Product for reducing nitrite?

[ReeferDad93]

I know there is lots of conflicting information as to whether or not nitrite has an adverse effect on fish livelihood. I am currently cycling a Waterbox 50.3 after about 18 days my ammonia read 0 on my Red Sea test but still registering high nitrites. (Nitrate around 25/30) I dosed 2 250 ml bottles of Brightwell MicroBacter XLM. (Maybe this was the problem). Did a 50% water change yesterday and I am still at 2ppm nitrite. My questions are:
a. Is there a product I can dose to get the nitrite down? Or
b. Do I just do a 100% water change?

 

[131696]

Leave tank alone forget about it for a month ,be patient don't add nothing Tank not finish cycling. Addictives don't help,learn to be patient 1st step in reefing

 

[ReeferDad93]

Leave tank alone forget about it for a month ,be patient don't add nothing Tank not finish cycling. Addictives don't help,learn to be patient 1st step in reefing

That was my third thought. Read a lot about the bacteria building slowly. In the back of my mind I know that they don’t have time to keep up with fighting the waste but my concern is that with the absence of ammonia (so no real waste) will the nitrite kill the bacteria and thus the cycle if they can’t keep up with it?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I know there is lots of conflicting information as to whether or not nitrite has an adverse effect on fish livelihood. I am currently cycling a Waterbox 50.3 after about 18 days my ammonia read 0 on my Red Sea test but still registering high nitrites. (Nitrate around 25/30) I dosed 2 250 ml bottles of Brightwell MicroBacter XLM. (Maybe this was the problem). Did a 50% water change yesterday and I am still at 2ppm nitrite. My questions are:
a. Is there a product I can dose to get the nitrite down? Or
b. Do I just do a 100% water change?

Coca Cola!

Im on my phone and can’t link it for you but Google the 2019 edition of Drum and Croaker. In it, Barrett Christie has an article about stuck nitrification. Turns out phosphorus can be limiting. Adding Coca Cola supplies phosphoric acid and carbon in roughly the right amounts. I actually used his method when I established exhibits in a new public aquarium back in 2014 and it works!
Jay

p.s. - nitrite is just not toxic to marine fish at any level you will encounter under non-spiked systems.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I know there is lots of conflicting information as to whether or not nitrite has an adverse effect on fish livelihood.

There may be conflicting "opinions", but there are no conflicting facts. No data that I have seen shows 2 ppm nitrite hurts marine fish.

 

[BanjoBandito]

Coca Cola!

Im on my phone and can’t link it for you but Google the 2019 edition of Drum and Croaker. In it, Barrett Christie has an article about stuck nitrification. Turns out phosphorus can be limiting. Adding Coca Cola supplies phosphoric acid and carbon in roughly the right amounts. I actually used his method when I established exhibits in a new public aquarium back in 2014 and it works!
Jay

p.s. - nitrite is just not toxic to marine fish at any level you will encounter under non-spiked systems.

hahahaha, learn something new everyday! Thanks Jay!

 

[WVNed]

The correct answer
2 is nothing to worry about at all

 

[ReeferDad93]

There may be conflicting "opinions", but there are no conflicting facts. No data that I have seen shows 2 ppm nitrite hurts marine fish.

Is there any info on nitrite killing off bacteria if it can’t Generate fast enough?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Is there any info on nitrite killing off bacteria if it can’t Generate fast enough?

I've not seen any data on toxicity of nitrite to bacteria in seawater. I'd be surprised if it happened at levels below where fish show toxicity (way above 2 ppm).

 

[Koty]

How to treat Nitrite: Ultra-pure chemical grade Patience.
I started with AF rockes and indeed my cycle did not start untill I introduced phosphate (on top of NH4Cl)

 

[ReeferDad93]

How to treat Nitrite: Ultra-pure chemical grade Patience.
I started with AF rockes and indeed my cycle did not start untill I introduced phosphate (on top of NH4Cl)

I did go to my LFS and pick up a bottle of MicroBacter 7 and NeoPhos.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Coca Cola!

Im on my phone and can’t link it for you but Google the 2019 edition of Drum and Croaker. In it, Barrett Christie has an article about stuck nitrification. Turns out phosphorus can be limiting. Adding Coca Cola supplies phosphoric acid and carbon in roughly the right amounts. I actually used his method when I established exhibits in a new public aquarium back in 2014 and it works!
Jay

p.s. - nitrite is just not toxic to marine fish at any level you will encounter under non-spiked systems.

Turns out I had written a truncated version of Barrett's method up for Coral Magazine after we used to to cycle a sea nettle exhibit:

Establishing a bio-filter for sea jellies requires a slightly different technique than most home aquarists employ. First, it is advisable to use an inorganic source for ammonia as opposed to using hardy animals to produce the ammonia as is often done. Secondly, the classic nitrogen cycle progresses very slowly at the typical 55 degree F. operating temperature these jellies are held at. Our process was to operate the system at 70 degrees F. during cycling, and then gradually reduce the system temperature after the process had concluded. We inoculated the system with a small amount of bacteria from a previously cycled system. We then added 1.4 grams of ammonium chloride and 66 milliliters of cola per 100 gallons of tank volume every 24 to 48 hours. Yes, you read that correctly, we used soda as an adjunct to the ammonia source. This idea was developed by Barrett Christie, curator of the Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park. He will be developing a paper on the technique, but the basics of it seem to be that the cola supplies a carbon source (sugar) and phosphorus (as phosphoric acid) in approximately the correct ratio to cost effectively support the needs of the nitrifying bacteria. We cycled all of our systems using his method and it seemed to allow us to cycle quite a bit faster, with very stable systems being produced.

