Nitrite Levels Uncontrollable

[seachubbs]

For the last 4-5 weeks i have been battling high Nitrite levels to no avail. My LFS are at a loss and all 4 of their staff keep their own tanks so i respect their opinions. My data and info are as follows:

Tank started 1 September this yr, fishless for 2 weeks then 2 fish - all water tests clear for first 6 weeks - all LFS staff agree my tank was cycled fine and stable. I did tonnes of research before starting my tank, read this website extensivly, read 2 books, and other websites, so there aren't many things i haven't read about even if i haven't experienced them!

History: Tank doing fine up till end of Oct. On 18 Oct I noticed a couple of fish losing bits of their tail, watched fora few days and seemed to lose more. LFS said i could try Myxazin - used Myxazin for 5 days as prescribed, did a 20% water change as LFS advised and tested water (1Nov) - ammonia zero, nitrite off the scale, nitrate 110. changed 40% water and added Nutrafin cycle. Over next 2 days 4 fish died, changed another 20% water, nitrite still 3.3. On 5Nov LFS advised stop feeding, change 1/3 water every day for 3 days and add Nutrafin cycle then leave to settle. By 10Nov Nitrite down to 0.6 but by 17Nov back up to 3. Since then i have been doing 1/3 water change once a week which puts nitrites down from 3 to 1 but they come back up to 3 within 5-7 days. All the surviving fish have been fine since the 4 died - very good colour, fighting over food, very active - you wouldn't know the water was so bad.

Fish: male guppies only - started 2 -> 4 -> 8 ->12 ->15. 1 Nov 4 died in 48hrs (presumably due to high Nitrite)
Tank size: 60l Jewel - simple single Jewel (blue) sponge filter, gravel, 2 stones, 2 plastic plants
pH: 7 (tap water is 5.5 but i add a pH regulator to bring it up to 7 before clean water goes in the tank)
ammonia: zero (always been zero)
nitrite: zero until 1 Nov - since 1 Nov been 1 to 3 --> 3 before water change, 1 after 33% water change which then steadily creeps up to 3 in 5 days.
nitrate: zero till 1 Nov - since 1 Nov 30-70.
kH: ?
gH:?
tank temp: 23c
Tap water: ph5.5, ammonia/nitrite zero
Food: feed 2 tiny granules per fish once a day of Tetra Prima (same as LFS where I bought them). All LFS staff agreed i am not overfeeding.

Tank is in the kitchen, under a wall cupboard, no direct sunlight, tank light on 8 hrs a day. Slight brown algae on tips of plant leaves or slight patch on glass but hardly noticeable.

Each water change is done with a gravel hoover and all gravel is moved around the tank to nothing lurking under the gravel, filter sponge is rinsed in old tank water every other water change, still springy and water passing through it fine.

This weekend (3Dec) the LFS staff have no more ideas, one said if it was him he would empty the tank and start again! His last suggestion was using Seachem Prime to reduce the Nitrite level and use in place of my normal tapwater dechlorinator. Prime was added (correct dose for whole 60l tank) on sat 3Dec and made no difference to Nitrite level. Last water change was today (4Dec) changed 1/3 and used Prime as my dechlorinator (0.5ml for 20l new water) - Nitrite before water change 3 --> after water change 1.
Throughout this whole disaster ph has remained 7 and ammonia zero.

I think i've noted all my details, but if anything is missing please ask.

I hope someone can help with some ideas we haven't thought of yet please.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Someone will surely come in behind me and smack me on the back of the head, but I can be certain your tank isn't cycled yet, hence the nitrite readings being so high. You should be doing a 50% water change daily until everything levels out, and use the Seachem Prime with EVERY water change, even long after these problems abate.

It sounds like you're doing everything else fine, except listening to the LFS folks. Keep in mind their main objective is to make money.

You should never have been advised to medicate without knowing what you're trying to treat! Was it fin rot? A bacterial infection? A fungus?

So for now, just keep doing big water changes every day.

