Nitrite Spike After Large Water Change

[Dan13]

Hey Guys,

I have had a problem with Bryopsis or GHA (not sure which one), and so I seeked advice from my LFS. They advised me to remove 30%-40% of my water (38G), remove and scrub every rock, remove and clean all my coral, scrub my jets, empty my skimmer, place it all back in the tank, and then add the new 30%-40% water. This took me 6 gruelling hours, but the results of the tank (visibly) look fantastic and well worth the trouble. This was all done on Wednesday evening.

My problem however is that yesterday (Thursday) my water was cloudy all day. I expected it to be cloudy as I had mixed my sand about as well so guessed that it was just all settling down. I let it be as I assumed it was just the tank settling, but this morning when I walked into the lounge I could smell a strong smell. The water does not smell terrible, but there is a definite scent to it. I ran all of my tests (I have been told I should run them during the day around the same time when the lights are on, however I could not wait for this), and these were my findings:

Temperature 27
pH 8.0
Alkalinity 9.5
Ammonia 0
Nitrite >1
Nitrate 20
Calcium 440
Magnesium 1480
Phosphate 0.1

My Nitrite has gone through the roof. It was zero last week as it should be, but its now higher than my test spectrum goes (Red Sea Marine Care) which is 1ppm.

My guess now (and this is just a guess), is that my removing of everything and scrubbing has started a mini cycle.

Questions are;

1) Do you think it is a mini cycle?
2) How long do you think it will last?
3) Will this kill my fish, inverts, coral and anemone?
4) Is there a way of speeding it up?

Cheers guys.

 

[TheEngineer]

Your assumption is right. You caused a mini cycle. That’s a lot of change at once. So long as your ammonia stays at zero I wouldn’t be horribly concerned. You could add a bacteria in a bottle product to help.

 

[brandon429]

Nitrite doesn't factor in reefing, lucky you




What if we made a 12 page thread solely and completely about your issue?

Sounds like they recommended what comes from the sand rinse thread, that nitrite is the liberated proteins from the sandbed mid rot being cast back into oxygenated areas after your cleaning to continue breakdown much faster.

The sand needed to be rinsed to total perfection outside the tank before you refilled to avoid the issue, ideally, but since your ammonia is zero that's all that matters, the mini cycle is solely an ammonia event, nitrite testing isn't required in reefing, owning the kit is not needed.

You are now linked to the sand rinse thread can you post a pre and post work tank shot for us to see

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445


As you can see, the steps you took are ideal but you didn't take -enough- steps ironically, more work on top of what you did was needed to avoid that upwelling event, but it's really hard work to also make a large tank sandbed pass a drop test, thankfully your proteins upwelled were pretty much already reduced or this would have been a killer ammonia event

As crazy as this sounds (without the twelve pages I could be drummed out of town lol) what would have prevented your issue was to rinse your entire sandbed in tap water until it runs clear and cloudless, no proteins, and then a final rinse in saltwater to evacuate the tap (doesn't kill bac it just removes the source of mini cycles

I cannot count the number of times my 12 yr old reef got tap rinsed, a hundred times maybe dunno, I documented two or three of them there and I have a six inch deep sandbed inside only one gallon

 

[Dan13]

@TheEngineer Thanks for your reply buddy. Glad that it is not lethal. I am debating popping out on my lunch break to get some bacteria in a bottle.

@brandon429 Wow, what a thread! Have not seen that one on here before, but really appreciate your thread, time spent on it, and also directing the members on how best to approach everything. So my LFS were so close in getting it all right! I would have never thought about removing all of my sand and cleaning it, then putting it back in again. As I did not take my fish/inverts out, I did not think of taking the sand out. Figure it would be too much of a challenge to take out 30KG of sand with everything in there, rinse it and replace it!?

You still want a pre and post work tank shot, even though I have not rinsed the sand?

Very happy that this is not a killer event though (provided you guys are correct).

 

[brandon429]

Yes it's a very helpful shot anyway and I bet by the end of today the clouding settles even better due to floc aggregation and settling

We like to collect every aspect of bed dives even if they're a little cloudy as the final shots just so different people running the work can make comparisons with their tank afterwards thanks tons for posting all the great detail

 

[Oldsalt01]

If the cloudiness doesn't settle out you may have a bacterial bloom going on. Add an air stone for a couple of days and the added air should resolve this, as the bacteria will lower disolved O2 levels.

 

[cooltowncorals]

Microbactor7 has worked well for me for cycling and maintaining low nutrients. Pretty cheap as well. As a added step you could spray your rocks with hydrogen peroxide after you scrub them. Or hit spots as they start to grow back. now that you have cleaned your tank try and find your source of nutrients to keep the algae from coming back. Google H2O2 dosing reef tank look for thread in R2R maybe consider carbon dosing.

 

[cooltowncorals]

The hydrogen peroxide will keep the algae from growing back for longer. If you end up thinking it is bryopsis look for fluconizole (spelling wrong) there is a thread in that as well.

 

[Dan13]

Thanks for the replies.....Some of these things are tough for me to get, like Fluconazole. I live in Austria, and something like Fluconazole is not allowed to be sold here!

My anxiety has just got a little worse about all of this. Sitting there looking at my tank and thinking to myself "well it's still a bit cloudy but I do think it is getting better", when I notice that my Blood Red Fire Shrimp is just sitting there still as anything on the sand bed. Tapped the glass and he wasn't moving his legs, body, just the little bits around his mouth (I have no idea what to call them haha). I have pulled him out and put him in my quarantine tank. He is still moving slightly every now and then, but is barely moving at all. Was laying on his back for a bit.

 

[EmptyWallet]

Definitely don't have to worry about nitrites in saltwater, not toxic until hundreds of ppm

 

[Dan13]

Any reason after seeing my parameters there, why my fire shrimp would kick the bucket?!

 

[cooltowncorals]

Was he molting? If not could be shock from parameters swing did anything else go crazy like alk or ph?

 

[brandon429]

The ammonia shock that preceded the nitrite could easily be it

The reason the ammonia doesn’t hang around to be measured is thankfully the upwelling event didn’t release a lot, and, of all the metabolic conpounds associated with waste ammonia is in HIGH demand in a reef tank (a cycled one) such that it’s oxidized likely within half an hour if not too much


The upwelling event wasn’t pure ammonia, then took time to become residual nitrite, it was a mix of proteins from non aerobic zones being liberated and the whole cloud was a mix of ammonia, trite and trate. Those lysmata are very sensitive we list them in the peroxide threads as number one weakest animal we keep in terms of sensitivity to changes

 

[brandon429]

If there was any animal that could find sensitivity in nitrite despite massive amnts of chloride protecting things in a reef a lysmata could find a way

# of times a molt tricked me in reefing= two hundred ten

Each time I was sure the boxer crab died it crawled out from a rock two weeks later heh