Wow! Nitrite Spike

[Frozenspokes]

I got home from work today to find my Betta hiding behind the filter. He usually comes right up to the front of the tank to greet me. I tried enticing him out with a bit of food and he listlessly swam over and took it. Then he sorta keeled over on his side*SICK*

I had done a 50% water change over the weekend, and the parameters were good after that. I tested the water for Ammonia yesterday and was happy to see that the levels had not changed <.25 PPM from the day before. I did not bother to test for Nitrites or Nitrates at the time.

After seeing that Shiggy was in real trouble, I didn't even bother with a test. I started doing a massive water change immediately. My wife tested some of the water as I was shuttling pitchers to the sink. The Nitrites were at 5.0 PPM! After the 1st MWC, they were down to around .5 to 1 PPM. I decided to do a second MWC, and got them down to almost 0 PPM

Wow, this whole cycling with fish in the tank thing can be stressfull. I feel really badly for Shiggy, as he had to suffer through the whole thing. I'm just glad that I knew what to do from reading these forums.

Anyone have any thoughts on why the Nitrites would spike like that?

 

[Endl98]

i had a similar thing happen. it was only after i cleaned and changed the filter.
had just done a wc the day before and tested my water. the nitrites were 55ppm. i did multi wc . to get it down.
if its a new tank then it most likely spiked to the second stage of the cycle.
you nitrates will be next while the nitrites will stay low.
just keep on doing wc. and testing.

 

[FroggyFox]

when your tank is getting used to processing the ammonia it processes it into nitrite faster than the tank can change the nitrite into nitrate so it causes kind of a 'traffic jam'. Once your tank can handle the nitrite into nitrate conversion you'll see the nitrites turn into nitrate faster and the ammonia and nitrite will both be 0

 

[YahooFishKeeper]

...the nitrites were 55ppm...

is that possible? do kits go that high?

 

[Endl98]

is that possible? do kits go that high?

i dont know but the thing was the darkest purple.