water is available by the gallon at stores such as Wal-mart. It may not change the results of the nitrite test for the tank but may give more confidence in those results.

Thanks sadly I'm in the uk but more supermarkets stock it . I'm pretty confident that the readings correct I'm just stumped as to why

 

[duanes]

DI water from a grocery store is fine, and it should read 0. In chemistry it is used as the 0 standard to tell whether you are doing the test accurately, and if your reagents are still good. DI water should read 0, if not reading 0, either your testing technique is bad, your tubes have leeching residual, or the reagents are expired or just plain bad.
Jaws777 is right there is still BB on surfaces of a bare tank, but not the sizable amount needed to run a heavily stocked tank.
If you want to run your tanks on the over crowded side, either substrate, or an excess of bio-media is needed,. In stead of 1 or 2 filtration units, on a bare tank, you need 4 or 5, or for example a giant fluidized. bed chamber.
At our university aquaculture branch in Milwaukee, they ran fluidized bed filters the size of 60 gallon whole house water heaters.
Just to reiterate though, bio-media does "not " remove nitrate, the only way to remove nitrate is water changes, filter cleaning, the use of plants or a separate nitrate reactor unit.

 

[Rghfor]

DI water from a grocery store is fine, and it should read 0. In chemistry it is used as the 0 standard to tell whether you are doing the test accurately, and if your reagents are still good. DI water should read 0, if not reading 0, either your testing technique is bad, your tubes have leeching residual, or the reagents are expired or just plain bad.
Jaws777 is right there is still BB on surfaces of a bare tank, but not the sizable amount needed to run a heavily stocked tank.
If you want to run your tanks on the over crowded side, either substrate, or an excess of bio-media is needed,. In stead of 1 or 2 filtration units, on a bare tank, you need 4 or 5, or for example a giant fluidized. bed chamber.
At our university aquaculture branch in Milwaukee, they ran fluidized bed filters the size of 60 gallon whole house water heaters.
Just to reiterate though, bio-media does "not " remove nitrate, the only way to remove nitrate is water changes, filter cleaning, the use of plants or a separate nitrate reactor unit.

I'm aware of how nitrogen cycle works including the best way to remove nitrates being large regular water changes . There's roughly after calculating 3 or 4 kilos of bio media in the filter . 1kg of bio home and 2 or 3 kg of alfragrog

 

[Rghfor]

Issue still present however if tested hours after feed levels are minimal . I have also added a 3500lph pond filter onto the tank to assist any bio issues

 

[millerkid519]

Now this question might have been asked but when was the last time you cleaned your bio media?

 

[Rghfor]

3 weeks ago in tank water

 

[tarheel96]

Issue still present however if tested hours after feed levels are minimal . I have also added a 3500lph pond filter onto the tank to assist any bio issues

Nitrite still rises to 0.05 ppm hours after feeding? About how long does it take Nitrite to drop back to 0 ppm?

I'd suspect a lot of people using the API Nitrite test might see similar results if they tested with a more sensitive test like this one. It's 5 times more sensitive on the low range compared to the API Nitrite test.



That said, your turnover rate had been low before. Now, your new 925 GPH pond filter increses that significantly. What media is in it and how long have you had it? I'm wondering how large the bacteria colonies are in it.