0.50 Nitrite, help to bring it down.

[Narely]

Hello! My name is Nathalia and I have a 15 gallon fluval flex tank that currently houses a betta named Garlic. About two days ago I did a water change and tested the water, and everything was fine and with normal levels. But I went to an aquatic store yesterday and got some new plants, fertilizer, and melafix. Garlic is currently dealing with fin rot, so I dosed my tank with the melafix and the fertilizer. About 5 hrs later my red cherry shrimp started dying very quickly. The temp is at 78, pH is 7.4, ammonia is 0, nitrite is .50 as of this morning, and my nitrate is 0. I’m trying to get some help as to how to bring down my nitrite level. I’m doing a water change in about 20 mins since I need to prep everything. Garlic is doing ok and hasn’t been acting weird. How should I go about this other than a water change? I’m very new to this and I’m kind of freaking out. Thank u

 

[Cue]

You should have zero nitrite, it’s is extremely dangerous. Do another water change to get it down. And be sure to check that your tap water doesn’t have any.
I suspect your shrimp died from a mix of that, the melafix, and water change shock.
Stop using the melafix, it is an essential oil that can clog the betta’s labyrinth organ and be very irritating.

 

[Fishfur]

What fertilizer did you use & how much? How much Melafix did you use? How did you measure the doses?

 

[3Fishnight]

Hello Nathalia, thats a cool name is that russian? Doing a water change then adding prime might be a good thing because prime supposedly detoxifies ammonia and nitrite and nitrate. For 48 hours. Then just add a little more after 48 hours. Dose the amount on bottle. And this can be dosed 5 times the recommended amount without harm. Thats what seachem claims at least. I cant quite make it out on the pic but i think your anubias are planted in the substrate. Make sure the rhizome is above the substrate or else the rhizome will rot and the plant will die.

 

[Cue]

Hello Nathalia, thats a cool name is that russian? Doing a water change then adding prime might be a good thing because prime supposedly detoxifies ammonia and nitrite and nitrate. For 48 hours. Then just add a little more after 48 hours. Dose the amount on bottle. And this can be dosed 5 times the recommended amount without harm. Thats what seachem claims at least. I cant quite make it out on the pic but i think your anubias are planted in the substrate. Make sure the rhizome is above the substrate or else the rhizome will rot and the plant will die.

Prime does not detoxify anything other than chlorine and chloramine, that is an inaccurate myth often spread by seachem.
Good catch on the anubias though, I didn’t see that.

 

[Narely]

You should have zero nitrite, it’s is extremely dangerous. Do another water change to get it down. And be sure to check that your tap water doesn’t have any.
I suspect your shrimp died from a mix of that, the melafix, and water change shock.
Stop using the melafix, it is an essential oil that can clog the betta’s labyrinth organ and be very irritating.

Ok thank u! I went to an aquatic store and told them about my situation with Garlic and they recommended it. But now I know not to use it. Again thank u for the advise!

What fertilizer did you use & how much? How much Melafix did you use? How did you measure the doses?

I used easy green and I did 1 1/2 pumps. And I used bacterial melafix and I did about 7 ml of that as well. Easy green is based on the amount of pumps and melafix has a measurement cup on top of the lid.

Hello Nathalia, thats a cool name is that russian? Doing a water change then adding prime might be a good thing because prime supposedly detoxifies ammonia and nitrite and nitrate. For 48 hours. Then just add a little more after 48 hours. Dose the amount on bottle. And this can be dosed 5 times the recommended amount without harm. Thats what seachem claims at least. I cant quite make it out on the pic but i think your anubias are planted in the substrate. Make sure the rhizome is above the substrate or else the rhizome will rot and the plant will die.

First thank u and I’m Hispanic so yea there’s that. My Anubis is planted into the substrate I haven’t had a problem with them dying but I will pull them up a bit. I just put them in a little more bc garlic likes to lay on them and try to up root them sadly.

 

[Fishfur]

I used easy green and I did 1 1/2 pumps. And I used bacterial melafix and I did about 7 ml of that as well. Easy green is based on the amount of pumps and melafix has a measurement cup on top of the lid.

Thanks, that’s useful to know. It rules out a potential cause at least - potential overdoses if either one of these.

Prime does not detoxify anything other than chlorine and chloramine, that is an inaccurate myth often spread by seachem.
Good catch on the anubias though, I didn’t see that.

According to an article I will link below, Prime does actually convert NH3 to NH4 temporarily. The phenomenon isn’t exactly new, it seems.

Seachem is silly when it comes to what they say about it, I agree. And in a whole lot of cases using Prime for this purpose is completely unnecessary because there’s not enough NH3 to cause problems in the first place.

I always prefer water changes as the remedy to toxin levels that are a problem rather than chemicals but it can be a nice option to have in certain circumstances, say when your water is shut off.

I’d probably use Methylene blue as it is a full antidote to the worst effects of nitrite, if I couldn’t just change water.

Prime also changes nitrite into something else that’s not toxic, but what it becomes isn’t exactly clear. Nitrite has no secondary or alternate form like ammonia does so that change is permanent, not temporary. Same goes for nitrate.

I used to think just as you do, having seen no proof or evidence that Prime did what was claimed - and Seachem would never say it converts NH3 to NH4.

Instead they took refuge behind words like nontoxic and said they didn’t know how it did what it did.

To me, what they did say about it seemed to fly in the face of what I understood about water chemistry.

Reading the article linked below changed my mind. Maybe it’ll change yours.