[FuelingFire]

Hey everyone. ok so i had a blue green Algae (bacteria) bloom and i cleaned my tank as thorough as i could. I still have it in some area's i can not get to. and peices that are in my sand substrate. my tank was cylced. but now after cleaning the tank of the bacteria, i had a Nitrite spike, of about 2.ppm I did 2 water changes yesterday.the first was from cleaning the tank a little bit more trying to get what i missed. and the second was because my nitrite was about .5ppm before i went to bed. so i did a 25% water change just before i went to bed. when i woke up My nitrite was at 2.ppm, and my fish were acting very sluggish and not happy ( i don't blame them.) so I Did a 60% water change this morning and everything seems fine right now. I use prime water conditioner.

But has anyone every had this problem, is their a reason this is happening? I plan on doing water changes everyday to help rid the Bacteria, but I wasn't expecting the Nitrite to shoot up so high. I figured a small amount but not as much as it has.

Any help would be Great.

 

[JDM]

... I Did a 60% water change this morning and everything seems fine right now. I use prime water conditioner.

Can't help directly but adding the prime probably did more than the water change... not that you shouldn't have changed the water, I did for he same sort of spike, but the prime has detoxified the nitrite for a day or two which will help the fish. I didn't treat the water, did a 75% change day 1, a 30% change day two and the nitrites disappeared on their own after that.

How long has the tank been going? Never mind, about 8 weeks.

When you cycled the tank, did you get a nitrite spike and if so about when? when did you add fish? Nevermind.... 4 weeks in.

If you added all the fish at once I don't think this is to be unexpected, it will pass, just change and treat the water until it does.

Can you post a whole tank shot or just put one in your aquarium profile?

Jeff.

 

[marshallsea]

Hey everyone. ok so i had a blue green Algae (bacteria) bloom and i cleaned my tank as thorough as i could. I still have it in some area's i can not get to. and peices that are in my sand substrate. my tank was cylced. but now after cleaning the tank of the bacteria, i had a Nitrite spike, of about 2.ppm I did 2 water changes yesterday.the first was from cleaning the tank a little bit more trying to get what i missed. and the second was because my nitrite was about .5ppm before i went to bed. so i did a 25% water change just before i went to bed. when i woke up My nitrite was at 2.ppm, and my fish were acting very sluggish and not happy ( i don't blame them.) so I Did a 60% water change this morning and everything seems fine right now. I use prime water conditioner.

But has anyone every had this problem, is their a reason this is happening? I plan on doing water changes everyday to help rid the Bacteria, but I wasn't expecting the Nitrite to shoot up so high. I figured a small amount but not as much as it has.

Any help would be Great.

You should never scrub your tank clean. You killed the beneficial bacteria that keeps nitrite and ammonia spikes from happening. 50% daily water changes until you read no nitrite or ammonia, and a rise in nitrates.

 

[JDM]

You should never scrub your tank clean. You killed the beneficial bacteria that keeps nitrite and ammonia spikes from happening. 50% daily water changes until you read no nitrite or ammonia, and a rise in nitrates.

He didn't scrub it, just a thorough vac and plant rub down. He didn't affect his bacteria colonies at all with that. He is probably seeing a nitrite spike from his fish addition and subsequent increase in ammonia. The nitrosomona increases accordingly and puts out more nitrites = spike and the nitrospira ( or nitrospira-like bacteria anyway) take a while to catch up. Once they do they will complete the cycle.

I had the same thing happen on a different time scale.

Jeff.

 

[marshallsea]

He didn't scrub it, just a thorough vac and plant rub down. He didn't affect his bacteria colonies at all with that. He is probably seeing a nitrite spike from his fish addition and subsequent increase in ammonia. The nitrosomona increases accordingly and puts out more nitrites = spike and the nitrospira ( or nitrospira-like bacteria anyway) take a while to catch up. Once they do they will complete the cycle.

I had the same thing happen on a different time scale.

Jeff.

He doesn't say he vacuumed, he says he cleaned his tank as thorough as he could. Big difference. He doesn't mention new fish additions, he says his spike came after his 'cleaning'.

 

[trombonedemon]

What kind of and how large of filtration system are you using?

Adding chemicals to an ecosytem needs to be a last resort when trying to figure out of a problem or circumstance. No matter how well the chemicals seem to work.

 

[JDM]

He doesn't say he vacuumed, he says he cleaned his tank as thorough as he could. Big difference. He doesn't mention new fish additions, he says his spike came after his 'cleaning'.

Another thread.

Jeff

 

[FuelingFire]

Hey guy's I did't scrub my tank. The only thing i did Was the back wall where the bacteria (blue green algae had covered I pealed it away with a plastic ruler. (only thing i had to reach back there.) and i only used my hands on the plant's and did vacuum the substrate, i made sure that i did a through job on the blue green alga. but not to hurt my BB. I added the tetra's about a week ago. before the BGA cleaning. another thing i had noticed last night was when i re positioned my spray bar I didn't have no surface movement. So I'm guessing that might have been a small part of it. Cause after i adjusted it to get a small surface movement the fish seem a little happier.

And Jeff I will get a picture up on my profile today and i'll add one to this thread as well.

Also It was so bad that i would use the prime but The fish still seemed like something was wrong. and very sluggish. But this morning When i woke up all the fish seem to be back to normal. my loaches are out playing and swimming up the corner of my tank like they always do. so I'm about to check my Nitrite again. and see where it is. and will let ya'll Know.

 

[FuelingFire]

Well after checking my Nitrite It is still high. But i think the prime is working because the fish seem happy ATM. so I'm going to do a 30% water change shortly.

 

[JDM]

Well after checking my Nitrite It is still high. But i think the prime is working because the fish seem happy ATM. so I'm going to do a 30% water change shortly.

Sounds good.

My "other thread" reference was due to re-reading your other thread where you described what you did rather than assuming I knew or remembered. We always want more information than many give and might not connect another thread with the current one every time. Sometimes advice is based soley on assuming without stating what the assumption was based on and can head people in the wrong direction unintentionally.

Now I'm rambling off topic.

Jeff.

 

[FuelingFire]

Yeah I understand. I am bad about not giving enough details. But I was thinking about modifying my spray bar. Drilling some More holes into it. So i don't have any dead spots. I have already noticed the BGA coming back. And after talking to Byron. And doing research if i modify my spray bar so it sprays not just in one direction but also in another maybe that will help kill the dead spots in my tank. any suggestions on that? This BGA is relentless.

 

[JDM]

I use the stock output which is a single directional thing with a pair of baffles that divide the flow into two. I point it at the front glass (just off 90 degrees) and it creates very slow swirls rotating opposite each other in each half of the tank. I might suggest that if dead water spots are your concern, just get the whole volume moving in the same direction and see what happens.

I was considering fabricating a spray bar next month to reduce my flow but I am seeing reasons to not do so... this may just be another example... or I might do a vertical bar rather than horizontal to provide small rotational movement throughout the vertical water column. The horizontal seems to leave the water too still.

Jeff.

 

[FuelingFire]

Yeah I could do it horizontal. that might be better. my spray bar has two sections. I am only using one. so if i did it horizontal I can get two directions to reduce dead spots. I just wish I could figure out why this BGA is coming back, I mean I cleaned as much of it as i could. and clean all the dead plant matter out of it. that it had killed. So we will keep doing daily water changes until i get the Nitrite back to normal. and get the BGA under control.