Water Muddle I'm In.

[Moquillo]

Can anyone please offer me some advice about water qualities as I think I'm in a real state of confusion. My tank has now been running for over 2 months. Everything seemed to be going fine (apart from a few snails) and now I'm not sure what's going on.
I check the water readings every monday and do water change using a gravel cleaner.
On 24th Nov I noticed ammonia was reading 0.6, nitrate 0, nitrite 0, as usual I changed 30 ltrs of water (my tank holds 125ltrs) and double dose of nutrafin CYCLE
On 1st Dec the results were the same and did the same procedure.
On 8th Dec ammonia had risen to 1.2 and nitrate was up <5, nitrate 0. The people in the aquarium shop asked if fish were ok. I didn't think I was over feeding and they seemed to be fine. . They told me to carry on but I did change 40 ltrs of water that day.
Today I had the shock of my life. I'd checked the ammonia twice in the week and it was falling. Today it's reading just over 0. But now the readings for nitrate and nitrite have gone through the roof. I've just changed 30 ltrs of water but I'm so confused. Chemistry was never my strong suit. The more I read about this the more confused I'm becoming.
I haven't cleaned the external filter media yet as I was told the beneficial bacteria colony is still growing.
The fish seem totally fine. I don't wish to think that my actions are slowly killing them though.

I'm sorry to be long winded but I thought past readings may shed some light on what's going on.

Thanks

 

[petertr]

What exactly are the Nitrite and Nitrate readings?

Remember, Nitrite = Bad, Nitrate = ok as long as you keep up regular water changes.

 

[drobbyb]

From the sound of it, you are in the middle of a fish in cycle. You were right doing the waterchanges, and should continue them until the nitrIte reading is also zero. Once the nitrIte levels fall to 0, your tank has completed it's cycle.

For a more detailed description please see Miss Wiggle's guide found here: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=175355

 

[Moquillo]

Hi.

Thanks for replying. The readings were nitrite between 0.8 and 1.6 and nitrate 50 ish.

I changed 25% of the water 3 hours ago. I'm just going to test for both again and I'll post the results.

Am I right to be leaving the filter so long without cleaning the media etc? I know I have to clean the parts in tank water but it's not too clear when I should do it. The outlet pipe is slightly brown now but the water jets are still going strong.

Sorry if these are stupid questions!!

 

[Ren&Stumpy]

Hi.

Thanks for replying. The readings were nitrite between 0.8 and 1.6 and nitrate 50 ish.

I changed 25% of the water 3 hours ago. I'm just going to test for both again and I'll post the results.

Am I right to be leaving the filter so long without cleaning the media etc? I know I have to clean the parts in tank water but it's not too clear when I should do it. The outlet pipe is slightly brown now but the water jets are still going strong.

Sorry if these are stupid questions!!

only rinse your filter media when the filter performance begins to suffer ie flow rrate becomes slower

 

[Moquillo]

Well I just tested the water again and these are the readings.

ammonia 0
nitrate >50
nitrite 1.6
p.h. 8

Are my fish ok? They look fine, infact the platies are single handedly eating as many plants as they can as well as eating some babies that we didn't know one of them was going to have.

Ta

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Moquillo

There are no stupid questions here. Cycling a tank to start a colony of beneficial bacteria is the hardest single thing you will ever have to do with this hobby. We've all worried our way through it too.

Frequent water changes will slow the process, but will protect your fish. Have confidence that in good time you will complete the cycling and all will be well.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Moquillo. With a nitrite reading of 1.6 you need to do at least a 50% water change as soon as you can. You are trying to get nitrite to less than 0.25 ppm and keep it there so if above 0.5, do a 50% water change. If you have the time, you could actually use 2 or 3 in a row to get the concentration down but 50% every day until it gets down may be all there is time to do. Right now 2 changes an hour apart would be best. The stage of the cycle that you are going through looks like the nitrite spike and can be very hard to stay on top of but you need to try.

 

[Moquillo]

Thanks OldMan

I'm at work now reading this but I'll do as you suggest as soon as I get in.
I really appreciate all the help and advice people offer on this forum.

I'll post some water readings and hopefully things will be seen to be improving.

Thanks again

 

[waterdrop]

Completely agree with OM47's advice.

Readings of higher than 0.25ppm of nitrite(NO2) (or ammonia for that matter) constitute an urgent situation and trump any "small-percentage water change" guidelines. Instead, you need the kind of *large* water changes (50% and repeated after an hour) that will get that toxic level down.

Water change percentages below 40% or so are all about the regular maintance of a normally functioning tank that has a fully cycled filter. Tanks that are not yet cycled are definately not a normally functioning tank!

Good luck with your "Fish-In" cycle, they are hard work!

~~waterdrop~~