 

[seachubbs]

Thanks - i guessed that was going to be the common reply and since i can't think of anything else, the obvious issue is my nitrite fixing bacteria not doing much of a job. It just didn't follow the pattern of most issues i'd read about, with fine readings for 6 weeks and with fish added over that time and no issues, and then after the crisis with 3-4 wks of getting nitrite readings down to 1 and the bacteria not waking up and keeping it down, even with some Seachem Stabiliser (bacteria booster) added at regular intervals to give the tank bacteria a nudge.
I'll keep plodding on - if i change water every day do i need to get the tank to zero nitrite before i stop changing every day - what level is considered "under control" in these circumstances?

 

[This Old Spouse]

0.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Well, let's start at the beginning...

1 Sept tank running two weeks without fish. Fishless doesn't mean "cycling". When the LFS said you tank was "cycled fine and stable" what were the parameters they used to determine this? Were you adding ammonia to the tank? Were you adding fishfood? If the tank was merely running empty for 2 weeks, then of course it would be showing zeros for ammonia and nitrite. There is nothing in the water that would be producing it. That's why you need to add it yourself to encourage the bacteria growth that you need for your filter.


Oct. 18 - approximately 4 weeks after adding fish, ammonia levels are rising and causing the fish stress. The fish lost their tails primarily as a result of a secondary infection. Fish who are stressed (in this case, a combination of ammonia and nitrite poisoning) are more susceptible to disease.

Nov. 1 - tested and found zero ammonia and nitrite off the chart - This is about 6 weeks into the process, and that illustrates that the tank is/was NOT cycled. This would be the standard portion of the cycling process referred to as the "nitrite spike".



The nitrite spike portion of the cycling process is generally LONGER than the rest of the process. No where in your initial post did you mention daily testing, nor daily water changes as would be necessary for a properly done FISH IN cycle. I hate to tell you this, and you probably won't like hearing this, but your "friends" at the LFS haven't really been helping you very much. If they didn't suggest that you be testing your water YOURSELF daily and completing sufficiently large enough water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite at zero, then you haven't been taking proper care of your fish. These chemicals in your tank will poison your fish.



Next, your math makes no sense. If you have 3 ppm nitrite, doing a 33% water change would lower it to only 2ppm, not 1ppm. Secondly, why would you be doing such a small water change considering the amount of nitrite that you have in your tank? A 3ppm nitrite reading is like your CO detector going off in your house and you decide rather than leaving the building and seeking medical attention to just open a window a little! In both cases, there is a lack of oxygen and poisoning is slowly taking place. If your nitrite is at 3ppm, you need to do a 90% water change... .wait a few hours and then do another 90% water change. While you need to keep your nitrites at zero as best you can, the only way to do that is to do MASSIVE water changes to bring it down. In the case I just outlined, here's how the concentration works... 3ppm then a 90% water change, brings the concentration down to 0.3ppm (which is still too high). Doing a second 90% water change a few hours later will bring that level down to 0.03ppm, and chances are by this point that you would then be able to settle in to a 50% daily water change cycle to keep the nitrites well below 0.25ppm. One of the things that you may or may not have come across in your research is that the bacteria you are trying to cultivate (nitrospira) prefer very low levels of nitrite to multiply at their best, specifically < 0.14ppm. (This information is from Dr. Tim Havonec, who was the first to isolate that the bacteria in our aquariums are not the same used by sewage treatment plants, as was originally thought, and was posted here on the TFF.)



At this point, you need to do DAILY water changes as I've described above. Your goal should be to do as large a water change as necessary to keep the concentration WELL below 0.25ppm according to your test kit. If you don't have a test kit, get one. A liquid test kit, not the strips.



Something else you haven't discussed at all during the whole process is what nitrates reading you have gotten during this whole time. IF nitrite has been processed at all during this time, then you would see nitrates rising. If it is basically holding steady or barely increasing, which I assume you would see, it is another sign that your cycle NEVER actually happened yet. You are HEADING in that direction, but you aren't there yet. Please read the link in my sig for the FISH IN cycle. Keep the levels as LOW as possible by changing LARGE amounts of water daily, not changing a trivial amount every 5 days. I change more than 33% of my water every week and my tank has been running for 8 months.