cloudy, high nitrite!!!

[angel_eyes0857]

i have
new and improved concentrated cycle
waste control - has been helping my brown algae outbreak
aquaplus

thats the only stuff i use. i never went and got nothing for specific nitrite cause i could never find anything. i will keep up with the water changes. im going to go do a 50% one now, or close to it.
thanks for your tips

 

[biggrigg22]

have your nitrate/nitrite levels started to come down yet?

once i finally started doing 30-50% water changes they started shooting down and are still going down. you will probably notice a huge difference in the levels after the 50% exchange.

 

[angel_eyes0857]

i will post my test results tomorrow. i did the big 50% change today. but i had to do it twice. i did it this morning. i noticed taht my betta was getting some sort of fungus, when i came home tonight my parents had put him in my 3 gallon tank cause he was lookin pretty bad. i put melafix, that i had bought on my way to work, in the tank with the betta. and i put a bit in the 10 gallon tank just incase the fungus was going to harm my other fish. it made my 10 gallon water start foaming, and one of my platies automatcially started swimming funny so i wanted to get the med out so i did another 50% change tonight. i will check tomorrow for my nitrite and let u konw
thanks

 

[biggrigg22]

well like i said i know nothing about other chemicals and such...i don't trust them, but thats just my personal opinion. there were days when i have done multiple 50% water changes if the water was really bad or if the first just didn't change the results so don't worry that won't harm the fish. i would, of course, recommend a little time in between the changes so that your fish can regroup. thats how i lost my two bala sharks, too much stress causes fish to have heart attacks and die.

keep up the changes! they are helping i promise!

 

[angel_eyes0857]

yeah my two changes today were... well one was about 2pm and the second was about midnight tonight.. so there was quite sometime...
i'll keep u posted though and let u know my results tomorrow. i havent tested today so iw ill tomorrow

 

[angel_eyes0857]

i did another 25% change today but i couldn't do anymore because i ran out of aquaplus to rid the chlorine. when i open the top of my tank i can still smell the med that i put in last night. my platy is still swimming weird sometimes but i have a feeling he might just be showing off cause he has no signs of stress.
i tested my water about an hour after my change and i have no ammonia and my nitrite has gone down to approx.... well anywhere between 0.3-0.5 It was all the way up to 1.6 so thats a bonus!!! i'll keep up wiht the changes but i can't do anymore today due to no aqua stuff.
good to see the water when i do the tests isn't so pink now..

 

[biggrigg22]

well it's good to hear your nitrite is coming down. thats a huge jump from 1.6!

i'm not even going to try to tell you what your platy is doing because i honestly don't know much about fish disease or behavior. sorry.

pick up some more aquaplus because you will prob need to keep doing changes. good luck

 

[angel_eyes0857]

hi
woke up this morning, couldnt find my sunset platy. he was stuck or dying, not sure which, underneath an ornament i have in my tank. anyway we lifted it up and he came floating out. he wasn't swimming and couldnt get off the rocks. i left and went to buy some aqua plus and cycle.. came home and he was at least swimming around still acting funny. so i did another 50-55% water change and now you would never think that anythiing was wrong with him in the first place. i will be testing my water tonight, all of them, not just the nitrite and ammonia this time. i'll post them up here.!

 

[Hoplesswfish]

Good luck I had this same problem with my tank thats what i got for listening to the guy at petco. Any way is your betta ok what does the fungus look like it my be fin rot? It is comon with bettas when they are stressed and in poor water conditions. If it is fin rot do water changes on his tank every couple days and continue with melafix he should be fine. AS for your tank I don't use chemicals so I have no idea what you are putting in but if you do the water changes like biggrigg said with time it should come down it does take at least a week though. Good Luck and hope to hear your fish are ok. How are the NITATES?

 

[M/ASC]

out of interest are your snails all still alive?

 

[biggrigg22]

i'd have to hear your ammonia readings to be sure but your chemical "cycle..." or whatever its called might causing more damage than good. your tank should be cycling on its own by now and you shouldn't need to keep adding more in. again i'll need to see the readings first but that might be part of the problem.

