Hi all,

I recently came down off a bacterial bloom and everything looks great. The water is beautiful. But I noticed my completely black Mollie fish had some white crust building up on him so I test the water again today and discovered the Nitrite level had exploded since I last tested on 12/8.

On 12/8 it was ~0.5. Today (12/16) it's off the scale on my test strips (10.0+) and my API Master Kit test shows it at off the scale too (5.0+).

I understand this is very toxic to the fish, what do I do????

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37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

Do a major water change immediately and keep monitoring. What did you do to control the bloom?

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New to this and loving it! 29G all live plants, woood and rocks, 5 denison barbs, 2 synodonstis zebra hybrids and 8 guppies.

yes, major water changes as needed. how long has the tank been set up, and has it been completely cycled? If so, did you do/change something to cause a bacterial die off?

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

All I did to help control bloom was change 5 gallons of water and add Biozyme on 12/6 then waited it out.

Like I said the water tested fine on 12/8. I waited out the bloom until water was very clear just feeding a little bit twice a day.

I tested the water again today and found the high nitrite. What caused this?

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37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

make sure your fish are eating all the food you give them. if some of it falls to the bottom and is not eaten you need to remove it because it can cause a nitrate spike if left.

this could be one reason of the nitrate spike

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Tank
125g african cichlids making it work
75g rimless Reef in progress

I said Nitrate in my last post but the problem is actually Nitrite. My apologies.

__________________
37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

To control nitrIte stop adding food until it drops down.


IME Mollys is Fw develop a white cotoney fungus. Which starts pealing off a few hours after adding FW salt per instructions. And also mollys never develop that fungus is full marine tanks.

I also only had the fungus in tank with no plants. So it very well could be tank conditions with no plants like nitrIte.

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

My one cent worth?... The Biozyme is a dry bacteria... (alleged) ... Bacteria is a living organism so i don't have much faith in the dried version. In the future?.. I'd do a 5 day black out. Followed up with a 33% w/c. The fish dont mind the dark.. the plants will suffer a tad but at least no chems and no "snake-oil" solutions. Bill in Va.

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12 Tanks, 900 gallons. Discus/Angels/Malawi/Lake Victorias. Just added a 135 & 2 - 29's..

Well, it was a crummy night. I performed the water change and checked the Nitrite level again and it was still off the charts high. Then I looked down and saw all of my fish incapacitated. I went into emergency mode and got the fish into some large bowls of water. So far only one has died; the black Molly that had the white crusty stuff on it earlier.

Since I couldn't nail down what the cause was of the nitrite spike I threw in the towel and did a complete rework of the tank. New filter, all water removed, rewashed substrate, the whole shabang. I'll probably catch some for doing this, but I wasn't sure where to start. I do know I could have done a lot better during the break-in before.

I will pick up some Aquarium Salt tomorrow when the shops open. And in the future, I'll put the fish into a clean bucket of water until I can get the Nitrite down to safe levels. Everyone give a shoutout to Shadow R.I.P

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37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

So sorry to hear about your loss. I'm going through the same process with high nitrites and ich taking their toll on the fish. I guess it's a bit too late to share what I've been doing to get over this phase of the cycle. If you have the old filter medium, you might be able to get a jump start on the cycling process, unless you washed everything with chlorinated water. That would've probably killed any good bacteria in your tank. If you feel that you have to put the fish back in the tank to save them, some folks have recommended Tetra's SafeStart which apparently accelerates the seeding of bacteria in the tank. Might be worth a shot. Good luck and I'm sorry that you're doing through this.

IF you have a high end LFS or an aquarium maintenance company nearby, there is a product for jumpstarting a tank in one day. The product ships ONLY overnight has like a shelf life of 36 hrs. We have 3 tank maintenance / "by appt only" shops in our community. This is the product they'll use for a client that want's an INSTANT tank. Google "Live freshwater aquarium bacteria".. Bill in Va.

