Struggling to control nitrites / nitrates

[ShaneUK]

Hi Guys,
Mr noob here lol..
So had my tank pushing 6 months, its only a small 12gal but had it cycling ok, added CUC, all good. And now its currently supporting:
CUC: 4 red hermits, a scarlet shrimp, 3 Nassarius Snail and a strawberry conch
Fish: 2 young clowns, a benaggai cardinal and a purple firefish.

The cardinal and firefish are the newset (and final) additions added a litle over a week ago.

Over the last week the nitrites and subsequently nitrates have shot up, the nitrites are now worrying me.
I have increased the water change frequency and did a 30% change yesterday which has lowered the levels back into 'safe' but i'm sure this will rise again soon.

Other measurements are all good, ammonia 0, ph and salinity are stable. Temperature has risen as we are having a hot spell of weather but nothing too fast or too worying.

I realise smaller tanks are tougher to keep stable but I struggle to believe that these two small fish additions could cause this.

Any help / advice is very much appreciated as its all important learning material for us noobies :)

 

[Luno]

What are the numbers mate?

How much rock do you have and what sort of filtration are you currently running?

 

[ShaneUK]

So currently NO2 is at 0.2ppm (it was at 0.5 before the 30% change)
NO3 is at 15ppm

We have carbon and biomax which is integrated into the rear of the tank.

Adding pictures of the aquarium to show rocks and a on how the filter is setup.

 

[Luno]

How longs that filter been in the tank? I don't have much experience with filters like that but the problem I know that can sometimes happen is they can trap things which can cause nutrients to raise more than they remove. Especially if left running for long periods of time without cleaning out the filter compartments.

Doesn't sound over stocked may depend on how much and often you feed. Do you add any other nutrients at all?

 

[ShaneUK]

We feed twice a day, and rarely is it not all gobbled up.
The filter medium has been in 6 months also, I have read many posts and they suggest not changing the medium as the important bacteria is on it.
And we dont add any nurients, is this something we should look at doing?

 

[That Crusso Kid]

We feed twice a day, and rarely is it not all gobbled up.
The filter medium has been in 6 months also, I have read many posts and they suggest not changing the medium as the important bacteria is on it.
And we dont add any nurients, is this something we should look at doing?

Changing out the media is not suggested but regularly cleaning it is quite important. How often have you cleaned it in the last 6 months? (Just for clarification; it is to he cleaned in existing tank water like when doing a water change.)

 

[Mono]

Luno is probably on to something. 6 months sounds like a long time to keep a filter in place.

If you also have had sand and rock in the tank for 6 months, they should have more than enough beneficial bacteria to process the ammonia and nitrite.

The carbon probably isn't doing much at this point.

Filters can become nitrate traps. They collect decaying organic material and while they remove it from your sight they don't really remove it from the water until you clean the filter.

 

[ShaneUK]

Thanks guys, I'm such a twit lol, didnt think about actually cleaning the media itself.
Obviously I need to do asap anyway to bring these levels down, but I will also rinse the media..

Would you suggest rinsing the lot, and removing the carbon?

Big thanks guys..

 

[Mono]

Carbon probably adsorbs all it is going to adsorb in a few weeks.

You might want to consider changing the filter floss on a weekly basis.

 

[Mono]

The beneficial bacteria is living on the ceramic rings. That's why they are in there.

(It is also living on the carbon and the filter floss but you have to sacrifice them to clean the filter.)

 

[Mono]

When you do a water change, you can use the old water to rinse your ceramic rings if they need it.

 

[Mono]

Also, nitrate at 15 ppm is not crazy high if you just keeping fish and no coral.

It's great to keep your eye on it and learn how to test for it if you plan to keep corals in the future.

 

[Luno]

We feed twice a day, and rarely is it not all gobbled up.
The filter medium has been in 6 months also, I have read many posts and they suggest not changing the medium as the important bacteria is on it.
And we dont add any nurients, is this something we should look at doing?

Looks like problem might be easy fix just clean it more often.

