dar Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 Hi.... I need advice... ! I've been fighting with balance in my 72 tank.... it's been set up for awhile now but these past 2 days, I've had a spike of Nitrite.... It's a planted tank... I've got 1 pair dwarf gouramis, 3 gouramis (giant I think - they're larger) already lost one.... had 2 parrot - lost one, small to mid size, 5 young australian rainbows, 5 neon rainbows, 1 large clown loach, 1 small clown loach, 3 sword tails,3 other small loaches (stripes / specs), 1 albino algae, 3 other small algae eaters, 10 bottom feeders..... they've all been introduced at different times... but recently the last bunch added was a qty of 8 or so. I've been doing water changes and adding prime and algae reducer.... I'm panicking because it doesn't seem to be helping! How long should I wait before doing more water changes ? Dark Angel tried to help me out but we got confusing results while using 2 different test kits to test the nitrite/amonia/ph.... etc. It was the nitrite that was conflicting. Personally, I use the Hagen test kits... Dark Angel used Hagen as well as another. Does anyone have any further advice?????? Thanks for your response..... Dar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
werner Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 How heavily planted? Did you have lots of algae that is now dying off? Plants should be helping to reduce the ammonia and nitrites, as would lots of algae. However, if you're killing off a large amount of algae that could give you the spike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qattarra Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 Hi Dar . If you are still feeding , stop . Don't add anything to the tank. If it was well established before you should have good bacs in there. Do a good vacuuming in and around the plants trying not to disturb the roots . Look for a corpse amongst the jungle. Check to ensure your filter/s are running. Do they smell sweet? (like a lake in a rainstorm sweet). If they smell like rotten eggs you'll need to clean it otherwise leave it alone. You may need to hang some good mucky filter material from another tank . I like using a nylon stocking . Hang it so the water return rushed past/through it .It'll take a couple days for the good bacs to get back on top of the issues but it'll happen. Again , don't add food or plant ferts. Just keep filter/heater/air bubbler if you have it going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Master of Puppets Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 You also have quite a large amount of fish for the size of tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkangel Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 You also have quite a large amount of fish for the size of tank. When you brought the sample of water to my house last night, you forgot to give me one small piece of vital info (that you were adding algae reducer). The tests that were done using a hagen test kit were amonia 2.4, nitrite 0.3-0.8 on the charts. The tests done using an API test kit were amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5ppm, ph 6.4. I also did tests on my tanks with both test kits (kind of like a second opinion) and aside from my nitrates at 5ppm on all tanks except the south american tank at 20-30ppm all tests came up clear. I will be cleaning one canister from 3 tanks tomorrow, If you want I can save you the swamp water from them. CAUTION It will be thick, 4 months of crap in them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baos Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 nitrite's toxicity declines sharply with increasing salt (NaCl) page 22 Ecology of the planted aquarium Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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