Hight(ish) Nitrite?

[Nepen]

Hi all,
I just did water test yesterday after we had lots of rain (and will rain some more till Friday!!) I was afraid of the Ph change in particular since I got about 6 inches of rain.

Anyway, The tests showed

7.8 Ph
0 Ammonia (YEY!!!!! my bio-filter is now working.. it was 0.5 before)
0.5 Nitrite
0 Nitrate...

Is this ok? Why is my Nitrite a lot higher and others are in 0 range? Is there a way to help with this? or I should wait for my bio-filter to do its work as did for Ammonia?

Thanks,
-A

 

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello
How long has this pond been up and running.
It could be a case that the pond is still cycling
That is why you are seeing Nitrites and no Nitrates.

How do your fish look or are doing ?
They will give you a indication on weather you need to do something or let the pond cycle.

Ruben

 

[Nepen]

The pond is probabaly about 6 weeks already. The fish are fine, seems happy like normal, eat a lot, play under the waterfall, chased each other around...

A bit over a week ago my Ammonia was about 0.5 and dont remember about Nitrite and Nitrate but not high or I'd remember it. Now the Ammonis is 0 and I tested three times becasue I was surprised

I'm going to leave it be for now until anybody else said otherwise, and wait a little to see if the Nitrite level change any.

 

[shakaho]

Yes, your cycle is underway. You already have a adequate population of ammonia oxidizing biobugs, and they are converting all of the ammonia to nitrite. The number of nitrite oxidizing biobugs is not yet high enough to convert all of the nitrite to nitrate. I wouldn't let nitrite get that high, so I would do a substantial water change. How big is your pond and how many fish do you have in it?

 

[Nepen]

My pond is about 600~ gallons. I have about 15 small goldfish and about 10 little guppies & mollies. I know it's too many fish for the small pond, and I'm trying to relocate my goldfish, but since they are still small, I'm taking my time to catch them (man, it's hard to catch them) and relocate them.

So the nitrite oxidizing biobugs takes longer to come by? I just got 4 inches more of rain water today, got 6 the past weekend.. probably will be getting another 5-10 inches this week.. I'll wait until the rain goes away (after the 4th) to do another water test.. if the nitrite still the same I'll do 10-20% water change

 

[shakaho]

15 goldfish is fine for a mature 600 gallon pond. You just should have added them a few at a time so the filter bugs could keep up with them. Did you add all the fish 6 weeks ago? I assume the tropicals will be gone in the fall -- either to an aquarium or to the big pond in the sky since they can't handle even our winters.

The ammonia oxidizers make nitrite from the ammonia. The nitrite oxidizers (who make nitrate) can't start growing until the enough nitrite appears. When you see nitrate you will know they are working.

 

[Nepen]

Thanks a lot

Yes I added them all at the same time, well, in the matter of the first week anyway. Didnt know much abou pond!

So this morning I came down and the pond lost about half the water from the waterfall filter overflowing (I just changed the filter pad too!!) so I had to add more water, so basically it's about 50% water change :/

-A

 

[HTH]

Can you modify the setup so that if it happens again the water will run back into the pond ?

 

[Nepen]

HTH,
I thought about that and it'll be pretty hard to do since the location of my waterfall is backed up to the corner of my fence and the only 1/3 of the waterfall tub is just stting partly on the corner bricks. But that might be the easiest to do

I'm just thinking to add something on the edge around the tub so the water wont be able to overflow. I dont know if I should change the tub since my bacteria is just starting to so its job and I'd hate to lose them!