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Today I found out that my tank had slightly high nitrite (about 1ppm). What might have caused it and what is the safest way to reduce it?

Background: I have a 29 gallon freshwater tank with about 30 inches of fish in it (5 dwarf spotted corys, 3 brilliant rasboras, 3 platys, 2 dwarf Gaurami, 1 cherry barb and 1 mystery snail). The tank has gone through cycling and has been established for about 8 weeks. I do regular 15% water changes bimonthly and change the filer cartridge (keeping the same frame) monthly. I feed them a small amount of flake food and sinking shrimp pellets twice daily. I feed the snail an algae disc once daily. My water Ph was low earlier (6.4) and I used PH-up and it went t too high (8) but by regular water changes it has now stabilized at 7. I've had just 2 fatalities (a fancy guppy and a rasbora). The fancy guppy died within a week of purchase.

My other question is concerning the way my rasbora died. One morning I woke up to find that one of my rasboras had a missing tail fin! My tank so no aggressive fin-nippers so this was odd. It died the next day. Can you tell me what happened to its tail fin?


Thanks and let me know if I can be of any help to you!

Regards,
Sagar

First, stop adding ph changing products to your water, they dont' work and the continual shifting of ph will cause more stress to the fish than the ph you have.

Second, 29's have less surface area than a 30 (29's are high whereas a 30 is long). Stocking according to gallons and inches is such an old outdated rule that most of us dont' even know where it came from. Surface plays more a role in stocking, as does nitrAtes (if you're continually batteling high nitrates you might be overstocked).

What caused the mini cycle, hard to say, but I'd think that the fish deaths may have played a roll, or an overly aggressive maintence.


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Thanks! I realized that Ph-up was more of a problem than a convenience. I'll never use it again.

You are right, teh fish-death might haev caused the rise in nitrites.

SOme follow-up questions: Will it help to:

1) Keep some of the old carbon in the filter cartridge in the new filter cartridge to 'seed in' the new catridge?

2) Increse bimonthly water-changes from 15% to 25%?

1) Depends on what type of filter you're using. One of the makes of filters (happened to be the first filter I bought ) reccomends throwing out the entire cartrige (floss and carbon) every week...not good for the biofitler . If you're using a biowheel type filter, most of the bacteria will live on the wheel itself and not in the carbon. When you do maintence you should alternate cleaning one side of the substrate with the other side of the substrate with cleaning the filter.

2) That's what I'd do, or just add lots of lovely live plants they can help out too .


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Thanks for the prompt reply.

I have a Whisper Power filter. I do vacuum half of the substrate each time I do a water change.

I will just do some water changes reguilarly and monitor my nitrites.

Thanks again.

P.S. Sweet pictures and icons on your posts!

correct me if im wrong, but isn't 1ppm not high at all? or would that just be for a planted tank...

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Back in the saddle!

1ppm nitrAte would not be high at all. 1ppm nitrIte would be high for any tank, planted or not; bacteria should be metabolizing it into nitrates.

Last edited by Silverlight at 28-Oct-2004 14:59

Its 1ppm of nitrite that is the problem, not nitrate. That can go upto 40ppm.