# Help dealing with a nitrite spike plz



## Captain D' (Apr 27, 2014)

I could really use some advice here...

I setup up a 65gallon aquarium a little over a week ago and added 6 yellow lab cichlids. i did one 25% water change a week later then added 6 more fish (3 clown loaches, a pleco, and 2 lemon jake cichlids). I noticed the fish acting a bit funny, did a water test and found my nitrites were a bit high. I then did a 50% water change and all seems to be good. Now I'm just not sure what to expect? If my nitrites keep spiking do I just continue to do water changes???

Any advice would be a huge help

Thank you


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

The short answer is yes, you will have to keep up with the water changes. How big is the spike and how big are the fish? Did you start the filter from scratch or did you have some active bio media?


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## Captain D' (Apr 27, 2014)

The spike was .5 to 1.0 its hard to tell on the test strip. The yellow labs are between 1.5" and 2" Lemon Jakes 1.5", and the clown loaches are 2.5" I started the bio filter from scratch i just setup a new tank and filter and put the 6 yellow labs in.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Sounds like you're just going through the cycle. This is a typical newbie mistake, new tank setups need to be cycled before you can add fish to it.

Don't feel too bad though, almost all of us here made this mistake when we first started.

At this point, the best thing you can do is keep doing water changes to keep the nitrite levels low, and get yourself a cycled filter media ASAP!


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## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

I agree with everything posted above and I suggest you feed as little as possible for the next couple of weeks and don't add any more fish until your tank is 100% cycled.

If you don't know what the Nitrogen Cycle is please Google or search on this site and read as much as you can.

Best of luck with your new setup.
--
Paul


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## ameades (Feb 23, 2014)

If you are worried checkout a product called Prime. You can add it daily to protect your fish during initial cycling. Maybe some floating plants as well but I'm not sure about plants with cichlids.


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## Captain D' (Apr 27, 2014)

Any idea on how long this nitrite spike will last? I am getting low reading of nitrates and its been about 5days of hi nitrite levels. This fish are definitely stressed and I lost a clown loach today. I also bought some prime and added it after a water change. I have been doing a lot of water changes, usually 50% and sometimes more than one a day.


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## ameades (Feb 23, 2014)

The last time I went through I believe it lasted about a week. That was on a 35 G tank. Too frequent water changes may actually prolong the process a bit. I would just keep adding Prime daily and worry less about changing the water so often. Once the nitrites drop you will notice the nitrates start to spike. For me this lasted a couple weeks before nitrates dropped.


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## jimmyjam (Nov 6, 2007)

Add some floaters, or high nitrate sucking plants like jungle vals will do the trick


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Unfortunately, you may lose more, very possibly all, of these fish. They would have been exposed first to ammonia, which is what their waste becomes, which is then converted to nitrite, which is only very slightly less toxic than ammonia is.

Both burn their gills, burn their skin and damage organs later on. Keeping the levels below .25 is the only way to keep fish from being harmed and yours was much higher than that.
If fish do survive in the short term, they will not likely live very long afterward. Just long enough so you think they're ok and then they'll go. Ammonia poisoning is the most common cause of death in fish.

I'm so sorry you had to learn this the hard way, but it's true, a lot of us learned it this way too. Make sure you have a fully cycled tank before you buy any more fish, and then only add a few fish per week, until you have what you want. The beneficial bacteria [BB] that convert ammonia and nitrite are rather slow to grow, so they need some time to grow to handle the waste from more fish.

Leaving a week or more between additions of a few fish let the filter BB grow to accommodate the extra bio load. Using Prime to bind ammonia is not a good way to handle it either, but it's one of the best dechlorinators around, so well worth using to treat tap water.

There are special filter media available that use resins to absorb ammonia, which can be a short term fix in an emergency, to save fish, but when you're cycling, using these will only prolong the cycle.


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## jamie (Feb 20, 2013)

if you can make your way to vp and eglinton I can give you some duckweed and frogbit plus some used filter floss to help get your cycle going asap


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

getting some used media is the most important thing. There should be lots of people willing to give you some, just say where you are.

Keep up with the water changes to minimize levels.

Like others have said, almost all of us have made this mistake starting out. We wish we had read this forum before starting but ended up finding this forum after having problems.

A liquid test kit is one of the best investments you can make.

As Fishfur said, you will probably lose some of the fish you have or they will have a shorter life.

It is all part of the learning process but there are many people here who are more than willing to help with advice. I have learned so much over the years from these great people.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 7, 2014)

tetra safe start and atm colony either of these will help you speed up your cycle by weeks. basically a jump start of live nitrifying bacteria. If you do use it it must be used correctly to work. Otherwise the above advise is solid.

water changes will need to be big and often, cut back on feeding to once every 3 days or more. worse to feed and get toxic levels of ammonia and nitrites rather than cut back on food. fish can go a week easy without food.


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