Urgent: Nitrite Spike

Hello,

my nitrite suddenly spiked which is very concerning because I have always managed to run 0 ppm for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.
Please help. How can I eeduse the level quickly? It went from 0 ppm to 0.5. Did a big water change yesterday but it only dropped to 0.25.
I have a 79 gallon planted with ph 6.8-7.4, temp 76 F/24 C. I did have a bunch of baby guppies growing up but the levels still never shot up like that. I need to give them away but they are not big enough to go to the shop yet.
So I really need alternative to remove fish until I can.
Thank you so much.
Oooo, I also have lots of snails. Would removing them help?
Thank you so much again!

 

Water changes will help bring it down by diluting what is in there, but getting to the bottom of why it spiked is important.

Have you changed anything in the tank or your maintenance routine? How much stock is in there? Snails will be adding to the bioload in your tank but i dont believe that would be enough to cause an increase in nitrites, so removing them isnt likely to have an effect.

 

Hello,

my nitrite suddenly spiked which is very concerning because I have always managed to run 0 ppm for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.
Please help. How can I eeduse the level quickly? It went from 0 ppm to 0.5. Did a big water change yesterday but it only dropped to 0.25.
I have a 79 gallon planted with ph 6.8-7.4, temp 76 F/24 C. I did have a bunch of baby guppies growing up but the levels still never shot up like that. I need to give them away but they are not big enough to go to the shop yet.
So I really need alternative to remove fish until I can.
Thank you so much.
Oooo, I also have lots of snails. Would removing them help?
Thank you so much again!

Hi!

I agree with Carsonsgjs... more water changes. Additionally, did you add any root tabs or increase the bioload lately? If you don't find out where the Nitrite came from, it'll be hard to get rid of it since it can just build up again. I don't think removing the snails would help since they have a tiny bioload.

 

The guppy fry added to the bio-load in this tank. More ammonia is being produced as they grow. It seems you have enough ammonia eating bacteria. The ammonia eating bacteria caught up quickly to the increased amount of ammonia. For some reason it is taking longer to build up enough nitrite eating bacteria to finish processing it through to nitrates.

The extra bio-load threw things out of balance but it should quickly balance back out. An extra water change may need to be done but if it goes no higher than the .5 you are seeing it should go back to zero quickly as the nitrite eating bacteria catches up.

Hi!

I agree with Carsonsgjs... more water changes. Additionally, did you add any root tabs or increase the bioload lately? If you don't find out where the Nitrite came from, it'll be hard to get rid of it since it can just build up again. I don't think removing the snails would help since they have a tiny bioload.

I do agree with most of this and do agree removing some snails won't help but snails do add quite a bit to the bio-load in a tank. I think you may have been thinking of shrimp.

 

The only thing I changed was afmdfing some calcium in hopes to help with shrimp. Ok I have about 20 good sized baby guppies and about 12 good sized platters. Those are the babies. My original load has 9 glass cats, 10 guppies, 7 plaited, 2 hill stream loach and 2 rams, 5 cherry shrimp and 6 otocinclus. It was doing fine until the babies started growing. Inthink you are right, must be the growing babies causing the problem. oh and also added an Amazon sword last week.

 

Is the amazon sword looking healthy and growing or are some of the leaves melting a bit? If they are, remove the damaged leaves. Melting leaves have been known to add extra ammonia to a tank. Extra ammonia produces extra nitrites. Hopefully all will balance back out quickly.

 

The plants all look healthy and growing well. The sword is not showing any signs of melting, though I am a beginner and so might have missed something. My floating plants have been growing like crazy though. Do you think they are helping in using the nitrite? Would liquid bacteria like you use when first establishing a tank be helpful?
Thank you so much. My tank is inky 4 months old.

 

The plants all look healthy and growing well. The sword is not showing any signs of melting, though I am a beginner and so might have missed something. My floating plants have been growing like crazy though. Do you think they are helping in using the nitrite? Would liquid bacteria like you use when first establishing a tank be helpful?
Thank you so much. My tank is inky 4 months old.

Bottled bacteria does sometimes help but in this case I don't know that it would be of much help. You already have the kinds of bacteria found in some of the bottled bacteria just for some reason not quite enough to clear out all the nitrites. At this point I would just give the bacteria you already have time to clear it out.

I suspect the growing fry are the reason you are seeing what you are seeing. I know it is often hard to do but you may want to consider only feeding every other day. Is it possible you are adding more food than is needed? We are all prone to overfeeding our fish. The less food the less ammonia. By doing this you will give the bacteria more time to clear out the nitrites the ammonia eating bacteria is producing.

 

Ok, I will feed them every other day and hope the bacteria can recover. It is entirely my possible I am feeding too much. I will cut down the food as well and hope things will equalise or at least manage until I can move the fry out. Thank you so much!