My Betta simplex arrived today in good condition and I did a drip to acclimate them to the tank I had been cycling. I did a massive water change right before putting them into the tank because I was showing some nitrites in the tank water. Stupidly I did not test the new water before doing the acclimation and adding the fish. When I did test the water, I found .................high nitrites again. It was even higher than before the water change. That got me curious about what was happening, and I have some spare test tubes, so I got a new one out of the box and tried a test on another tank. It showed a nice clear zero. Then I went back with that tube in hand and tested the tank again. Once again I got a high nitrite. Now I was becoming very suspicious because my tests have been showing no ammonia since I set the tank up with its cloned filter. I tried something I have never done before and tested my tap water for nitrites. Sure enough, I now know where the nitrites are coming from so I had to devise a solution. I have RO but it is not appropriate for freshwater fish other than Amazon river type fish, and even those would need some minerals added. My usual mineral source when mixing up some RO is, you guessed it, tap water. That means that straight RO is out and so is my usual low mineral mix. Now it was time to start some intense thought because these guys were never going to be happy in a tank with over 1 ppm of nitrites. It finally dawned on me that I had some very nice high mineral content water that has no nitrites. In fact I have well over 500 gallons of it in 25 different containers. A few of my other tanks have now become water donors. Drain 5 gallons from a 29 and use it for the betta tank, then replace it with tap water. The replacement is only about 15% of the total so it is low enough to be harmless to the fish in the tank and the mature filter moves the rest of the nitrite in only a few hours. Repeat for a total of 3 tanks, the 55 and the 40 long, and the betta tank is 3/4 full of decent low nitrite water. Add in a 5 gallon bucket of nitrite and mineral free RO water and the bettas have a nice low nitrite tank to live in. The only real stress involved for anyone in all this is mine. It took me a while to solve this puzzle but maybe, if you are ever faced with something similar, you will remember there really is a solution.
The betta tank is only about half full while I am writing this but the new B simplex already look better than they did with the high nitrites. They almost seem stimulated to try breeding by the water quality change.
The betta tank is only about half full while I am writing this but the new B simplex already look better than they did with the high nitrites. They almost seem stimulated to try breeding by the water quality change.
