lilsoccakid

hey guys! after turning my water temp from 80 to 87* for 2 days, i went from seeing no nitrites and nitrates to seeing roughly 7ppm nitrite and 30ppm nitrate (test strips are horrible at accuracy) should i do a water change yet? or wait until my nitrite and nitrate hit 0?

JMatt1983

wait until nitrites hit zero, your nitrates will never hit zero, they keep getting higher, try to keep them at around 10ppm

lilsoccakid

opps i meant ammonia and nitrite, sryy about that. alright ill wait for my nitrites to go down. how long do u think this will take?

vak68

why did u raise ur temp.? tank will adjust itself after a few days bacteria needs to adjust to the new water temp. it will be fine... when nitrate gets high then change the water

lilsoccakid

the raise in temp causes bacteria to multiply at a faster rate

Gunnie

I tend to believe that your test strips are giving you bad readings. A 7 in nitrites would most surely end up in a tank full of dead fish. A water change would definately not hurt right now just to be sure. Raising your temp to 87 might not be the best idea for your fish. I'd leave it at no more than 82 unless you are fighting ick or have fish like discus in your tank. Keep us posted on your ammonia and nitrite levels, and get a master test kit from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals if you can so you will know the true readings of your tank.

lilsoccakid

opps sry, i forgot to tell you im cycling my tank fishless. ill be getting a API master test kit, but for now strips are all i have, todays readings are...

Ammonia:.5ppm
nitrite:5ppm
nitrate:45ppm

COBettaCouple

cycling fishless, i'd say don't worry about water changes until you get 0 for ammonia and nitrites really. you can do them if you want, but i think it would probably slow things down on cycling.

0morrokh

Yeah...when I cycle fishless I usually just wait until it's completely cycled and them do a HUGE water change before adding fish.