NitrIte still too high

[turnip]

I've been trying to get my tank to cycle, I've had it over a month now and was doing fine until I had to medicate for one of my fish, this appeared to mess up my biologial filter and set me back to square one.

I've since been doing 25/50% water changes, adding filter aid etc. I'm still finding my nitrItes are too high. I dont know how to lower it. I'm also not sure about my KH levels, I got a new test kit, its one of those 5 tests in one dip stick things, I think my pH is lower than it once was, probably because the KH level is low too. Is it true that to higher KH and therefore increase the buffering capacity of your water that you can add bicarbonate? And if so how much (we are talking about bicarb white powder soda stuff right?!)

Getting my water to acceptable levels is really frustrating me now, does anyone know of anything else I can do to improve it faster? I'm worried about my fish, Squishy seems off colour again and pudge has started to dart around occasionally, neither of which are good signs and tell me the water quality isn't good enough.

Help!!

 

[ryan]

It sounds as like the medicine may have killed off some of the filter bacteria raising the nitrite levels. How often do you do these water changes?

 

[turnip]

Once every other day at the moment. I didn't want to do it every day incase I stressed them out too much! I've tested the tap water after I treat it for chlorine and its fine, its when its in the tank that the problem

 

[ryan]

What is the Nitrite reading, how big is the tank? Just the one fish?

 

[turnip]

I've taken pudge out (the other day) and have put him in another tank, so my tank now has just the one fish, it is 24"x12"x12" (12.5 uk gal).

The reading off the stick when comparing it to the colour chart is 5mg/l (the chart goes from 0, 1, 5, 10, 25, 50) the square is light pink after testing.

 

[ryan]

How long have you been doing the water changes? Can you move the other fish?

 

[turnip]

I've been doing the water changes every other day for about a week, maybe little longer. When you say move the fish did you mean so there's none left in the tank? As there's only one in it at the moment, the other has a permenant home in another tank now has he was a bully.

 

[ryan]

Do you have live plants in the tank and how long is it since you medicated? I would think that your tank is having to recylce due to some of the filter bacteria being killed by medication maybe. I would add some plants to help complete the nitrogen cycle, they will also help to remove nitrates which are made when nitrites convert.

Nitrite is taken into the blood stream through the gills and replaces the oxygen in the red blood cells. The problem with something other than zero nitrites is that this leads to a chronic presence of nitrites in the blood and this often leads to anemia and will tend to make the fish more prone to disease.