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12 Tanks, 900 gallons. Discus/Angels/Malawi/Lake Victorias. Just added a 135 & 2 - 29's..

Blackout for? If you mean for bacteria, bacteria in fw tanks is not reactive to lights that we use, or more correctly not reactive enough to make a difference. Salt is a different story. Many sw lights use lighting in the uv spectrum for coral growth.

Alright, after a troubling 15 hours I was finally able to get some Aquarium Salt in there and the remaining fish came to life within an hour of applying it. The exception is the single Algae Eater who is breathing but isn't moving a whole lot. He didn't move much before, but he was at least latching on to the glass or to an ornament. Now he's just hiding behind a plant and hasn't moved hardly at all unless prodded to do so.

Honestly, I believe he is malnurished because I didn't do my research on his appropriate diet when I bought him and since I don't have any actual algae in the tank I doubt he's had much to eat. This coupled with the Nitrite issue that started this thread I think has left him pretty weak. I did get some of the Algae waffers after discovering that he probably wasn't eating the leftover flake food that reached the bottom but he won't move towards them when I drop them in and the other fish fight over it after a couple minutes.

I thought of catching him and putting him in a bowl to feed him but he flees whenever I get close and I don't want to stress him out anymore than he already is.

Any good advice here? Am I overreacting?

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37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

glad to hear the salt helped.

perhaps others can help but it might be the algae eater is sensitive to salt.

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Update

Algae Eater looking much better and has returned to normal. That is to say, he's lazing about the tank and sitting in his lawn chair ornament.

I've been monitoring the water daily and have been adding Nutricycle bacteria to to the tank to get the cycle back in process.

Ammonia remains low but Nitrite is on the rise again, will see how things go over next few days.

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37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

Thanks for the update. Daily large water changes are the only way to avoid damage due to high nitrite levels. Adding aquarium salt might also reduce the effect on the fish. I used API Aquarium salt at 1 tbsp. per 5 gallons during my cycle. The combination of salt and water changes seems to have saved all my fish. My aquarium finished cycling yesterday. The other two things that I did were adding Tetra SafeStart and planting some anacharis. Good luck and keep us posted.

I am also using API Aquarium salt at that ratio.

What % of water should be changed every day and how many days do I do it or is it just until Nitrite stabilizes?

How did you pinpoint when your cycle finished?

Thanks.

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37 Gallon Aqueon Bow Front Tank
Tropical Freshwater

Fish in Tank
2 Mollies
1 Platy


Fish in the Ground
3 Mollys
2 Platys
1 Algae Eater

you can pin point when your cycle is finished if you can get 0.ppm for ammonia and nitrites and under 40 ppm nitrates almost every day IMO

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10g- 2 hi-fin fm platys, 3 koi & red wag sword fry
40g Breeder- 6 danios, 4 female swords, 1 male swords
"I was born with nothin and I still got most of it left."- Seasick Steve

I also used tetra safe start and it definetly helped when i had my nitrite problem, it's alittle pricey but it's worth it, dont order it online unless your gonna pay for overnight shipping, my nitrites were through the roof even after my 50% water change, once i added that i came home from work and it went from 5.0+ppm to .25-.5 ppm, if anything it wont hurt your tank as it has no chemicals in it.

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10g- 2 hi-fin fm platys, 3 koi & red wag sword fry
40g Breeder- 6 danios, 4 female swords, 1 male swords
"I was born with nothin and I still got most of it left."- Seasick Steve

To answer your question about the quantity of water changes, it's a function of the level of nitrites in your tank. You can do the math to figure out how much to change to bring it down to <2 to 3ppm. For example, if it was 5ppm, a 50% water change would bring it down to 2.5ppm and so on. I had to do a 90% water change once and then 50% every other day to keep it low and avoid over-stressing the fish. Make sure to measure the concentrations every day. Also, I avoided feeding my fish for 3 days at one point and only fed a small amount every other day for about a week before the water changes until things settled. I hope this helps.