The Puffer Forum

After my recent tank break my fish have been moved from a 30G to a 20G. I noticed the nitrites at .5ppm and have been water changes every other day. ammonia=0 nitrates= 20. but the nitrites won't go down from .5ppm. today i checked plants for any old dead fish parts or any such things but did find anything. any ideas?

Im guessing its from all the waste, and the bacteria building up more due to the smaller tank..

i would suggest testing after a large water change as test may be inaccurate or test a friends tank which you know is perfect. what tests are you using?

Was the tank cycled? Also, whats in there?

I don't know what's up necessarily, but I'd just keep doing water changes and test the tap/source water for nitrite. Perhaps your group B bacteria isn't keeping up just yet maybe.

Is the test kit expired?

Mine was 0.5ppm for yonks... same yellowy colour all the time, then I realized that the test was expired and got a new one which actually changed colours lol

Do you have a high flow through the filter? I know this sounds strange, but sometimes you actually need to make the water flow slower (But of course not too slow - that would absolutely not solve the problem). This is if it's a very well cycled filter, and you don't find any other reason why you have a low reading of nitrite. Too strong water flow through the filter gives the bacteria too little time to process the water. I've experienced this several times: a small amount of nitrite that don't go away, and slowing down the filter solves the problem. BTW, I've only experienced this in an internal filter - never in an external one.
But first check if there's any other reason why you have this problem.

their filter is the same one it was in the old tank and I'm not sure I'd call it a high flow, I don't have many other filters going to compare it with but I'd say its seems pretty high. I'll keep that in mind if i cant find another source of the problem.

and the test kit doesnt expire for another three months, unless the bottle is lying to me. I have jungle quick dip test strips which I used when I cycled the first tank a quite a while back and they seemed to work just fine. But they may have pooped out or something.

Test strips are very poor to worthless. Get a liquid-based test kit.

Water flow issues are very highly unlikely. That is not the problem. The test material is the problem. Trying to cycle with test strips is an exercise in futility. Bad data is the issue.

Good catch, toffeecake!

Get your water tested at an LFS that has LIQUID tests, for all you know, there could be no nitrites because test strips aren't accurate

I'll upgrade to liquid tests then.

LOL, "yonks"???

Yonks and yonks....

lol

How long does it take for a master test kit to expire?
I got one yesterday for FW and the ammonia bottle #2 had "battery acid" like buildup on the safety. I had to remove the red ring with pliers just to get it open. I tested multiple tanks and the Ph was different for every one, but the Nh3/Nh4 and the N02 were big ole zeroes for both. Now I pride myself on squeaky clean tanks.... but should I worry? Can I run the ammonia test from my API SW kit as a control and just use the FW color chart to determine the accuracy of the other kit?