nitrite...help!!!!

[marcs4020]

I tested my water on december 1st and it contained the usual amount of nitrites, which was 0. When I tested the water again two weeks later my nitrites where greater than one. In this time period I only added one more fish which brings the total to 4. I have a flame angel, a royal gramma, and two percula clowns. The only other thing that I did diffrent in this time is include a new filtation substrate in my filter bag along with my activated carbon. It is a product called zeolite. This product claims to help reduce ammonia. As far as I can see I think that this product might be the cause of my increased nitrite levels because it is speeding up the nitrification process to fast. I was hoping that someone can give me some help. Also, when I relaized that the nitrites where high yesterday I did a water change and then another today with no avail in the levels.

 

[beth]

Hello, marcs. How old is your setup? Give some details about how you set your tank up? When you replace large volumes of filter media, you are basically throwing out a lot of your biological filter. That is why it is a very good idea to not rely upon just once source for biological filtrations.

 

[marcs4020]

Beth,
My tank has been up and running since September. I let the water condition all of September and October before I added the fish in mid November. I am using an undergravel filter with activated carbon as well as a regular hanging filter (Whisper 40) with carbon and zeolite. When I tested my water a little over a week ago it was right where it was supposed to be. The nitrites where at zero and now a week and a half later I'm getting readings of greater than one. The only change that has taken place is the introduction of zeolite. I change the filter media in both filters monthy, I use stress zyme one a week, stress coat during the monthly water changes when the fish where in the tank, and also try to minimise the amount of food that I feed them. The strange thing is though is that when my nitrites are greater then one my ammonia level was at .5. If you have any suggestions on how to bring down the nitrites, besides the constant water changes that the test kit recommends, that would be great. O yeah, I was thinking about buying Nitromax and thought that that might do the trick.
thanks a lot for the response,
Marcus

 

[dedwards]

I would be more worried about your ammonia than trites right now. How did you cycle your tank and was your ammonia and trites at 0 when you added fish? Did you have any inverts die or add any LR/LS to the tank recently?