Nitrite Help

[jesusq]

I started to build a new tank and started from scratch around 3 months ago. I have dried rocks and dried sand.
I followed the Dr. Tim One and Only bacteria, and feeding a small amount of ammonia to keep the bacteria alive. I have never added any live goods to the tank yet. I also filtered my water with a 5 stage RODI BRS filter and am getting 0 DTS.
Testing, the ammonia soon started nitrate and then nitrite, and then the ammonia disappeared which I don’t quite understand, but while still feeding a small amount of ammonia as recommended, there was minimal traces of ammonia, yet Nitrite was off the scale. I had it tested by a LFS, and they recommended me to do about 30% water change, then a 50% water change and lastly a complete system rebuild. What I did was dried everything again, it’s been two weeks since the rocks and sand has been dried. Should I re-use the sand?

Anything I can do to make sure that the nitrite won’t spike and stay off the scale again?

[rage]

Testing, the ammonia soon started nitrate and then nitrite, and then the ammonia disappeared which I don’t quite understand, but while still feeding a small amount of ammonia as recommended, there was minimal traces of ammonia, yet Nitrite was off the scale. I had it tested by a LFS, and they recommended me to do about 30% water change, then a 50% water change and lastly a complete system rebuild. What I did was dried everything again, it’s been two weeks since the rocks and sand has been dried. Should I re-use the sand?

Anything I can do to make sure that the nitrite won’t spike and stay off the scale again?

You may have mixed up the term Nitrite and Nitrate.
When you perform a chemical test, Nitrite is the one that turns light blue, Nitrate turns red or pink.

You start with Ammonia, after a while one kind of bacteria turns it into Nitrite. It could be real high at one point but it will drop when another kind of bacteria turns Nitrite into Nitrate.

If you stop feeding ammonia or feed very little, you will end up with no ammonia, no nitrite and lots of nitrate. The tank is said to complete its cycle. This is when you want to do water change to dilute the nitrate to an acceptable level for your fish.

You had the process going but not complete but then you went and dried off the rocks and sand, you basically will have to start from the beginning. You can reuse the rocks and sand, nothing has been harm.

Just be patient, feed a little ammonia, measure for nitrite and then nitrate every few days and see what you have, it may take a month or more to complete the cycle.

[jesusq]

This is what happened, but the nitrate did not go down for about a month and a half.

The LFS told me to syphone the sand every time I made a water change, I was just thinking since there's no live stock dirting the sand, if I start to build the tank again, and run into the same problem, should I invest in changing the sand or would this go away if I dried the sand and start all over again?

I was also thinking of starting a bio-pellets to control the nitrate as well. But what I don't understand is that this is a new tank, dried rocks, and dried sand. and it started the cycle, but the nitrate never went away.

[rage]

Nitrate would never go down unless you remove it yourself.
Bio-pellet is one mean but I don't use it, I read that there are pluses and minuses and the it costs fair amount of money.
Many people, myself included, lower nitrate by doing water change.
Remember I say lower, not get rid off. ie. If you start out with 50 ppm Nitrate, you do 50% water change, you would lower it to 25ppm. With fish only 10-20 ppm of Nitrate is acceptable.

If you don't remove Nitrate, it will keep going up if you have a source of ammonia, which turns into Nitrite and then Nitrate.

What do you think is wrong with your sand? Is it not cleaned ? Is it a source of decaying matter ? BTW, you siphon your sand IF you need to remove the waste that comes from uneaten fish food or the waste of the fish themselves. If you don't have fish, I don't the need to siphon your sand.

[jesusq]

So if it's all dried and I start from scratch again, and I try to do it properly this time I should be fine? Don't need to replace the same as I was told by the LFS?

There was never any fish on the tank so nothing that would have cause any waste to dilute the sant, but the nitrate was there for like a month and a half despite the water changed.


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[rage]

I can't tell you if you need to replace the sand or not without knowing its condition and what kind of sand it is.

[Brileeant808]

I dont think taking the sand out to dry it would help anything

[jesusq]

The sand is from MarcoRocks and it's fine grain sand. Like I stated, I never had any live stock on the tank. I just poored the dr. Tim one and only and kept on feeding a bit of ammonia. Yes the sand has been dried now for about two weeks.


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[rage]

The sand is good.

If you keep on feeding ammonia then of course your nitrate will keep going up.

How big is your tank, how much live rocks (lbs?) and how deep is your sand bed ?
How much ammonia are you feeding ? How often ?

[jesusq]

My tank is 120 Gal with a 30 Gal sump. I'm feeding about 120-140 drops of ammonia supplied with the Dr Tim. But I stopped using ammonia, and for about a month, the nitrate was still out of scale.

[jesusq]

Sorry deep sand bed is about 4-5 inches.

[rage]

120 drops of ammonia is a lot of ammonia.
The last time I used ammonia, I used maybe 1/5 of that and my tank could not consume all of it and I had a 125G with +100lbs of live rocks. I had to change lots of water to get it out of my system.

You should may be use 3, 4 drops to start then maybe a drop every 3, 4 days after...
Most people would just drop a small piece of raw shrimp (maybe 1/4 of a shrimp) in the tank and that is all they feed.