Nitrite spike

[Pellington]

Hi all,

My 300L tank has been setup for a circa 3 months and has been running smoothly. I initially did a silent cycle with fast growing plants and then gradually stocked from there. Last night I decided to remove a few plants (probably around 15-20% of the total plant life) during my weekly water change, as I didn't like the look of them in the scape. I pulled them up slowly and was amazed at the network of roots they'd already built up in the substrate. In some places the roots had intertwined with other plants which i wanted to keep, so i cut the roots in order to remove without disrupting the other plants. I then siphoned the sand to remove some of the soil which had been pulled up from under the sand, and then topped off with a few cups of fresh sand.

This morning i noticed the fish were breathing quite rapidly, so i tested the water and got a nitrite reading of around 0.25ppm. I immediately did a 50% water change and added a dose of bacteria (Microbe-lift special blend). There was a fairly quick improvement in the fishes breathing which was positive, but I've tested nitrite again and still getting a reading. It's difficult to say exactly how much as the colour is somewhere in between 0 and 0.25 ppm, but definitely still not zero! I guess it must have gone down though, after such a big water change.

Currently the fish are hiding and looking shocked, albeit breathing is normal.

I am assuming that in pulling up the plants i have released pockets of gas from the substrate which have created this spike, is this an accurate conclusion? Ammonia is testing 0 though, so I am surprised not to have got an ammonia spike first, prior to seeing nitrite..

Main questions are,

What do i do next?
Should I change more water today, or wait until tomorrow?
Should i try to feed the fish, to see if that improves their mood?
Should i add more bacteria? I only added a dose of 20ml which according to the instructions is the amount required for a bi-weekly "maintenance dose". For comparison purposes, the packet advises 75ml on day 1 for a newly setup tank, and then a weekly dose of 45ml for 4 weeks. Then bi-weekly maintenance doses thereafter of 20ml.

Cheers

 

[Colin_T]

if you have an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the levels are 0ppm.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine chloramine before it's added to the tank.

 

[Slaphppy7]

What water conditioner do you use? What kind of test kit?

Bacterial "supplements" do nothing to reduce nitrItes

 

[Pellington]

and gravel clean the substrate every day

Hi Colin, thanks for your message, can you elaborate on the above a bit please? I have sand rather than gravel but I am reluctant to interfere with it much more as I feel like that's what caused the spike in the first place.. Thanks!

 

[Pellington]

What water conditioner do you use? What kind of test kit?

Bacterial "supplements" do nothing to reduce nitrItes

Hi there, i use the API test kit and have been using the "Microbe-Lift" brand of water conditioner. It's the same brand as the bacteria which I added which was called "Nite-Out" which specifically says it removes nitrite.. Do you think that's a gimmick?

Thankfully I tested the nitrite again this evening and it's back to 0 and fish are all OK. God knows whether the bacteria in the bottle helped or whether the bacteria already present in my tank just took a while to catch-up with the extra nitrite after the spike, but either way hopefully it was a short-lived issue!

Panic over for now but will keep a close eye. Thanks for the responses

 

[Byron]

I would suggest that the soil is the issue behind the nitrite. I do not use soil substrates, but from my research I believe this has been mentioned as one reason to never disturb the soil layer.

Anaerobic issues like toxic gas would not normally be from pulling up plant roots as the plants release oxygen (the by-product of photosynthesis) through their roots and this tends to maintain an aerobic rather than anaerobic state around the roots in sand (or fine gravel).

The bacterial supplement might have help with the nitrite, depending what is in it, or it may not. The nitrifying bacteria in a planted tank are minimal because the plants use most of the ammonia (depending upon the plant species and numbers) and it takes roughly 30 hours for the Nitrospira bacteria (the nitrite oxidizers) to reproduce by binary division.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Hi there, i use the API test kit and have been using the "Microbe-Lift" brand of water conditioner. It's the same brand as the bacteria which I added which was called "Nite-Out" which specifically says it removes nitrite.. Do you think that's a gimmick?

Thankfully I tested the nitrite again this evening and it's back to 0 and fish are all OK. God knows whether the bacteria in the bottle helped or whether the bacteria already present in my tank just took a while to catch-up with the extra nitrite after the spike, but either way hopefully it was a short-lived issue!

Panic over for now but will keep a close eye. Thanks for the responses

Switch your water conditioner to either Seachem Prime or API Tap Water Conditioner....and do a WC, then monitor params...anytime ammonia or nitrIte registers, do another WC....wait 24 hours between WC's and testing

That "bacterial supplement" does indeed sound like a gimmick, trash it....the bacteria we need to cycle and maintain our tanks is in our environment, free of charge

The less "stuff" we add to our tanks, the better

I imagine the rearranging of plants may have caused an issue, but hard to know for sure

 

[Pellington]

Thanks for the responses both!

Byron - I wasn't aware that planted tanks had minimal nitrifying bacteria. Now that you say it it sounds obvious! Very interesting and thanks for teaching me something new!

And slaphppy thank you for the water conditioner recommendations, typically i just bought a fresh bottle of the Microbe-lift version but will definitely transition over to one of the ones you recommend a.s.a.p.

And I will definitely avoid disturbing the soil layer in future!

 

[jayveechun]

Hi. I would suggest adding Seachem Prime to the water as an emergency intervention to bind the nitrite down to a non-toxic form.

A water change can be great but if the original cause of the spike is not addressed, the spike will come back.
And beyond this, we want to grow enough nitrifying bacteria to address the high levels of nitrites so future spikes are avoided.

A water change sort of resets you sometimes. Like you just removed bacteria and the spike itself so if the root cause is not addressed, you'll be back in the same predicament. So identify if there is a single cause that is out of the ordinary and address that. If there is none, then this may not even be a spike but your load of nitrites is sort of in a new "business-as-usual" level that you now need more bacteria to catch-up to flatten it to a 0 and convert it to nitrate.

The beauty of Prime is it detoxifies the nitrite temporarily but is still able to feed bacteria so they can multiple and eventually address the new nitrite load.

My advice is
-Dose prime daily until the nitrites are 0 in a strip
-Add beneficial bacteria daily as well just to get more bacteria to feed off the new nitrites
-Once its at 0, then youre good. it means your bacteria has "caught up" with the new load of nitrites.