its been nearly two week now and cant get it down, its about 4ppm, doing day 20% water changes, but no luck, got 2900 lph filters, i have 2 large fancys, dont want them to die, any advise

:monkey do at least a 50% water change every day if needed :goldfish

Yica!

I have seen people place links here in messages to send you to other threads...but I dont know how so.... please go to disease/diagnosis forum. Search for a thread called Help! My fish keep sinking to the bottom. You will see there about a 2 week journey for me on HIGH NITRATES. I made one of my fish very sick. For that thread see... same forum...Rosie's Symptoms. There is tons of information pertaining to your problem on these threads. I received outstanding help from wonderful ppl here. I did HUGE water changes for 2 weeks. I also purchased a new filter and ran into cycling issues...

But the great news is..I got tons of help and my fish are back to 100% and so is my tank now!

thanks lisa will have a look at that, i have looked at one of my sponge filters and there are white balls forming around the sponge, can anyone tell me what they are? thanks yica

Yica

I am not sure if what you are seeing is a calcium (from water) or a salt (aquarium salt) residue (which should be harmless) or if you are describing something else.

I believe white spots on a fish indicate ick. I don't know about the white spots on your sponge filter....I think these are two separate issues...try posting about white spots on sponge filter and see who responds. I tried many different searches on white spots and sponge and filter and I got nothing back but just a search on white spots...generated alot of things about ick.

I don't know if ick starts out in your water and then makes the fish sick....but I'd move on that one just in case what you are seeing are the beginnings of something that will need your attention.

Keep me posted!

thanks again i will keep u posted lisa on this post

The white spots on the filter sponge are not ich as I have ever seen or heard of it described. This will take a big more looking into.

As far as the nitrites, I am assuming these are because your tank is halfway cycled. You have grown a wonderful colony of the first type of bacteria - the ones that process the ammonia into nitrite, but there are not enough or none of the second type of bacteria that process the nitrite into nitrate.

These second type of bacteria are kinda touchy sometimes, and it takes almost twice as long for them to get going as it does for the first type to take hold. This unfortunatly leads to exceedingly high nitrite values. There are a few chemicals out there that can reduce the nitrites to a degree, but they cannot do more than about 1ppm easily - and you would have to be dumping a $14.00 bottle in the tank every day or so!

Your best bet is to do water changes. Everyday. AS much as you need to do to keep the nitrites down. Salt can help a fish having to deal with high nitrites. I would try a .1% salt dilution - that is 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons dilution. When you change the water only add salt back in for the amount you took out. Change 5 gallons, only treat 5 gallons to put back in.

If you can heat up your tank to 78 - 80 degrees, it sometimes helps get those bacteria growing a little faster......

The biggest key here is WATER CHANGES. Every day if necessary.

Please let us know how you are doing. I shall see if I can find any suggestions as to the white spots on your sponge. Lisal suggested that there might be pictures.....

thanks daz its nice to be talking to one of the top experts on here, not to mention lisa, i wll keep u posted with whats going on, will also post u a picture of the filter if i can get ur email cause i cant post pics yet, time for bed in the uk now will post tomoz, thanks yica

oh and my tank is always at 77 degrees because of under water lights

My new tank has been running about 5 weeks and I am experiencing the same high nitrite problem. I have been doing 30% to 50% daily water changes and just today, I noticed that the nitrites started to decline. I'm hoping that means I'm reaching the end of the cycling process. I would recommend plenty of aeration and frequent water changes - at least once a day. Also, I have been using slightly less than 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt for each 5 gallons of water I replace. Good luck.

Yica! I am so very sorry...you must think I am completely retarded! I was reading your post b4 I left for work yesterday and at first glance I saw NitrAtes instead of NitrItes. I am SO glad I sent a PM to Daryl so she could look into the white spots on your filter thing...at least she caught the nitrItes....I'm really so sorry!

Quick lesson for me...PAY ATTN even if I'm in a hurry!

no probs lisa, they should call these nitrates and nitrites a different name, i always get them mixed up.