Hi everyone,

I'm into my 24th day of cycling with my tank. I have a 20 gallon tank, water temp ranges from 76-78 degrees daily. Ammonia is FINALLY at 0, Nitrates are 20, Nitrites are 3.0, Ph is b/w 6.8-7.2, water hardness is 120, alkalinity is 80-120.

Nitrites just began to appear this past Wednesday (day 19 of cycling) - and have shot up to 3.0 every day. I'm doing 50% water changes twice a day - once in the AM and once in the PM. However, everytime I test my water, it's between 3.0-5.0. I use AmQuel Plus, and have added water conditioners with aloe, as well as 2 Tablespoons of aquarium salt to help my fish with the nitrites. Is there anything else that I can do to lower the nitrites? I know that a level of 2.0 is stressful, and I want to lower the nitrites even lower than 1.0 if that's even possible. Am I doing something wrong? What else can I do?

I just got done doing this myself, and the nitrite levels were the worst part of cycling by far for me.

I use Prime, so I'm not sure how the AmQuel+ works, but I believe you can use higher doses than normal to help detoxify the nitrites left in the tank.

With Prime I ended up using up to five times the normal dose to help keep it down low enough.

Just keep up with the water changes and try and get the nitrites down below 1.0. If you can manage it, do several 50% water changes in a row until they get down to a safe level... It's a lot of water, and will eat up your water conditioner and salt, but it'll get the nitrites down.

Other than that, there isn't much help I can offer you, maybe there is someone with a bit more experience that'll be able to help more.

But hang in there, eventually your cycle will come together.

Thanks for the advice L.E. Pirin - I wasn't sure how much of an "overdose" of the conditioner I was allowed to use. And you're right - the nitrites are by far the hardest to manage compared to ammonia!

Check out the label on your AmQuel+, it should give you a statement about how much you can safely use.

I know you can at least double and triple dose it without having problems, as I've heard others talking about it here on the forums.

So, I've had no luck with this. I test my water right after a 50-60% water change, and the nitrites read at about .5. So - I haven't tried doing a 2nd 50% immediately because the nitrites were lower. But...my readings 12 hours later are still back up to 3.0. You think I should try and do the 50% change anyways?

When my tank was shooting up that quickly, I ended up doing three 50% water changes a day, spaced about 8 hours apart, along with the higher dosages of conditioner in the fresh water.

I wish I could help more, but I have a quite limited experience, being still much of a newbie.

You've definitely helped - and you're so quick to respond - thanks so much! I think this is my fate, then, if you experienced the same thing. I will just have to suck it up and continue not having a life. It'll be worth it in the end - I just hope it's over soon. Thanks again!

You have goldfish,and expect to have a life?
No seriously,you're almost there so keep changing the water and hang in there.

ROFL

I want a shirt that has the nitrogen cycle depicted on it that says, "Cycling is my life."

Really it does get better, in my tank the Nitrites were *really* for about two weeks, and then all of a sudden they were just GONE. And when it is all over with, you can put away your buckets and aquarium salt and have a little party.

Pretty funny since my boyfriend yelled at me for declining to go away this weekend because of the fish/ammonia problem.

He said your whole life is revolving around those fish! I said nah its all about the water. Either way he wasn't amused...



I'd like one that says Ammonia is the Devil! Meanwhile your saying nitrogen is worse? Gods kill me now.

Nitrites were by far the worst part of my cycle. The Ammonia only took two weeks to get stabilized and once I realized I wasn't doing enough water changes and started treating my tap water with the right conditioner... it cleared up extremely quickly. The Nitrites on the other hand were HORRIBLE to deal with... they were rising much faster than the ammonia ever did and they are more dangerous as well, not to mention they lasted a *lot* longer.

Now that's my problem too - the nitrites rise so fast! Grr. And NOW I'm also dealing with an aggressive fish. I recently purchased a black moor, and she's been getting along great with my ryukin. Well, I noticed last night that the ryukin was chasing the moor around the tank. Then, today, I noticed my moor's fins are frayed! I put the moor in a hospital tank - I don't think she's gonna make it. She is just floating around lifeless, moving every now and then. I'm so confused - I didn't think that golfish could die from stress/frayed fins?!

God help ME now! I'm sick, and I laid down to take a nap. Anyways, when I woke up my moor was dead!

I'm going to post about this in the disease section. I don't know what could be going on. (i.e., is it the water, the aggression, a parasite?)