pretty simple question..

[hvc801]

Hello everyone. New to the forum and the hobby as well. I have a 30 gallon tank with live plants and 10 fish (2 dwarf gourami, 2 giant gouramis, 2 black ruby barbs and 1 tiger.. catfish, and two pleco algae eaters) The tank has been running for about 3 weeks now and i keep constant readings and ever since about two days ago the nitrite level went from none to about 4.0ppm and the nitrate as well has gone up a little. I went to the pet store and had spoken with the gentleman there about it and he did not recommend me doing a 25% partial water change due to my tank needs to develope bacteria, and that the nitrite level will gradually get lower and back down to zero once the tank has completed its enitial cycle. I was just wondering if this information is true. I've been reading some posts on the forums about high nitrite but i havent seen anything about a new up-running tank with fish and all in it. By the way, I did not cycle the tank pre-fish. Any help or information is highly appriciated. Also i was woundering when i should actually start doing the 25% partial water changes? Thanks a lot guys.

[emc7]

My feeling is to change water whenever any reading exceeds the "safe" level. If you let it climb too high you will get dead fish. People act like changing a little water will stop the cycling process, but most of your bacteria are in the filter, not the water. You need to leave some nitrite for the bacteria to eat, but if you are going to 'cycle with fish' then you really don't want to kill the fish.

[Chrispy]

well since the fish are already in there what your problem is is the bacteria. your tank is cycling now with the fish in it. so....... wow. read up on cycling your fish tank, i assume your going to to a fish cycle. i dont know the link of the top of my head, but someone will post it. there is a long thread here about cycling. keep up the water changes as always. if you happen to have any old fish tank stuff that you can throw in it would help or if anyone you know has a fish tank up and running that you could steel the filter from and plop it in your tank. 3 weeks means your in the middle or near the later part of cycling.

[hvc801]

so I should do I 25% water change to dilute the nitrite levels? I remember hearing something about them selling bacteria in a bottle, if I add that t my tank would it be good to lower the nitrite levels? another thing is aquarium salt. I have heard by adding a little of that it creates minute chlorine levels to help lower the nitrite levels as well as giving the fis electrolytes?

[TheOldSalt]

Salt does render nitrite safe, so it's an option, but it will interfere with your cycling.
emc7 said it best. Your bacteria are in your filter, so you can change water and not get rid of them. They may grow slower without any food, but they'll get more food.

Seachem's "Stability" or Marineland's "BioSpira" work very well for cycling your tank in a VERY short time. Those are the only two products readily available in America that will do the job. There are many other such products available, but they either don't work at all or only work so slowly that you may as well not bother using them, and most of them have the wrong species of bacteria in them anyway.

[hvc801]

and using seachems stability or marinelands biospira wont do any harm to the fish already in my tank? because if thats the case i will probably go purchase some tonight for the saftey of my fish lol. Thanks for all the help guys, greatly appriciated.

[emc7]

both stability and biospira are safe to fish.

[hvc801]

Okay I Had went out and purchased the stability and had added it to my tank (followed instructions on the label). This is the third day of using the product, for it says that i should use it for 7 days after initial treatment. The tanks nitrite levels are still extremly high, looks about 9.0-10.0 on the test strip, and im pretty worried about that. Is there anything I can do to perhaps lower the nitrite levels safley without harming the cycle for the safty of my fish??

p.s. - It says on the bottle of stability that I had to turn off my Light. Is that only for the initial treatment, or for the whole week leave the light off? I do have a window in my room that gives off sufficiant light during the day, but can i put the light on when it starts to get dark in the room?