The other thing is honestly if your gonna use that filter long term, the beneficial bacteria that lives it in, lives in your tank more so. Your tank the rocks and sand become the home of this bacteria and live organisms, it's the whole point of cycling a tank. Honestly I wouldn't worry about removing its filter media and replacing with new media. Those ceramic things probably hold equal to one of your rocks in terms of surface area for nitrification. But if you want to just clean with water change water do that when you do a water change, good luck mate

 

[Mmun]

Hi Guys,
Mr noob here lol..
So had my tank pushing 6 months, its only a small 12gal but had it cycling ok, added CUC, all good. And now its currently supporting:
CUC: 4 red hermits, a scarlet shrimp, 3 Nassarius Snail and a strawberry conch
Fish: 2 young clowns, a benaggai cardinal and a purple firefish.

The cardinal and firefish are the newset (and final) additions added a litle over a week ago.

Over the last week the nitrites and subsequently nitrates have shot up, the nitrites are now worrying me.
I have increased the water change frequency and did a 30% change yesterday which has lowered the levels back into 'safe' but i'm sure this will rise again soon.

Other measurements are all good, ammonia 0, ph and salinity are stable. Temperature has risen as we are having a hot spell of weather but nothing too fast or too worying.

I realise smaller tanks are tougher to keep stable but I struggle to believe that these two small fish additions could cause this.

Any help / advice is very much appreciated as its all important learning material for us noobies :)

you have way to much of a bio load for a 12gallon tank.

 

[RobW]

So currently NO2 is at 0.2ppm (it was at 0.5 before the 30% change)
NO3 is at 15ppm

We have carbon and biomax which is integrated into the rear of the tank.

Adding pictures of the aquarium to show rocks and a on how the filter is setup.

Is this a fluval evo tank? It looks like the same one I have for my son. I change 3 gallons of water a week on ours. I clean the sponge filter every week, rinse the bio-Maxx media every week, change the carbon bag every 2-3 weeks. I also have the fluval ps-2 protein skimmer in the first section in the back. I have a fluval powerhead inside the tank as well. I use brightwell microbacter7 when I started and just flowed the dosage for the volume of water. (4 drops per gallon for first 2 weeks) now I just add 2 drops per day. Really helped the tank cycle and maintain a good level of biological filtration for the tank. I feed twice a day and have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and minimal nitrate 10-20 ppm. Your bio-load is probably bogging down what that little system can handle at the moment. You can get replacement carbons for that tank on Amazon for like 35.00 for 36 bags. Also I would look into a product called inTank chamber 2. It changes the way the filter system works. It works way better. For 100.00 bucks you can get the new filter setup and the skimmer. My sons tank stays crystal clear and never do we have swings with water parameters and ours has only been up for 2 months.

 

[RobW]

Also, I have 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 fire shrimp, 6 blue legged hermit crabs, 2 trochous snails, 2 turbo snails, and a xenia coral.

 

[ShaneUK]

Also, I have 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 fire shrimp, 6 blue legged hermit crabs, 2 trochous snails, 2 turbo snails, and a xenia coral.

Nice, we have a fluval flex 57. We wont look at corals, not for a good while. I'm not sure the current lighting would support it.

 

[RobW]

Nice, we have a fluval flex 57. We wont look at corals, not for a good while. I'm not sure the current lighting would support it.

Ok, well look at my first post. Even if it is the 16 gallon. It probably takes the same components. If you can get any of these products that I'm talking about it will help you in a big way.

 

[ShaneUK]

Ok, well look at my first post. Even if it is the 16 gallon. It probably takes the same components. If you can get any of these products that I'm talking about it will help you in a big way.

Thanks, will look at the microbacter and start observing a similar routine to yourself. We do have te protein skimmer which fits in the back also.
Regarding a powerhead what model are you using?

 

[RobW]

Thanks, will look at the microbacter and start observing a similar routine to yourself. We do have te protein skimmer which fits in the back also.
Regarding a powerhead what model are you using?

The powerhead is a fluvalsea cp1