# Huge Spike in Nitrite + Nitrate? - PLEASE HELP



## jaekwong (Jul 9, 2013)

I've had my tank for about 5 months and was cycled a while back.

I haven't tested my water for a while because it seemed like all my fish were doing well until yesterday. I came home to find one of my new amano shrimps had flipped onto its side, so I knew something was up.

My water came out at
pH 6.4
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 5.0+
Nitrate - 80PPM +
18 gallon tank
Lots of plants
c02 tank with diffuser

I QUICKLY did a 50% water change.

I'm not sure what caused the spike but I'm afraid this could be due to several things.

1) overfeeding - a lot of times my tiny little raspboras aren't able to catch all the food and they hit the bottom
2) overstocked in a 18 gallon tank - I've got 15 tiny exlcamation raspboras, 3 yellow jacket endlers, 1 betta, 3 amano shrimp, and an ott. Is this too much? Majority of the fishes are tiny though
3) lack of water changing
4) there was a dying snail in there for a few days, but took it out about 4 days ago.

Would all 4 be causing this? or would some of the reasons above not cause this?

With the spike of nitrite and nitrate, i plan to be doing 25% water changes 2 times a day for the next couple days and then slowing it down to 1nce a day for the next couple days after that. Is this a sound plan?


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

With a small tank, changes in water parameters can be drastic. A huge sudden spike in nitrite and nitrate may be caused by the aforementioned list of scenarios, but is may not be limited. In addition, may in turn cause cycling again. May consider dosing bottled bacteria suc/ as seachem stability. But then again a 18g water change is quick. 

Good luck.


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## MEDHBSI (Sep 4, 2011)

Ive killed everything in a small tank with a dead snail before so that could have definitely been the issue. also 80ppm is way to high for your tank so more frequent water changes are needed. Your plan seems good water changes and use prime as your dechlorinator (JL aquatics sells is sooooo cheap) The decomposing snail might have been the cause of the nitrite because your bio couldn't handle the ammonia that was being produced.


Good luck

Edit: don't forget that prime can make that nitrite almost harmless for up to 48hrs so keep dosing until the nitrite is gone. Also sometimes prime can make your nitrite test a false positive.


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## jaekwong (Jul 9, 2013)

Thanks for all the great advice.



MEDHBSI said:


> Ive killed everything in a small tank with a dead snail before so that could have definitely been the issue. also 80ppm is way to high for your tank so more frequent water changes are needed. Your plan seems good water changes and use prime as your dechlorinator (JL aquatics sells is sooooo cheap) The decomposing snail might have been the cause of the nitrite because your bio couldn't handle the ammonia that was being produced.
> 
> Good luck
> 
> Edit: don't forget that prime can make that nitrite almost harmless for up to 48hrs so keep dosing until the nitrite is gone. Also sometimes prime can make your nitrite test a false positive.


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

How often are you doing water changes and how much water?

I dont think you are overstocked. What filter are you using? What are you using for bio media?


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## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

Yeah as the others have said, with only 18g of water, parameters can change easily. Could easily be a dead fish that you can't see. Nothing a few wc and some cleaning won't fix.


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## Rockman (May 19, 2013)

Can you describe your usual maintenance program? How often do you do water changes? How much water would you typically change? How often do you clean your filter? How frequently do you test the water and what are your results normally?


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## jaekwong (Jul 9, 2013)

Rockman said:


> Can you describe your usual maintenance program? How often do you do water changes? How much water would you typically change? How often do you clean your filter? How frequently do you test the water and what are your results normally?


This is going to be quite embarassing. I haven't been doing water changes in a while all due to laziness. Instead I was topping off the water and now I am paying for it. to be honest I'm quite new at the hobby and thought topping off the water level would be fine. Obviously not anymore.

My filter is about 6 months old. I cleaned it once - it's a class eheim filter.

I haven't tested my water ina LONG while. obviously I haven't been monitoring the water and have just been winging it recently because i saw all my fish seemed to be fine until i saw a dead amano and a couple snails passed away right when I got it.


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## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

Topping off will not work as Wc is the only way to remove the nitrates. If you have plants they will use some up. 

