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Re: [APD] Nitrite toxicity and GH (Stuart Halliday)



I believe Robert T. Ricketts wrote this email section below:
Good grief, more apology is needed.  In all the technical jargon, I ignored
your friend's real-world issues.

Pufferpunk, a long-term acquaintance of mine, used a signature line that
sums it all up:"The solution to pollution is dilution."  If I used such a
line myself it would be more like: "When in doubt, change the water.  When
you know, change more water."

Hehe.

So I would suggest serial partial water changes until the nitrite is
undetectable, or maybe one partial past the undetectable level to give some
margin.  The scale of those changes would depend on the normal water change
rate.  If the tank is seldom or rarely changed, I would add chloride - the
quantity is not great, and the concentration insignificant for most tanks.
If the tank is frequently changed, use whatever level is usually done, but
back-to-back repetitions every hour or two until the tank is again safe.

Thanks RTR,

I have been advising my friend to do regular 25% water changes and whilst the tank has no ammonia levels she can measure, the nitrite does remain around 0.25. She has a 30L tank Bio-Orb Life tank with 8 male guppies it it.
Her water is hard and has several plants in it.
She adds EasyCarb and trace element liquid fert.

http://www.reef-one.com/biOrb-Life-S30
For typical picture.

Tank has only been up a month and she's been using Stability to cycle it and uses Prime to render any potential nitrogen non-toxic. She doses with Prime once every 2 days. Nutrafin Waste Control once every week. pH is 8, nitrates are stable at around 20-40ppm.

It was on researching nitrite toxicity for her that I came across the PFK nitrite calculator and I couldn't understand how it worked out the level of Chloride to add. Hence my initial query. :-)

I discovered today, that she's only been feeding once every 3 days in an effort to "reduce the nitrite levels" as well as doing a 25% water change every few days. Hmm...

I also discovered that last week she's been 'rearranging the plants' during her water changes, which lead to some temporary spikes in ammonia levels. I think she's may have been trying too hard to clean the substrate at the same time.

Bio-Orb tanks I think have their own odd issues. :-)

--
Stuart Halliday
http://mytriops.com/
200 Million years in the making...
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