 

[angel_eyes0857]

alrighty lotsa questions here to answer


hopelesswfish - my betta died. within 48 hours. he had a huge white puffy cloudy fungus take over his body. i couldnt' even look at him. anyway i took his body back to the pet store today and they owe me one. i didnt want one just yet, and they only had two, one was dead already. so i'm holding off. i also took back the melafix cause it made my tank water go really really really bubbly, and since i added the 5 mL my platy hasn't been the same. That's why I have been doing extreme water changes to get rid of that awful chemical. I will get another betta, but not just yet. I gotta get everything else settled first. and I don't know how my NITRATES are... how do i test for those?

m/asc - yup all 6 snails are still alive and chowing down on that brown algae. I barely have any left. I also have been using "waste control" and that rid most of it!! It lookin' good so far. and the snails haven't "multiplied" yet like everyone has said.. *crosses fingers* I'm good with the 6 I have. I like them.

bigrigg22 - the "cycle" that i'm putting in my water isn't really a chemical. Its just a solution. It is very popular here. It reduces fish loss. When you set up your aquarium you should add that stuff. It works really good. Also on the nitrite booklet I have that came with the test, says that if my established tank gets high nitrite, do a 20% water change and add a double dose of cycle. Its good stuff. And I'm not worried about that stuff at all. It is a weekly maintenance. And just 5mL per 10 U.S. gallons. works great.

here are my test results from today:
this afternoon i did a 50-55% water change and tonight, its about 12:30am, I tested everything:

ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0.3/0.4mg/L
kh - 50mg/L
gh - 60 mg/L
ph - 7.6 on my master test kit i have two tests for the pH.. one is a low ph range and one is a high ph range. On the low pH range I could clearly read that my pH was 7.6... on the high pH range it was very hard to see where it was at... anywhere from 7.6-8.0

so theres the results...

my sunset platy is swimming pretty good now. I did the water change today and he seemed to perk right up. I thought he was dead this morning, he couldn't even get off the rocks and when he tried to swim to the top, he only made it half way. I did the water change and he's 99.999% better! I guess I'll see what happens during tonight. It was during last night that he either HID or GOT STUCK in my treasure chest thingy.
hope these results help any info coming my way!

 

[biggrigg22]

well its good to hear that your platty is doing better. i wasn't sure which chemical it was that you were putting in, but i forgot that you were adding the medication, which is why i thought it might be the cycle stuff. when fish start behaving weird its usually because of poor water quality or something else that has been added (ie. the medication).

your test results look good. the 0 ammonia means that your tank is cycled which is always good to know. the nitrites aren't too bad because unless you have live plants, which use the nitrites to grow, then there will always be some in the water. they can still come down a little though so i wouldn't stop the water changes yet. my nitrites are down to about .2 so i've started doing changes about once every other day now and everything seems fine. my fish have become amazingly more active than they were a week ago.

your testing kit i'm assuming doesn't test for nitrAtes since you didn't have those listed, as mine didn't test for ammonia so i had to buy another kit for ammonia. briefly this is what nitrates are:

ammonia breaks down to nitrates(less dangerous), nitrates are then broken down into nitrites(more dangerous) so that plants can use them, so if you don't have plants then thats where the high nitrite problems come from.

keep up the good work!

 

[tstenback]

Nitrites should come down to zero with or without plants unless there are some in the water source. Your cycle is still ongoing until both the ammonia and nitrites are zero and you have a positive nitrate reading. There is another test kit for nitrates that does not come in some of the master kits so in order to test you will need to purchase one.
Right now it looks like you have gone through your ammonia spike and are somewhere in your nitrite spike. The nitrate level is most likely rising now and your nitrite levels will drop to zero in the next while. when this happens then your tank is cycled if you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and a positive nitrate level. good luck

 

[ajhainey]

I'm battling my nitrite spike with 25litre changes 3 times a day (150 litre in tank - so overall thats a graduated ~40% change per day) and managed to drop it from 3ppm to less than 0.3 over 4 days. Yes it was too high btw, I was away and someone else was looking after the tank, and yes the fish have all survived so far.

If nitrite gets high just keep the changes going, 10-30% a time up to 50% a day overall will do more good than harm...Twice/Thrice a day smaller changes are better than one big change as it gives your heater/fish time to adjust a bit...

Good Luck!

aj xx