What would cause a Nitrite Spike?

thanson · October 27th, 2009

My fish tank has been humming along great (6 months). Now I have a nitrite Spike of .5.

The only change is that I added a small bag of Organic Spagham Moss to help with lowering my pH from 8.4 to something lower.

Well the PH is now 8.0 and the Nitrites jumped.

I did a 50% water change to help the bacteria catch up.

I also had a jump in ammonia and Nitrites in my new tank but one water change and it is back to 0-0-10

Help please, why is this happening.

Shawnie · October 27th, 2009

how often and how much water changes are you doing for maintenance in the tanks? are you adding any other chemicals other than water conditioners?

thanson · October 27th, 2009

Every 10 days 50% and no chemicals except the recent addition of Sphagnum Moss

joy1125 · October 27th, 2009

how often do you rinse your filter media? also, could you be overfeeding perhaps ?

thanson · October 27th, 2009

I have two filters a HOB and Canister. Once every 30 days. The HOB has two sides and I change them 1 at a time. So every water change means one part of a filter change. This should not disrupt the bacteria in the tank as a whole.

Feeding just enough to be cleaned up in a minute twice per day. Just started using sinking feed for the Cories. 4 tabs once per day for 7 Cories and the other fish attack the tabs as well so I doubt they are getting old.

Also why only a Nitrite spike and not an Ammonia spike if it was a feeding problem.

I lack understanding in these matters. So thanks for the help.

joy1125 · October 27th, 2009

your feeding seems fine. I think the organic Spagham Moss is the culprit. It may be decomposing and overloading your biofilter. How much is considered a 'small bag' ?

another concern that I just thought of, is when you do water changes, what is the ph of the new water, since you are adding it to the peat-filtered tank water ? Sudden changes in ph can shock and/or kill fish. How do you go about your water changes?

thanson · October 28th, 2009

I have had the peat in the take for only two days. It has only lowered the PH by .4 so not a large change. I have removed the peat and decided the benefit was not great enough for the hassle and my fish with just have to acclimate to the 8 to 8.4 ph water I have here. They seem to be healthy and fine. Have read on here that some do not consider PH to be a huge issue.

The Nitrite is fine today and back at 0 so I am confused as both my tanks went through a spike that lasted only one water change and one day before they went to 0-0-5 through 10.

Are these spikes common?

AlyeskaGirl · October 28th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by thanson

I have two filters a HOB and Canister. Once every 30 days. The HOB has two sides and I change them 1 at a time. So every water change means one part of a filter change. This should not disrupt the bacteria in the tank as a whole.

Feeding just enough to be cleaned up in a minute twice per day. Just started using sinking feed for the Cories. 4 tabs once per day for 7 Cories and the other fish attack the tabs as well so I doubt they are getting old.

Also why only a Nitrite spike and not an Ammonia spike if it was a feeding problem.

I lack understanding in these matters. So thanks for the help.

What media are you using in your HOB? Why are you changing them out instead of just rinsing them out in a bucket of tank water? That's all that needs to be done until they start to fall apart then you put new media in for a few weeks before throwing the old out. How often do you do a gravel vac?

thanson · October 30th, 2009

It has a Biological trap with carbon filter pads.

Use sand and vac the top 2x for every one deeper vac

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