ammonia nitrate nitrite

[Sunny.C]

i know ammonia is dangerous, is it nitrate or nitrite that is the next dangerous one??? My ammonia and nitrate is a little high, how do i get it back down??
15% water change??? or just feed them less??? are they the only ways to drop the ammonia and nitrate???

 

[breezer40]

Nitrite..all tanks will have some level of nirates when mature. Is your tank cycling at the moment? If it is then you will continue to get high readings till it has run its course.

 

[Dubby]

SunnyC:

The cycle is Ammonia ---> Nitrite ---> Nitrates so I would be surprised to see Ammonia & no Nitrite. Can you double check?

 

[Sunny.C]

my tank is still cycling at the moment, so does this mean i shouldn't do a water change? JUst let it catch up and maybe feed a little less?
My mistake i have a little nitrite, so it's nitrate which is the safe one?

 

[TESS]

Yes nitrate is the safe one but should not be above 40 (max).
If you are doing a cycle with fish you will still need to do water changes,i did them every day even 2 times a day to help my fish out. The fish should come before cycling,it may take upto a week longer to cycle the tank but keeping the ammonia and nirite at low levels will help prevent damage to the fish mainly oxygen supply and gill damage.
If you are doing a FISHLESS cycle then you will not need to do any water changes untill the tank has cycled.

 

[Sunny.C]

ok i got that part. Now how is bacteria made??? i know ammonia gets break down by bacteria and then turns in to nitrite. What get rid of the nitrite???

 

[Dubby]

The bacteria are already present in water. The ammonia, nitrites just feeds them and causes them to grow in numbers. there are different bacteria which convert nitrites to nitrates.

 

[Salt Freak]

The nitrifying bacteria in a tank is Nitrosomonas, Nitrosospira and Nitrospira. The second most dangerous is nitrIte. nitrAte is only dangerous in high quanities. above 40-60 ppm all my tanks read less than 1ppm.

 

[happyadd]

Sunny C, you seem to be exactly like me at the moment! I have started a fish tank up and have been really confused by nitrites and nitrates etc. Have a snoop around this awesome website, It has great articles of the NITROGEN Cycle which basically explains it all for you. I have started my tank with a fishless cycle using the guidlines off this site....and so far so good!

I would also say for you to pick up a test kit...mine cost £25.00 which was kinda expensive but it testes ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and Ph, this way you can monitor your tank from day to day. This way you can pin point excatly where things have gone wrong.

I hope things sort themselves out anyway!

 

[TESS]

If you go to petsmart the test kit is only £16.99. Most fish shops rip you off when buying the test kits, i saw one for £31.00!