The Puffer Forum

yes. he's about 2 inches long, if that

What size tank is he in?

20g

Well, it's up to you. With that filter, you may want to rinse out the media weekly, until it falls apart & you have to replace it, tossing all the good bacteria with it. Does the flow slow down?

The other choice you have is to get the filter upgrade for his larger tank now. I'd get an Aquaclear brand.

okay well do you think an aquaclear filter will fix my nitrite problem??

I think removing all that dead food trapped in your ornaments will. A more functional filter is always a plus.

okay and if the nitrites still remain high with the food gone, then what do i do? get a new filter? it seems like nothing i ever do works out for me. i just want my tank to be nitrite free and be able to do ONE water change a week. ughhhhhhh

be glad its only a 20g tank and not a 55/120/+ lol

yeah very true hahahaha okay so i found a really old AquaClear 200 power filter in my basement. it's pretty dirty though. how should i go about cleaning it?? (i'm gunna buy new inserts and everythig)

well it's an AquaClear 50 but it says 200 on it because that's what they used to call it i guess lol

That filter will do for now but you'll need a bigger one when you upgrade. Keep the old filter on the tank, while this one fills up with good bacteria.

okay. how long will it take for the new filter to fill with good bacteria?

6 weeks. Let me know how your nitrite is tomorrow. I'll bet that rotting food was your problem. Now you know you need to take that decor all the way out when cleaning the tank.

The truck range is between 1.008/1.009 and 1.012/1.014. As PP said, that is the area of changeover from FW nitrification bacteria to SW forms. If done slowly through that range, you are usually OK. If your specific gravity testing is not accurate, you could be dropping back into the densities where the bacterial types shift.

But I also would suspect leftover food being the main issue. How deep is the substrate, and are you vacuuming or stirring it routinely?

Was I understanding your previous statement correctly, given to greendspottedlover when discussing the mineral content of the water distorting the colors of the test, that that specific SG range is difficult to stabilize biological filtration, and not just being difficult to test?
I want to make sure I understand it.