Nitrites are up....need some advice please

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Your Nitrites are WHAT!?!?!? 20ppm?! Daily WC's for the next 2 weeks AT LEAST. You have enough bad water in there to cycle 20 tanks! Your fish wont last long at those concentrations... 5ppm is serious danger zone

EDIT: Sorry, I read that wrong... You're not too far out of whack. Just do a 25% wc every 3 or 4 days until all the nitrite is gone. Prime will help.
 
Anytime you have measurable ammonia or nitrite with fish you should do a water change. Like it has been stated before, it will slow down the cycle, but not restart it. Fish constantly give off ammonia through their gills and elimination, but measurable amounts of ammonia or nitrite are harmful to fish. The reason fishless cycling is faster is because you can allow levels that would be insane if you had living fish in the tank.
 
Well, I'm now having to do 30% water changes twice daily to keep my nitrites down....I really learned my lesson the hard way on this one. At least my fish aren't showing any signs of stress. I'm really concerned that doing these constant water changes is going to dramatically increase the time my tank is going to take to cycle...and I'm going through prime like crazy!
 
I was in the same boat you are in waiting for the trites to go down:popcorn:.
With such a long period of high trites and doing 2-50% WC everyday, I ended up using Tetras Safe Start. My tank was completely cycled in 4 days.
 
JohnM;3192992; said:
I was in the same boat you are in waiting for the trites to go down:popcorn:.
With such a long period of high trites and doing 2-50% WC everyday, I ended up using Tetras Safe Start. My tank was completely cycled in 4 days.
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Really? How long did you do water changes until you finally decided to just get the Safe Start??
 
This is completely normal in a cycling tank. Ammonia will sky high, then drop. Nitrites will sky high, then zero out. Then nitrates will rise while both ammonia and nitrite zero out. Although its a high reading of nitrite you got there, your nitrite will instantly zero out rather than a gradual progress. Whats your readings of nitrite after you do the water changes?

If you have a source to a cycled tank, I would toss the fishes there temporarily, whether it be a friend's matured tank or a spare cycled tank you got. Once you have finished cycling the tank with some source of ammonia, you can toss the fishes back in there. Nitrites will take some days to finally zero out, so I'm not sure if your fishes will thrive through this stage....
 
Ali1;3193881; said:
This is completely normal in a cycling tank. Ammonia will sky high, then drop. Nitrites will sky high, then zero out. Then nitrates will rise while both ammonia and nitrite zero out. Although its a high reading of nitrite you got there, your nitrite will instantly zero out rather than a gradual progress. Whats your readings of nitrite after you do the water changes?

If you have a source to a cycled tank, I would toss the fishes there temporarily, whether it be a friend's matured tank or a spare cycled tank you got. Once you have finished cycling the tank with some source of ammonia, you can toss the fishes back in there. Nitrites will take some days to finally zero out, so I'm not sure if your fishes will thrive through this stage....
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After a 35% water change my nitrites are pretty much back down to 0 ppm. About 12 hours later they are up to 0.25 ppm, so I do another water change so they don't go up any higher. I don't really mind doing the water changes until my tank cycles completely, but I'm concerned that it will take a really long time to cycle this way, if it ever does. Unfortunately I don't access to a fully cycled tank.
 
The conversion of nitrites heavily depends on the amount of nitrifying bacteria you have available in the tank. With this nitrifying bacteria, the conversion from nitrites to nitrates occur, which is what your aiming for. As far as whether you will be able to reach a cycled tank, I would assume eventually you would because nitrites are present but in little amounts(due to keeping your fish alive), hence why the procedure would take much longer. Don't take my word on it, and hopefully someone else will come through with far more knowledge on whether you will reach the cycled tank.
 
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