Sent from my gigantic Samsung Note 2


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## indreamx (Dec 5, 2013)

I have the same problem. But i do my water change weekly. Ammonia is reading 0, the rest are high. Ph is low at 6.5 im gonna keep doing 30% water change everyweek, i think its almost cycled. What do u guys have to say? I put prime and stability liquid from seachem.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## AWW (Apr 22, 2010)

indreamx said:


> I have the same problem. But i do my water change weekly. Ammonia is reading 0, the rest are high. Ph is low at 6.5 im gonna keep doing 30% water change everyweek, i think its almost cycled. What do u guys have to say? I put prime and stability liquid from seachem.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


There is your culprit. This is just a classic case of nitrate buildup  Keep your nitrates down via water changes (And siphoning!) and your fish will be happy. If you don't want to do so much maintenance, decrease your bioload by re-homing some fish.

Your tank seams cycled, as most of your Nitrogen cycle is Nitrates. However, A little stability always helps, especially after a water change. A 30% water change once a week sounds like a good plan. If your still noticing elevated nitrates (Unlikely), do 50%.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Nutrient/waste transport is very easy to figure out/control. To make the math simple, let's use a 10 gallon (or 100 gallon if you want) tank. You put enough fish in there that your nitrates climb by 20 ppm per week in the total water volume. Say you start out the week by putting a fish in (after the tank is cycled). At the end of the week, you will have nitrates = 20 ppm. You do a 50% wc and you end up with 10 ppm when you refill with tap water which is nitrate free (which may not be the case if you use well water). In the second week, by the end of the week, your nitrates will be 30 ppm (10+ 20). You do a 50% wc and you end up with 15 ppm. Another week and you have 35/2 = 17.5 ppm, etc.

As you can see, as long as you do 50%, the rise will slowly top out as long as the increase in nitrate is not excessive. If it is then you'll end up with it topping out too high, like 80 ppm or more. If you have that scenario, you need to do more than 1x50% wc a week or you need to change more than 50% at a time.

Hope this helps.


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

2wheelsx2 said:


> Nutrient/waste transport is very easy to figure out/control. To make the math simple, let's use a 10 gallon (or 100 gallon if you want) tank. You put enough fish in there that your nitrates climb by 20 ppm per week in the total water volume. Say you start out the week by putting a fish in (after the tank is cycled). At the end of the week, you will have nitrates = 20 ppm. You do a 50% wc and you end up with 10 ppm when you refill with tap water which is nitrate free (which may not be the case if you use well water). In the second week, by the end of the week, your nitrates will be 30 ppm (10+ 20). You do a 50% wc and you end up with 15 ppm. Another week and you have 35/2 = 17.5 ppm, etc.
> 
> As you can see, as long as you do 50%, the rise will slowly top out as long as the increase in nitrate is not excessive. If it is then you'll end up with it topping out too high, like 80 ppm or more. If you have that scenario, you need to do more than 1x50% wc a week or you need to change more than 50% at a time.
> 
> Hope this helps.


That was a good amd easy example. Thanks gary for typing that all out. I think i will ante up on my wc as well to ensure nitrate in my tank doesnt build up.

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## AWW (Apr 22, 2010)

2wheelsx2 said:


> Nutrient/waste transport is very easy to figure out/control. To make the math simple, let's use a 10 gallon (or 100 gallon if you want) tank. You put enough fish in there that your nitrates climb by 20 ppm per week in the total water volume. Say you start out the week by putting a fish in (after the tank is cycled). At the end of the week, you will have nitrates = 20 ppm. You do a 50% wc and you end up with 10 ppm when you refill with tap water which is nitrate free (which may not be the case if you use well water). In the second week, by the end of the week, your nitrates will be 30 ppm (10+ 20). You do a 50% wc and you end up with 15 ppm. Another week and you have 35/2 = 17.5 ppm, etc.
> 
> As you can see, as long as you do 50%, the rise will slowly top out as long as the increase in nitrate is not excessive. If it is then you'll end up with it topping out too high, like 80 ppm or more. If you have that scenario, you need to do more than 1x50% wc a week or you need to change more than 50% at a time.
> 
> Hope this helps.


This is a fantastic point here. However, gravel cleaning will result in removing more than 50% of your nitrates in PPM, when you do a 50% water change. This is a great model to use if you don't physically remove any waste.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

AWW said:


> This is a fantastic point here. However, gravel cleaning will result in removing more than 50% of your nitrates in PPM, when you do a 50% water change. This is a great model to use if you don't physically remove any waste.


You're correct if you have buried waste. Unfortunately, I didn't take that into account as I use either ADA Aquasoil which I don't vac, silica sand or bare bottom, which does not need vacuuming, since the wastes sit on top.


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