Please Help-slight Peak In Nitrite

[Cris_L]

Since moving my fish into a (fully cycled) larger tank and adding a few others I've been struggling feeding the right amount. I've also been adding more blodworm etc in hope it'l encourage my my new gold nugget to feed. I may be guilty of over feeding.

I did a test today (after feeding) and found 0.1 nitrite. perviously there was 0 nitrite reading.

I can't do an urgent water change as I use RO water and cant get any until wednesday. as the nitrite is fairly low will I be ok to just miss a few days feeding?

would anyone recommend cleaning the (external) filter although surely this risks killing bacteria?

for information the stats are as follows:

260l tank, fluval 305 external filter

2 angels, 4 ghost cats, 1 small BGK, 9 young rainbows, 1 gold nugget plec, 1 small peacock eel, 1 tiny albino bristlenose, 1 ram.

any suggestions on feeding, quantities etc?

 

[Cris_L]

Bump...I really do need some advice on this as I've not seen nitrite for some years now and its a bit scary!

 

[backtotropical]

0.1 nitrite isn't a huge problem, but it's still not a good sign.

From what you say, it sounds like overfeeding is the problem. Try to feed only once per day, and only as much as your fish can consume in around 2 minutes. If any food is left after this time, you are feeding too much.

Theres no hard and fast rules for feeding, but that should get you on the right track.

Also, you should be trying to do 50% water changes daily until the filter catches up.

That leads me on to another point. May I ask why you use RO water? Do you mix it with anything or is it pure RO water in your tank?

Cheers

BTT

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

do you have dechlorinator? if you do, do a water change. although this may raise your pH (or whatever reason you're using RO water for), i think you'd rather do that than kill your fish.

check the tank, there may be a build up of waste somewhere.
are there any fish missing? one may be dead somewhere and decomposing.

0.1mg/l isn't as bad as it seems, its easy to put right.

i will also suggest getting a bucket of tank water and cleaning your filter(s).

did you add all the fish at the same time? because that can cause a nitrite spike due to not being able to cope with the sudden high demand of processing and growing the bacteria has to do. keep checking it every hour or so to see it if it goes any higher.
i can imagine that the fish at risk here are the BGK, ram and the tiny BN. So, if its possible, try and move these fish back. its upto you whether you remove all the fish back and then add them again but slowly.

pink.

 

[Cris_L]

The tank has been set up for a couple of years and was home to 5 red belly piranah. as they prefer soft water and I live in a hard water area I had been using RO with whatever powder the lfs put in for me. after I deceded to move on from piranah I put the community fish into he big tank. i must admit i thought the filter would be able to take the community as they dont eat anywhere near as much meaty food as the piranah.

the old tank has been empty for a while so the bacteria in the filter will be gone so moving then back isnt an option.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have the incredibly high filter flows in terms of turnover rates that some people advocate, any excess food will end up in the filter. The only way I can see to get rid of that would be a filter cleaning. If you have relatively low flows, like 3 or 4 times per hour, the excess food can be removed with a good gravel vacuuming. Either way, it is time to start weaning the community off of the RO water. You can see that it has left you in an untenable position of not being able to do a water change when that is what is called for. Do you know what your tap water and tank water parameters are? If they are not too far apart in pH and hardness, your fish would benefit from the water change right away. If they are far apart, you really can't afford to shock the fish with a big change but a small one might help a little.

 

[Cris_L]

thanks everyone for the replies. the water tonight is showing 0 nitrite so looks like I was over reacting a bit! it must be due to the over feeding. something i think I'll start another topic about, along with one about RO water to get some sound advice.

cheers again!