Please Help Settle This Argument...

[amyw2008]

I have high levels of nitrite in my tank so have been doing large water changes to make the levels come down, however my partner has been talking to his dad and they are both saying that the nitrite will stay in the tank no matter how much water I change & I'm just wasting time!
Can someone please explain how changing large amounts of water (then adding seachem prime to get rid of the crap) will bring nitrite levels down?

 

[lljdma06]

I have high levels of nitrite in my tank so have been doing large water changes to make the levels come down, however my partner has been talking to his dad and they are both saying that the nitrite will stay in the tank no matter how much water I change & I'm just wasting time!
Can someone please explain how changing large amounts of water (then adding seachem prime to get rid of the crap) will bring nitrite levels down?

Are you talking about nitrIte or nitrAte. Two different things. Sounds like your partner's dad is talking about NitrAte.

 

[Wills]

Do you mean Nitrate or Nitrite?

If you mean Nitrite water changes will help as your tap water will have 0 Nitrite in and so will dilute the Nitrate in your tank and your filter will be building up bacteria to deal with the nitrate left over the next few weeks.

If it is Nitrate very few areas have 0 Nitrate in the tap water so odds are you will always have some Nitrate present in the tank on top of the Nitrate created by the nitrogen cycle in your tank.

When you say high how high is high?

Wills

 

[coldcazzie]

You could test the tap water to see what the levels are. If there is any ammonia/nitrite/nitrate in your tank and none in your tap water, then any water you change will remove some from your tank.

 

[amyw2008]

Nitrite....
Don't test for nitrate that often as it's always had a bit in there

 

[johnboy!]

Nitrite will be "converted" to nitrate during the nitrogen cycle, do you have live plants in your tank? live plants will lower nitrate levels. you can remove Nitrite,Ammonia,Nitrate via waterchanged with HMA or RO filtered water, tap water usually has nitrites,nitrates,ammonia in the water so won't really help

 

[davec1960]

Nitrite will be "converted" to nitrate during the nitrogen cycle, do you have live plants in your tank? live plants will lower nitrate levels. you can remove Nitrite,Ammonia,Nitrate via waterchanged with HMA or RO filtered water, tap water usually has nitrites,nitrates,ammonia in the water so won't really help

Water changes with tap water will help, most people on this forum will be using tap water not RO.
Using RO brings its own problems as essential minerals have been removed and need to be replaced.
Test your tap water, I would be surprised if it has a measurable level of nitrite.
A 50% change will halve your nitrite level.

 

[twodoctors]

Both right.

Ammonia from fish is converted to nitrite and then nitrate, as everyone knows. So in theory there will always be nitrite in the water. However with one have adequate colony of bacteria in the tank the conversion is so efficient that the level is not detectable with our hobby test kit. And because your nitrite level is detectable it is high enough to do something about it. ie change water.

My 2p.

Adrian