Jay

 

[Dennis Cartier]

But will it work with Pepsi?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

But will it work with Pepsi?

Not sure, but we did determine that using Mountain Dew caused the bacteria to stay up all night playing video games….

Jay

p.s. Barrett has a wicked sense of humor. He once wrote a paper on feeding moon jellies peanut butter just so he could use the title “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” (a Family Guy reference)….

 

[mcgullen]

Coca Cola!

Im on my phone and can’t link it for you but Google the 2019 edition of Drum and Croaker. In it, Barrett Christie has an article about stuck nitrification. Turns out phosphorus can be limiting. Adding Coca Cola supplies phosphoric acid and carbon in roughly the right amounts. I actually used his method when I established exhibits in a new public aquarium back in 2014 and it works!
Jay

p.s. - nitrite is just not toxic to marine fish at any level you will encounter under non-spiked systems.

Here is a link for further readers: http://drumandcroaker.org/pdf/2019.pdf

 

[brandon429]

that was a good read. it is a little out of alignment with todays cycling trends however, specifically: what reef forums are doing regarding nitrite.

search out any posts Randy has made on nitrite in display tank reefing, compare it to the highly detailed design there in that print to render nitrite neutral

we didn't need a detailed way to control nitrite in a marine quick filter setup.



see the first few paragraphs of the writeup on page 50: he labels the nitrite cycle as if it's consequential at marine salinities. those animals mentioned for saltwater tanks or zoo exhibits don't need nitrite cycling.

"potential deficiencies or problems with the biofilter." <--that's due to nitrite noncontrol, not noncontrol of nh3 which is the only factor that matters in marine tank cycling. they still hit the normal expected timeframe for that data point.


additionally:

in a standout pattern I'm seeing across studies (see Taricha's various threads as well) look at the initial ammonia drop being greatest on day 11 on that data from the article link.

what date on a 40 year old cycling chart does ammonia show to drop? just after day ten. their drop was on day 11. that's impressive.

impressive for the chart already existing before he proved it again in the data shown in the article... the ammonia data there is savory because it confirms what we've already been using in updated cycling science for marine aquariums. ignore nitrite, make any common effort at fostering ammonia control and by day ten it'll all work out fine. day 11 in that case above

*so it's not that coca cola did anything faster than we do here with skip cycles, or testless cycles which get any tank ready by a known need date. it's that he added another spoke to the wheel already in place.

you can do the same thing with fish food, there are hundreds of examples available online. the coke did nothing special

when we read above about them needing to redo the public aquarium and have a known ready biofilter for their delicate shark and rays display...a call to fritz company to order several gallons of fritz 9 would have done it, they could have input the sharks day 1 with the bottled bac scaled up correctly like we do here with two clowns.

we have ways of getting what they want much simpler, faster even than they did (we routinely build skip cycle reefs that control nh3 on day 1, not day 11)

what would have impressed me with that data above: if they were able to earn ammonia control faster than the charts show. they didn't. it's the only aspect of their biofilter design that mattered *other than total surface area* and flow channeling designs core to the tanks the fish were in.

 

[brandon429]

I think the revelation that nitrite isn't a big deal in marine tank cycling is the rare info. I never knew that before reading Randy's article a while back.

 

[brandon429]

I went back and reread that article again, they used multiple mixes of bottle bac, charted an ammonia drop within the known timeframes, and still considered themselves stalled/useless biofilter

I thought that just happened on reef boards from web posters.

I wanted to verify how they got bacteria into the emergency holding tanks.

clip from the article:
"During the renovation of the historic Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park in 2009-2010, aquaristswere placed in a similar predicament as the rigors of construction led to the time reserved forcycling and stocking of exhibits being constrained to a miniscule period. Two of the largestexhibits, a 220,000-liter shark tank and a 34,000-liter stingray touch tank were among the first tobegin cycling with multiple doses of bacterial inoculum from multiple manufacturers, but evenafter 40+ days the biofilters of both remained unable to effectively process nitrite (measured asNO2-) to levels safe for teleost fishes. During this time, additional cultures of NOB were added,temperature was elevated, and diligent additions of inorganic carbon were made, though thebiofilters were stalled and unable to complete cycling in the constrained timeframe. During thisperiod the authors received communications from colleagues and microbiologists that eachsuggested potential deficiencies or problems with the biofilter."

that means even phd's who run zoo exhibits are using 20 year outdated cycling methods. that's astounding to me.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I went back and reread that article again, they used multiple mixes of bottle bac, charted an ammonia drop within the known timeframes, and still considered themselves stalled/useless biofilter

I thought that just happened on reef boards from web posters.

I wanted to verify how they got bacteria into the emergency holding tanks.

clip from the article:
"During the renovation of the historic Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park in 2009-2010, aquaristswere placed in a similar predicament as the rigors of construction led to the time reserved forcycling and stocking of exhibits being constrained to a miniscule period. Two of the largestexhibits, a 220,000-liter shark tank and a 34,000-liter stingray touch tank were among the first tobegin cycling with multiple doses of bacterial inoculum from multiple manufacturers, but evenafter 40+ days the biofilters of both remained unable to effectively process nitrite (measured asNO2-) to levels safe for teleost fishes. During this time, additional cultures of NOB were added,temperature was elevated, and diligent additions of inorganic carbon were made, though thebiofilters were stalled and unable to complete cycling in the constrained timeframe. During thisperiod the authors received communications from colleagues and microbiologists that eachsuggested potential deficiencies or problems with the biofilter."

that means even phd's who run zoo exhibits are using 20 year outdated cycling methods. that's astounding to me.

Actually, the cycling method described is still current - it isn't for reef though, just high density fish exhibits.

Jay