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In my 55g malawi tank, my tank decided to... re-cycle itself. I saw my fish acting lethargic (which isn't normal, given they're cichlids), so I tested. Nitrites were up.

I do 40-50% water changes every week, or sometimes I do 20-30% twice a week (depends on how much time I have). I rinse the filter pads in tank water monthly.

No new fish additions. I'm finished stocking my tank, and some may argue it's still over-stocked, even after giving some fish to the LFS. Stocklist is:

1 lombardoi (4 inches)
1 wild electric blue johanni ( 3.5 inches)
1 maylandia zebra (3 inches)
2 yellow labs (3 inches)
1 syndonotis eupterus (5 inches)
1 senegal bichir (7 inches)

It's lightly planted with swords, java ferns and vallisneria. I'm currently doing large water changes (not too large, and I know, balance temperatures), but the nitrites aren't budging much.

So, main questions:
I'm thinking of using weekly maintenance with Cycle, just to make sure this wont happen again. Will it work?
What do you think caused this in the first place?
Does salt really make a noticable difference in nitrites?

Are you doing a gravel vac with all of those water changes? If so maybe you are destroying your bacteria colonies quicker than they can rid your tank of nitites. Try water changes without gravel vacs and do a gravel vac only once a month.


Some people only vac half of their gravel each water changes doing the other half on the next one.

Last edited by FISH MAISTRE at 15-Feb-2005 19:33

SMantzer,

What type of filter(s) do you have? You may need to add another filter to provide the media to sustain the bio-load that you have placed on your tank. As you said, the tank is overstocked although 25 inches of fish for 55 gallons doesn't sound overstocked, each of those fish inches should be tripled or quadrupled! Interesting fish choices, any conflicts?

Last edited by bob wesolowski at 15-Feb-2005 19:39

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

a gravel vac will kill only a SMALL TINY part of the bacteria

Daka<<<<

Your right, normally a gravel vac would not hurt your colony at all esp. if you have a bio-wheel or something like that.

However, without a bio-wheel and other media for the bacteria to colonize, you could destroy a significant amount of your bacterial colony with many or 'aggressive' gravel vacs.

Last edited by FISH MAISTRE at 15-Feb-2005 19:54

No conflicts at all with the stocking, though the lombardoi definitely rules the tank. No one gets beat up or picked o *too* badly. My bichir minds his business, my syndonotis is slightly territorial, but only of a teeny tiny space. Anyway, about the gravel vacs... I used to have MORE in there (Jeeze!), but then I saw some adult african cichlids and decided they needed to go... heh heh. May still remove some more fish, but the johanni and bichir are staying, they're my babies

I only vacuum down an inch or so... and not really "aggressively". I usually can't get everywhere all the time anyway, because there's lots of rocks and wood to get under. I suppose I could try only doing it every month or so, it's just my cichlids are sooo messy...

My filters are crappy Top Fins that came with a 55g kit (I'm cheap ). I'm planning on switching to something more powerful soon... no biowheels or anything here.

Last edited by smantzer at 16-Feb-2005 10:42

get a canister! Specifically, the Rena Filstar XP3! They aren't all that expensive, easy to use, and have a TONNE of room for media, so you can gravel vac to your hearts content

Yeah that's the problem with kit tanks they usually come with a bad assortment of inappropriate materials.

IMO you're overdoing your cleaning. 40-50% water changes should only be done if there's been something harmful dumped in the tank. Even without doing a gravel vac with that ammount of a change you're introducing alot of new water which not matter how close you try to match temp is going to be grossly different in chemistry from the water thats in there.

Get better fitlers (tank should cycle 7-10X/h), reduce water changes to 20% weekly, and reduce stock if you've got too much for the filters. Remember to only vac one side of the tank @a time, and alternate vacs with filter wool cleanings.

^_^ [hr width='40%']"Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness
I need to calculate,what creates my own madness...
and I am waiting for disaster"

Alright, thanks guys! I guess being an anal retentive cleanfreak has some issues, huh? I'll pay attention to all these suggestions and work to make my fishies feel better Thanks again!

(by the way, nitrites are all better)

Smantzer,

If you want to keep your costs down with filters, then buy yourself AquaClears. Add an additional sponge pad to the unit and don't use the charcoal. Clean one of the two sponges each week when you do your water changes in your waste water. The dirty sponge always goes to bottom... No more purchasing of filter media!

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright