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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Having really annoying nitrite problems!!

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06 Feb 2009 10:53 #1 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
I am having real trouble with my nitrite!

I done my weekly water change on tuesday which was all well and good but on wednesday i noticed my fish were all breathing fast so i done a water test and my ammonia was fine my nitrite was at around .50 so i did another water change yesterday and i just woke up there to check my water and my nitrite is at 1 which is way too high i have gravel cleaned both times when i done my water change and added another filter aswell.

i use amquell plus when i do my water changes i find it very good as it removes nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, chlorine & chloramines

but it isnt doin much now!

any body any ideas!??!??

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06 Feb 2009 11:17 #2 by JohnH (John)
I would venture to suggest you keep up the fairly large percentage water changes daily and keep checking the Nitrite a couple of hours after having done so.

It might be also worth your while checking the water you are using for the changes, it will probably be OK, but worth eliminating all the same.
You should have a look around to see if you have had an unnoticed fatality too.

A bit of an elementary question here, and I apologise for asking if you haven't done it, but have you recently washed out your filter media with tap water? This can be very harmful to your filter bacteria and they might have ceased to function...presumably your tank is fully cycled?

I do not know the water treatment you are using but in the main have become very sceptical about the claims made by some of the manufacturers of these treatments, I have bought many down the years and not all do 'what it says on the tin'

I hope you get on top of the problem soon though.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


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06 Feb 2009 11:21 - 06 Feb 2009 11:22 #3 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
ah yeah i have my tank cycled and i wash my filter sponges in the water i take out from my tank when im changing my water


im just stumped as to what has it so high ill test the water i use to top my tank up now


till then i guess it daily water changes till i get to the root of this!!:(

thanks:)

If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
Last edit: 06 Feb 2009 11:22 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer).

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06 Feb 2009 11:30 #4 by KenS (Ken Simpson)
Are you over feeding by any chance? I had a similar problem in one of my fry tanks. I noticed them gasping and then checked the water to find a sligh nitrITE spike. Turned out that they weren't eating the food (that's another tale of woe). It's worth checking to make sure there insn't any uneaten food lying around. A good vac when doing your daily water changes will solve this.

Regards,

Ken.

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06 Feb 2009 11:37 - 06 Feb 2009 11:38 #5 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
i dont think i am to be honest they get fed tetra pro energy crisps which dont even get a chance to hit the bottom of the tank one day and the next day they get 2 cubes of bloodworms which is gone in the blink of an eye and half a algae wafer tablet for my clown loachs and gold nugget pleco goes in when the lights go off at night


i'll clean the gravel top to bottom today just to be on the safe side!
:)

If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
Last edit: 06 Feb 2009 11:38 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer).

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06 Feb 2009 12:16 #6 by JohnH (John)
Ken is right,
I forgot to mention feeding myself.
Even if all the food you offer is eagerly eaten there is just a chance that it isn't all being digested by the fish, some - especially those with a fast rate of metabolism - "waste" faster than they can assimilate the food content and as such much of their faeces (trying to be awfully polite here, trust you see where I'm coming from)actually contain undigested food which is almost as bad as overfeeding the tank.

It could be worth considering lowering the amounts of food you give your fish to see if that makes a difference. Don't reduce the regularity of feeding, just give them less. As to the Frozen Bloodworms, there has been quite a debate about feeding this food recently on the Forum.
Rather than just putting in the blocks, water and all you might want to consider putting them into a small container to let them thaw out. Then put them into a fine meshed net and rinse them under a running tap to clear all the liquid. Once the water runs clear (it only takes a second or two) you can feed the worms to your fish - free of all the 'gunge' they are frozen in. I read somewhere that Bloodworms which are 'bred' for Aquatic feed purposes are actually fed on/live in a liquid made from Chicken manure they certainly smell like a sewage farm does!

Presumably you haven't had an unnoticed fish loss?

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


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06 Feb 2009 13:27 #7 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
Hi john ill try giving them less then

and ill rinse out the blood worms when im feedin them to them tomorrow!!

and i just done a check there im not missing one fish so unless it might just be the food

ill do my water change today and feed them less and ill keep an eye on my nitrite and ammonia for the next week

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06 Feb 2009 15:30 #8 by JohnH (John)
Sorry SB, another thought just came to me - you didn't mention you pH levels, normally they should be OK, even if over or under 'neutral' (pH7)...the problem comes when fish are subjected to sudden severe changes - such as with the dreaded 'pH crash'.
Have you been monitoring your pH? A rapid change, up or down, would cause distress to your fish too.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



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06 Feb 2009 15:55 #9 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
no i havent checked the ph since the first week i set my tank up

ill bring home a ph test kit from work tomorrow

done a water change there, bout 40% same yesterday i checked the nitrite just after i done it, its at around .25 now im a little happier now but wont be relaxed till i get it to 0

thanks for your help

ill let you know my results on the ph test

how can this affect my nitrite's?

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06 Feb 2009 17:38 #10 by JohnH (John)
I was actually only offering the pH as another possible reason for your fishes' obvious distress signals, so far as I know there is no direct connection between pH and high nitrites but there may be a connection - anyone?

You might want to look also at the nitrate levels too, although not as toxic - higher levels can also cause distress to fish - but your water changing has probably diluted this possibility anyway.
After the water changes with the following nitritereduction are your fish looking less stressed?

One last thing, testing should really be done a minimum of a couple of hours after a water change, this lets the perameters 'even out' somewhat.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



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09 Feb 2009 17:49 #11 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
hey john!!

thanks for your help it took 3 water changes in 5 days but its down to zero!!
:)

i can now relax!!
B)

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13 Feb 2009 03:16 #12 by meath.fish (meath fish)
had this problem once...and once only to a bad level.. (hope it stays that way), but eventually needed to do 4-5 water changes over 6-7 days, then a further wait of a couple of days before things stabilized.It scares the hell out of you initially, but I would not have caught it, or known it was still there only for my test kit which shows the importance of it!!

Think it was initially caused by a fish that went south and got caught up inside one of the ornaments.

Brian

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13 Feb 2009 10:32 #13 by PetCoLongMileRoad (Drew Latimer)
hey brian

i first noticed something was wrong when i seen my angelfish gasping for air


it took some amount of time and effort but it was worth it i didn't lose a singe fish!


and i can finally relax but i do test my water every 3 days just to be on the safe side!
:)

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13 Feb 2009 12:00 #14 by louis (David Knowles)
Hi poly filter was mentioned here sometime ago. Would that have helped in quickly removing nitrites without having to do the water changes

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