Nitrite And Nitrate Increasing After Treating Tank

[sirichmond]

Hello all,

After one of our Platys had a little bit of skin/fungal damage on its mouth we started treating the tank with Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Melafix that we purchased from our LFS its a Antibacterial Fish Remedy for many ailments. its an all Natural product and contains tea tree and Melaleuca 1.0%, does'nt say what else it contains but the tank smells of albas oil now. We stated treating 3 days ago 5 tea spoons as it says 1 tea spoon per 38L as we have a 200litre tank thats enough for 190L. The Platy is getting much better the skin/fungal damage is going.

We took the carbon out of the filter as have read that removes medicine and been treating tank daily as its says on Medicine. Tonight we did out daily ammonia test and got 0 as usual and also Nitrirte and Nitrate which we do every 3 days. The Nitrite has increased from 0.1mg/l to 0.3mg/l which is just on the threshold before needing to do a water change according to our Nutrfin book that came with test. Nitrate has risen from 5mg/g to somewhere between 10 and 20mg/l again closing in on the threshold which is 50mg/l.

Does anyone know why these two are incresing? Is it natural or could the medicine or the fact that the carbon has been removed have anything to do with it.

Hope the post is not oo long winded.

Cheers
Simon

 

[rabbut]

Is this the liquid drop test, or the dip strip test version?

The medication is antibacterial, so is a risk to the filter. This risk is minimal to a mature tank, but a tank under 6 months old may well go into decline if the medication is used. How long has the tank been running?

Have you got a caurse for the finrot yet? This infection is almost always secondary, following other infections, stress or poor maintanance. To cure you medicate to eradicate you need to find and eliminate the caurse

All the best
Rabbut

 

[waterdrop]

I do not know if that particular med will have and effect on your bacteria.
(rabbut might be posting, maybe he knows..)

Once you feel the med has done its job, then its time to load part of your filter with fresh carbon to remove the med.

Its perfectly normal for nitrate to build up, normally that gets lessened each week by your water change.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[sirichmond]

The LFS seem to think it was stress from transportation of the Platy home, she is looking much better nearly all the fugus/flaky skin has gone. Tank has only been running for about a month and a half, fish have been in 3 weeks and nirtrite and nitrate have held steady at 0.1(nitrite) and 5 (nitrate), Ammonia always 0. Test kit we use is the test tube with water dropper and liquid to put in. Last water change was on Sunday. We have kept the carbon in water do you suggest binning it and getting new to put back in?

 

[waterdrop]

Oh good, you are using good tests and sounds like good maintenance...

Maybe one of the other members can comment on whether this particular med gets adsorbed by carbon.

Without knowing specifically, I can only say that yes, the normal procedure would be (assuming some other part of your filter holds the bacteria (we had one guy who had an entire filter of carbon and it had cycled and was the keeper of the bacteria!)) to replace the current carbon with fresh carbon (usually sold in medium-big paper-milk-like containers) so that you will know the meds are being removed from your water now that they are finished with their job.

OK, wait, on re-reading your posts, I think maybe what you mean is that the carbon was new and you took it out for the med period but kept it in water. If that is the case then it should still be fine to use as the med remover.

~~waterdrop~~ (stream of conciousness typer here... )

 

[sirichmond]

Ok, thanks for that, so the increase in levels could be meds or it just could be natural?

 

[waterdrop]

Its probably the meds. Would be nice if someone who's had this could tell us how thorough the bacterial kill-off usually is for melafix. Anybody?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[sirichmond]

Hi again just checked the water readings and they are as follows NITRATE 10 NITRATE 0.3 AMMONIA 0.6

Should we also do say a 20% water change aswell as putting carbon back in/

Thanks again

 

[Corleone]

I used melafix about two months ago, and had something like this happen. I actually got higher readings than you are starting after about two days of treatment. The tank took about a week to mini-cycle, and no permanant harm was done to the biofilter, and I only lost one fish (the worst effected by the infection). Just keep up whatever water changes you need to keep everything below .25 (I did 20% twice a day, but was off work at the time and could do the extra work easily), and put in new carbon halfway through to make sure I got all the medicine out.

I was assured at the LFS that melafix is safe for the biofilter, but my tank was also fairly young, about three months old.