.5 Nitrite After Cleaning Filter

Yesterday I went to clean my canister filter and the intake sponge for it. When removing the intake sponge a bunch of gunk ended up in the water. I went ahead and cleaned the filter media by rinsing it in tank water and then filled it back up with tap water that was treated with Prime. I opted not to put the intake filter back on the intake because it was impossible to remove it without putting a bunch of gunk in the water and I figured I would just need to go ahead and clean my filter more often without it, but that's a fair tradeoff to prevent the gunk getting into the water. I then did a 50% water change with a full dose of Prime and turned the filter back on. All seemed well except my guppies were hanging out at the top of the water, but I figured that was because of the extra gunk in the water during the water change and let it be for a few hours.

Well a few hours later, they are still hanging at the top so I decided to do some water tests, and I came back with 0 Ammonia, .5 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate and 7.6 PH. I did several tests to confirm results as I found it odd that I had nitrite but no Ammonia.

I then did some searches on the forums here and came away with some suggestions of dosing Prime and Salt to prevent/treat Nitrite Poisoning. So I did another full dose of Prime and a half dose of salt. This morning some of the guppies seemed to be doing somewhat better but not back to normal for sure. If they are that way when I get home tonight I'm going to do another 50% water change and test the water again.

Am I on the right track here? Any ideas on what happened? Did that intake sponge release a ton of Nitrite into the water? I didn't test the water till after the water change so before the Nitrite must have been at 1 ppm, but if it came from the intake sponge that would have only been for 30 minutes or so. I've used the same method to clean my canister before with no issues, though this is the first time I have tried to remove the intake sponge since I got it about 2 months ago.

 

I would say you are indeed on the right track.
How do you go about cleaning your filter?
Any possibility you had bacteria die off that could have caused the nitrite spike?
I've never used an intake sponge, however I can say I have accidentally dumped lots of gunk into my aquariums over the years, mainly after water changes go figure, with no side effects that you are listing. Not that it wasn't the cause, just never happened to me.

Continue to monitor water quality and do water changes accordingly.

I don't think you need to stop using the intake sponge. What I would do to avoid too much gunk falling into the water column is to take the sponge off as I am siphoning water. That way you can suck up the big stuff, and most of the small, while already removing water anyways.

 

To clean my filter I unhook it, then siphon off a 5 gallon bucket of tank water to use for scrubbing my filter pads off in. I don't clean the Bio Media other than a quick rinse in the bucket to get any big chunks that may have gotten in there from pulling the trays out. I then put it all back together and empty the 5 gallon bucket and fill it with clean tap water, then I treat the bucket with Prime before using it to fill the canister filter back up again.

 

skip to abour 4:30 Corey uses a plastic bag to contain the sponge that way none of the gunk gets back into the tank.

I don't use an intake sponge on any of my filters. my Hob's get cleaned every weekly water change and the canister gets changed every 4 weeks. I also test all my tanks before each water change so I know exactly what is going on, and if anything should happen after the water change, I'll know exactly what I did wrong.

the intake sponge is the first thing the water passes through on your filter. it is primarily a mechanical filter, but after its been in use for a couple of weeks, the BB start to colonize it as well. so not putting it back on might have removed a significant enough of your BB to result in a nitrite spike. you can try an extra dose of Prime. Prime contains a sulfur compound that has been shown by medical research to reverse the effects of nitrite poisoning aka Methemoglobin aka brown blood disease. try to look at your fish's gilld if they're brown-ish color instead of the usual red, then its Nitrite poisoning. during my fish in cycles and a huge nitrite spike I would add up to 5X the regular dose of Prime and it saved my fish. I use polyfil as my fine mechanical filter and change it out every week, so that the bacteria doesn't have a chance to colonize it. therefore, the overwhelming majority of my BB is in the biomedia (Biomax and Matrix).

although there are a few members here that believe Nitrite levels can be up to 20ppm before any negative effects on our fish, due to 1 or 2 scientific studies. and have called our anecdotal evidence irrelevant.

 

Yeah, I got complacent with my water parameters being good for so long that I didn't test before the water change. I will not make that mistake again. I'll pick up some Seachem Stability after work and put that in to help boost my BB in case I did lose some with the removal of the intake filter. I assumed that my BB was all in the Bio media inside my canister, I have two trays of my SunSun 404b dedicated to it and two for mechanical filtration.

I'll take a look at the video later and make a decision on if I want the intake filter back or not. Still leaning on no. My tank is a corner tank and it's not easy to get into the back of it to get to that intake without jostling it around a bit no matter what.

Thanks for the input.

 

I'll take a look at the video later and make a decision on if I want the intake filter back or not. Still leaning on no. My tank is a corner tank and it's not easy to get into the back of it to get to that intake without jostling it around a bit no matter what.

bottled bacteria most likely is not needed in this case, your canister already has a lot of BB, it shouldn't take maybe a few days to a week for them to multiply. I believe the nitrite bacteria can double every 12-24 hrs, depending on conditions, temp, pH, etc.

with the addition of Prime and/or salt, your fish will be ok for a few days.

 

Well I got home tonight and things are looking much better. I'll keep testing and hopefully all is well. Though my guppies are not completely back to normal yet. They look better than last night.

 

All is well. Nitrite is still 0 and my guppies are back to normal. Thanks for the help