High Nitrites, what should I do?

[Snowman]

Hey everyone, so I have a situation. I dont know if I should let time handle it or not. Since May 6 I have had a spike in nitrites only not much nitrates. Since then this has gone up very high. It started at a .2 ppm on May 6 to a 5 ppm as of today. It has been at 5 for about a week.everything in my tank seems to be ok, my 2 clowns are acting normal and eating and playing, and the few corals I have are also doing very well. I don't know how to bring the nitrites down. I just went through a diatom bloom for two weeks and it is finally dying down and is now turning to green algae. I have a few astrea snails in the tank as well that are doing ok. Any advice as to what I should do? My LFS guy says that it will even out and not to worry but IDK. Should I worry? Thoughts? My ammonia is at 0, ph at 8.0, nitrates at 20 ppm.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Daniel92481]

How big is your tank? Have you done a water change?

 

[Snowman]

my tank is a 45 gallon cube

 

[CNDReef]

How long has the tank been setup?
Nitrites going up means you overloaded your biological filter somehow but ammonia would have spiked as well.
Sure the test kit is good?

 

[Snowman]

So i switched my test kit to the red sea reef kit from API. I was using API at first. Even the LFS tests come back the same. The tank has been up for 6 weeks

 

[CNDReef]

It’s fairly new , at this point I’d just give it time and not add anything else for a couple of weeks. As long as you don’t see ammonia you’re ok.

 

[Daniel92481]

Do you do regular water changes? I would consider doing one and adding some nitrifying bacteria.

 

[Snowman]

I have not attempted that yet. I was going to do it this weekend. I have a complete kit of aquaforest sea salt, life bio fil, NP Pro and pro bio s, I already have the life bio fil, in my filter running. Which has nitrifying bac in it. I just put that in the filter sock on sunday night.

 

[manilaboy1vic]

i would think water changes would help you, doesnt seem like your tank is fully cycled.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Aside from making sure there are no dead organisms in the tank, I'd just ignore it. Nitrite is not toxic in marine systems. But the bacteria are fine to add if you want.

That said, I might not add any more organisms until it declines.

 

[Snowman]

Aside from making sure there are no dead organisms in the tank, I'd just ignore it. Nitrite is not toxic in marine systems. But the bacteria are fine to add if you want.

That said, I might not add any more organisms until it declines.

Thank you Randy. I do not plan on adding anything anytime soon.

I appreciate everyone's suggestions as well. I will consider the water change this weekend and see if that drops it a bit.

 

[Neo Jeo]

I was told not to do water change until Ammonia and Nitrites were at 0 and Nitrates were present, then do a water change. Your tank is just going through the emotions, all is normal I would say. Add some bacteria!

 

[beaslbob]

Betcha nitrItes will drop down in a few days if you suspend feedings until they drop down.

my .02

 

[Snowman]

Betcha nitrItes will drop down in a few days if you suspend feedings until they drop down.

my .02

I didn't think about that I will def do the no feeding and see if that helps. Thank you.

 

[Snowman]

Hi everyone, just wanted to give you all an update. So on wednesday I decided to make sure that all my snails were alive and low and behold about 10 of the 20 i had were dead and decomposing in the water. I removed them all, and by yesterday my nitrites dropped dramatically, and today I just tested the water and they are even lower.

Now my next question is how often should a water change be done? I'm going to make my own salt water I have the salt, just curious as to how often this change in water should be done?

 

[TRock]

Aside from making sure there are no dead organisms in the tank, I'd just ignore it. Nitrite is not toxic in marine systems. But the bacteria are fine to add if you want.

That said, I might not add any more organisms until it declines.

Randy, are you sure on this?
I was under the assumption that nitrite was pretty close to as bad as ammonia. Nitrate is the lesser of the three evils by a long shot.

 

[Cyricdark]

Randy, are you sure on this?
I was under the assumption that nitrite was pretty close to as bad as ammonia. Nitrate is the lesser of the three evils by a long shot.

Nitrites are highly toxic in FRESHWATER systems, and barely toxic at all in Marine saltwater systems, it takes a very high amount of nitrites to be toxic in Marine systems, like over 150ppm . I bet Randy is pretty sure since he wrote this article back in 2005 lol http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

 

[TRock]

Nitrites are highly toxic in FRESHWATER systems, and barely toxic at all in Marine saltwater systems, it takes a very high amount of nitrites to be toxic in Marine systems, like over 150ppm . I bet Randy is pretty sure since he wrote this article back in 2005 lol http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

Thanks!
Yeah my career background is in freshwater biology So this explanation makes perfect sense.