high nitite and nitrate levels

[scubasteve]

hi, was wondering if anyone could help. i have 6 small gsp's and despite many 50% water changes, i cannot seem to get my nitrites and nitrates down to reasonable levels. i initially cycled the tank with tips read from here (using filter media from healthy tank, plus nutrafin cycle etc) and then introduced them but now the levels are sky high. the water is currently freshwater with ph of 7.6, and zero amonia. i want to turn the water brackish, but only once my water is healthy for them! any help is very much appreciated. Steve.

[Flutter]

How large is the tank? How often do you do the 50% water changes? Have you tested your tap water? If it's lower then you should keep doing water changes very frequently as you need to get those levels (what are they?) into an appropriate range. How soon did you add fish after you put in the old media?

[scubasteve]

the tank is 3feet long by 2 feet deep and 1 foot wide. the water changes have not seemed to make a difference despite doing them every day. i have been taking water from my other established tank to replace the water (the readings from this tank are all optimal but my girlfriend wont let my puffers near it as they will eat all her fish) the readings i have taken just now are: Nitrite 3.3mg/L and nitrate 110mg/L obviously way too high. thanks for any advice!

[Pufferpunk]

i initially cycled the tank with tips read from here (using filter media from healthy tank, plus nutrafin cycle etc)

There is not a single experienced aquarist on this site that would recommend you cycle a tank with Nutrafin's Cycle. We are always posting how this stuff is garbage in a bottle--nothing but dead bacteria. Adding some media from an established tank will only seed the system with bacteria needed to start cycling but to create enough bacteria to support fish, you must add ammonia.

The fact that your parameters are out of whack could mean the tank wasn't cycled properly to begin with but also, that there will never be enough surface space to support enough bacteria to handle the bioload of 6 puffers in a 40g tank.

[scubasteve]

i see, im obviously a novice in puffer care, can anyone recommend a product to use instead of nutrafin cycle? (available in the uk!) the reason i have 6 is that the tank looked very bare with only 2 in it. you say i need to add amonia to assist in development of bacteria, from what i have gathered so far amonia is converted into nitrite then eventually nitrate so wouldnt adding amonia also increase the nitrite??? probably not as im guessing you know your stuff! im currently saving a few pennies to invest in a much larger tank so once they get much bigger than an inch long then they will be re homed! again, any advice is very much appreciated!

[Pufferpunk]

This application would only work in a tank without fish. At this stage of the game, the best thing for you to do for your fish would be either to upgrade immediately to a minimum of 15-20g each fish or find homes for all but 2 of them & then plan on upgrading in a year or so, after they are 2". In the meantime, keep doing as many water changes as are necessary to keep the nitrite at 0. Even 1 is extremely toxic & can do permanent damage to your fish.