Mandy82

hi.

i was just wondering if anybody can help me out. over the last few weeks i have observed so weird effect in my water. i still have some amonia in the tank. the thing is that the morning after i do a water change i usually have some nitrite in the water but then by the evening of that day it ususally disappears. the levels of amonia tend to go up and down a bit. there seems to be no correlations with anything i do to my tank. does anybody have an idea how to explain this..

also i found out that i do have nitrates in my tap water and was wondering if there is any advise on how to deal with this.

Mandy

Butterfly

Nitrites are what the beneficial bacteria turns ammonia into then Nitrites turn into Nitrates.
Sometimes if we clean too thoroughly(replace filter media, wipe inside of tank, decor aggressively etc.) ammonia will spike because too much bacteria has been removed.
Live plants would use the nitrates to grow and this would be a good way to keep them down.
carol

Mandy82

thank you

Butterfly

Welcome Let us know if we can help more .
Carol

jdhef

I also have nitrates in my tap water, so I recently switched water conditioners and am now using Amquel+. Amquel+ removes/nutralizes ninrtates (along with nitrites and ammonia). The only bad thing is that it is incompatable with the API ammonia test kit.