Ok I have a 55 gallon with 4 goldfish: 3 three inchers (Fatty may be more like four ) and a 1 to 1 1/2 incher. The tank has been running since the beginning of July. I have a cheap Aqua tech filter (hoping very soon to get a Penguin) that has bio spongey things that are collecting gunky stuff. I haven't had any nitrates or nitrite readings but have posted previously about some ammo. issues. Tonight I came home checked on the pack and checked my water levels and boy howdy do I have some Nitrites and some Nitrates! The strip turned hot pink just on touching the water which struck me as odd because just the week before I had nothing. I have been adding Amquel at regular intervals waiting 24hrs between and all to get the Ammonia down and it's worked I have .25 instead of the much higher levels I had previously. Anyway I did a through vaccuming/ water change as that's all I know to do. My fish seem fine no changes in behavior or apperance etc.. Is there anything else I can do to help them out? I feel so bad that their water is all wonky it seems to have happened so suddenly. How many gallons should I be changing to effect the water levels? I did about 7 gallons tonight but am not sure that was right. I know it's around 25% but numbers are not my friend and I can't do the math (sad but very true but hey that's why I'm in the art school and not the Math school)

welcome to the nitrIte phase of cycling.

Add salt at 1 teaspoon per gallon of water. Pre-dissolve in tank water and make sure it disperses well when you add it. You can use non-iodized table salt as long as it doesn't contain yellow prussiate of soda. Rock salt is cheap and works well. NitrIte is toxic. It enters thru the gills and binds up the red blood cells keeping them from being able to carry oxygen. Salt helps protect against nitrIte poisoning because it competes with nitrIte for uptake thru the gills. After you get it salted, when you do partial water changes just add 1 tsp of salt per gallon changed till nitrItes come down to 0, then you can skip adding any more salt. Your partial water changes will then remove it over time.

I wish I had seen this earlier I just did another water change and added some amquel plus is it ok to use salt and amquel together? Also salt kinda scares me the girl at my LFS said it may kill my goldfish but I know the high nitrites will. Have you ever had a salting castatrophe? It seriously worries me but like I said so do the Nitrites.

Okay just did another water test and still dangerously high amounts of NitrItes and NitrAtes , no ammo, moderately hard water, low alkalinty and my Ph has fallen. Narg! but isn't a lower ph better for a cycling tank cause it makes nitrItes less posionious or am I just dreaming?

im scared about high nitrite and nitrates because iam also cycling m tank. today is my eleventh day. in what day did the high nitrite and nitrate come up? and i think low Ph is good for high ammonia levels.. not nitrite

I have had my tank running for over a month before I saw any levels they just popped up yesterday which was around 6 weeks after my tank was set up but because my fish are small compared to the water volume it took forever for the tank to start cycling. And darn it I had a sneaking feeling that it was ammo. not nitrites that a low ph was better for. Good luck with your cycle gollie!

thnx goodluck with yours too!

Ok so I added salt to my tank at one tablespoon per ten gallons as the guy at the awesome LFS told me to but the box of salt says one tablespoon for every five gallons. So confused. What do you guys think? follow the box or the guy? I already did his instructions but for future reference...

I have seen two ways of calculating how much salt to add to a tank. As Betty (Dataguru) told you in a previous post, 1 teaspoon for every gallon; and as was written on your box of salt (and mine too!) 1 tablespoon for every 5 gallons. Both of these will give you about 0.1% salt in your tank. Your lfs told you to do half of that, which is ok, but might not sufficiently protect your fish against nitrite poisoning during cycling.

I would recommend the 1 teaspoon per gallon because it is easier to calculate the replacement salt when you do partial water changes. If you do a 20% water change on your 55 gallon tank, that would be removing 11 gallons of water. When you add the fresh 11 gallons, you need to put 11 teaspoons of salt back in. Much easier than trying to deal with fractions of tablespoons for each 5 gallons.

Hope this helps. I have done many water changes and replaced the salt waiting for the nitrites to go down!

Again so helpful Becky! Thank you, thank you!

So how's it going?
Salt and amquel+ are fine together.

Could you post your water test readings?

Thus far my readings are better at: Nitrates 80 Nitrites are 5 Alkalintiy 120 Hardness moderate and ph is 7.0 this is a lot better than is was before. Still doing water changes and adding salt and amquel and praying.

With nitrites at 5 and nitrates at 80 I would think you'd want to step up the water changes (more gallons changed per water exchange and also more frequently). I know that's a lot of water to lug around but it really does help alot!! I jsut finished cycling and my nitrites spiked between 4 and 5 and then went down to 2.0 and stayed there for over a week. It seemed to be affecting my goldies. So I took the advice given to me on this forum and started doing 50% water changes every day (sometimes twice a day!) and that really brought the nitrites down. The water changes took it down to 0.5 within a day or two!! Then it was another week or so and the nitrites were down to 0.

Hope the cycling goes well. It seems to take forever but it will end eventually!!

Just in case y'all didn't see my other post my tank finally cycled and I bought another filter to go on the other end so yipee! I can breathe easier now! Thanks for all the great help!

Congratulations!

What relief!! Woo hoo!!

That is great! Now you can relax (kind of) and enjoy!