Nitrite Headache!

[Miss Wiggle]

yes that's quite right, take a bit of the filter sponge or whatever else he has in there and put it into your filter. it must be kept wet in tank water during transfer over and you must get it into your filter within 12 hours.

 

[rdd1952]

Kenya, just a little FYI. Your group is still showing "Validating". You will need to find the email sent out to you when you registered and click the link in it to validate your account. Otherwise, you will only be able to post in a couple sections. If you haven't seen it, check your junk mail folder as they sometimes end up there.

 

[GoldLenny]

Also add a pinch of salt per 10G of water to reduce the effects of nitrite poisoning in the fish. It's best to get the nitrites down below 0.5ppm using multiple 25% PWC's, done every two hours, and then dose with the pinch of salt per 10G of water.

 

[KENYA]

Kenya, just a little FYI. Your group is still showing "Validating". You will need to find the email sent out to you when you registered and click the link in it to validate your account. Otherwise, you will only be able to post in a couple sections. If you haven't seen it, check your junk mail folder as they sometimes end up there.

thanks i have done that.xx

 

[KENYA]

yes that's quite right, take a bit of the filter sponge or whatever else he has in there and put it into your filter. it must be kept wet in tank water during transfer over and you must get it into your filter within 12 hours.

UPDATE:my nitrite levels are now reading 0.25 so the water changes are working.once the nitrite is reading 0 does that mean that my tank has finished cycling or are the levels likely to shoot up again?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

when ammonia and nitrite both reach 0 and are consistently at 0 for a few days then it has fnished cycling, to an extent at least.

the levels reaching 0 mean that you have enough nitrifying bacteria to support the current bio load, if you add more fish the bacteria will have to multiply to catch up, if you add a few fish at a time and leave a week or so between new additions it should be fine, however if you add too many fish you may have to go through this all over again.

likewise if you clean the filter too thoroughly you can kill off some bacteria and it would then have to catch up by cycling again.