high nitrites

[saltwater4me]

Hi, my f/o tank has been set up for about 5 months. All the nitrites and nitrates were perfect. But I have just tested it many times and it was high!All my fish are doing good, they are acting normal.I have not overfed or anything like that.Please tell me any way to lower the nitrites beside not feeding as much as usual.

 

[slk3599]

How high is high? You aren't giving us much to go on here. What type of substrate to do you have? What type of filtration are you using - power filter, cannister, wet/dry? Are you using a skimmer?
There are several ways to export nitrates from your tank...
1. Water changes - once a week for several weeks. Cleaning any foam filters from cannister once a week. But unless you figure out what you're doing to elevate the nitrates, the same problem will happen over and over.
2. Grow nitrate consuming plants like good algaes - Caulerpa
3. Convert cc bed to a 4-5" sand bed and get 1 - 1.5 lbs of live rock per gallon of water. Crushed coral traps detrius which converts to nitrates.
4. Get a skimmer - this will remove proteins from the water before they can turn to nitrates.

 

[kappadoku]

I might add that some additives can give you falsely high nitrites and nitrates, specifically, Weiss products. Are you adding any reef vital DNA or bactervital or any other additives?

 

[bekritsky]

You might want to test it again. Sometimes I've gotten an off the wall reading, then I went back and tested it again and it came out normal. If it's still high, the best way is to do water changes until it's down to normal and looking into a protein skimmer to keep it under control.

 

[jbird0824]

Hi i use stress zyme in my tank. I put it in every week for high level of nitrates, and other things to. and i only feed my fish once a day. get some stress zyme it levels those things out. Hope this helps

 

[i3luedragon]

I had the same problem in the beginning, but I got some LR from here and my 5-8 ppm in nitrites and ammonia went down. My nitrates then went down during the week. Although, my nitrites and ammonia went down in two hours. So you might want to try LR.