NitrItes won't go down!

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I seem to be having a bit of a problem with bringing my nitrItes down.

My current readings as of today (with a 50% water change) are :
NitrAtes - between 5-10 ppm ( about a week ago it was a solid 10ppm)
NitrItes - between 2.0-5.0ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm

I first tested my tank on June 6th and my readings were :
NitrAtes - 5.0ppm
NitrItes - 5.0ppm
Ammonia - Just above 0ppm

As you can see it's been about a month. A few weeks ago I went searching through many different forums in regards to my nitrItes not going down. I read that over feeding may be somewhat of the cause. So instead of my 2 feedings a day, I cut it down to one small feeding at night, which I have been doing for just over a week now. Right now I have 3 Zebra Danios in my tank (I wanted to put them in to see how they would do before putting anything else in there, thank god I didn't since my readings seem to be not good enough for that) The fish seem to be doing fine, eating, swimming around.. pretty much normal fish behavior.

I've been doing 2 50% water changes weekly hoping that would bring it down, but with no luck. I know there are treatments you can buy from LFS for bringing the nitrItes down but I really wanted this to happen naturally. If anyone has any advice on this issue it would be greatly appreciated! I'm at my wits end, I want my tank to be a safe place for the little danios I have in there and for future fishies!

Thanks,

Natasha

 

I'm in the same boat. If you find any solutions please tell me

 

Is your tank totally cycled ?

 

Well I have no Ammonia and I haven't had any for a while, I have yet to see the nitrItes go down, so I am assuming my tank has not fully cycled yet. I just don't understand why my nitrItes see to be at a stand still.

 

The bacteria that converts ammonia into nitrites is different than the bacteria that converts nitrites into nitrates. Since the fish produce ammonia the ammonia converting bacteria is the first to form. Then once the ammonia starts getting converted into nitrites the nitrite consuming bacteria will start to grow. So you just haven't developed the nitrites converting bacteria yet. Once nitrites start to appear, it usually takes about three weeks for the nitrite converting bacteria to develope. So you should be there soon.

 

Thanks for the reply, I guess I will just have to wait longer. Hopefully not too much longer as I'd like to start getting some more fish in the tank! Will keep you posted =D