Nitrites Deteced, Water Change?

[tameem]

Im still going through a cycle right now. Every day I hvae been getting .50 readings of ammonia. This has not changed and our tap water has about the same level of ammonia. But, for the first time today Im getting nitrites at .25! Im excited because it shows that the cycle is moving a long, but, its the first time im getting this. Should I change some water??

 

[OldMan47]

If you can at least control the nitrites you are ahead of the game so yes change some water. It may also be nearing the end of your 0.5 ppm ammonia because the bacteria may start to help you get it down now.

 

[znk]

No water change. Unless you have fish in there. You have to let the nitrite in the tank so the nitrite eating bacteria can establish it's self and start converting it to nitrate

 

[tameem]

i went ahead and changed 20% of the water, we do hve fish in there right now. I cleaned the gravel quite well with the hose, I hope that didnt kill off alot of the bactera. Ive read you shouldnt clean it too well during this state, but I only did one side. I believe most really live on the filter media.

Anyways, thanks all for your replies!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i went ahead and changed 20% of the water, we do hve fish in there right now. I cleaned the gravel quite well with the hose, I hope that didnt kill off alot of the bactera. Ive read you shouldnt clean it too well during this state, but I only did one side. I believe most really live on the filter media.

Anyways, thanks all for your replies!!

you're correct in that belief, i wouldn't worry about cleaning the gravel too much, just leave the filter alone.

what you should be aiming for is to keep ammonia and nitrite below 0.25, if you can't do that with the ammonia cos of your tap water then there's nothing you can do about that, but doing a water change with tap water which has 0 nitrite in will bring the nitrite down and ammonia will probably stay steady enough.

you'll probably be doing daily change from now on to keep the nitrite down.