nitrites
 

hey could nitrites at 0.3 be a problem my corals arent opening under the light , they seem to have all closed up ... could this be a cycle? i noticed a lot of them have shed a mucous coating but my water params seem normal otherwise

could a fish death affect this?

NO2 at 0.3 is quite serious. Yes, a large fish dying could produce this. Water change time, I'd say.

how much water change ? 10 gallon tank , and are there any suppliments of chems i can use to combat this without massive water change ?

Ok, bottom line.. chemicals are not something you want to use to reduce something as dangerous as nitrites... they are deadly. A manual water change is necessary. I am sorry, but I am not sure of your tank size... so a 10g water change would be good on a 20g or something... But a 10g on a 100g isn't going to do a whole lot, get it? Need more info!

what other info do u need ? i have a nano reef , 10 gallon with approx 10lbs lr and ls

a 10g tank could tank a 40% change, and then watch it for a day or two. If at that time the NO2 is still there, another 25% would help.

Chemicals are a definite no no

ok then , i know what i have to do then , thanks guys

Hey digitalsteve, I read that you replace your substate awhile ago because the sand was too fine and blew around? If you used a crushed coral type of substate, (red sea marine base) it has been my experience that it traps detrius quite a bit. I had it in for about 6 months before I yanked it out of my 20. I know stores use this because of easy maintainance but they vacumn it regularly. I don't know if you have this substrate, but in a small reef tank even small amounts of detrius rotting down there can cause all sorts of headaches.


EDIT***** Just noticed the date on the substrate change. Sounds like you had a little cycle when you moved everything around. Sorry should have seen the date when I read the post. me bad!!

would high nitrites cause an algae bloom in the tank?

Don't think nitrites will, but once bacteria convert it to nitrates; YUP lots of algae is likely.

perhaps thats why i have an algae bllom in the past 2 day s

I was just poking around some older posts. Am I correct in assuming your tank has been set up for around 1 month?? If so, did it fully cycle before you started adding your livestock? The thing is tanks need time to mature and algae blooms are a growing pain they must all go through with very few exceptions. Normally you would see the diatoms bloom followed by cyno and then the dreaded hair algae, but this is normal and keeping your water as clean as possible will normally shorten the duration of your unwanted guests. You will find various opinions on how to deal with these initial blooms. My thoughts are just keep them off the coral and rocks but let them run their course. That's just my opinion.

Now the key thing I think you should figure out is if you had a full cycle on the tank yet. Mixing stuff up (substrate) adding livestock too fast or too many intitial water changes during the cycle will slow the process down and could cause smaller (re)cycles to follow.

The fact that you have high nitrates now, indicate you may be only part way through your initial cycle or are having a (re)cycle. But as you have a stocked tank, water changes are the course I would suggest, but it may take some time for your water perameters to settle down.

If I was wrong and your tank is older, well most of this is then CRAP.
Also others may post opinions too here, don't take my word for gospel, I have far less experience than some of our members here.

tank is established , i bought it already set up off of somebody and it is at least a year old . but i had a wrasse die on me in the last two days , before that everything was peachy and any advice i get is greatly appreciated. so thanks

if i were to change the tank substrate ( i have a star to clean the bed) to something other then sand would i have to cycle the whole tank again , and would a 40 % water change affect my other livestock ? ( purple pseudochromis and 2 clowns as well as various lps, and sps ) would this eliminte a large amout of the nitrites( also i want a brighter substrate and something that wont cloud up every time i move something in my tank )

Nitrites in and of themselves aren't harmful to most of your tank residents, but their presence is indicative of something that's gone a little awry.
Initially, that may begun with an ammonia spike which could have stressed everybody out.. If NH4 now tests as 0, we're past that hurdle so don't worry about it.
That nitrite will also end up as nitrate in short order, which isn't necessarily "harmful" to a lot of things in the tank (though nitrate toxicity seems pretty hotly debated by the chem nerds.. Suffice it to say that high nitrates shouldn't be a reason for you to stress your whole tank by doing a massive water change by adding insufficiently-dissolved salt). But that ultimately ends up as a nutrient increase.
I've seen a few scientific types saying that algaes will preferentially take up nitrogen higher up the nitrogen cycle - that is, they will more readily consume ammonia than nitrite, nitrite than nitrate. Either way, and at some point, something's going to be eating that stuff up and it'll probably look ugly.

If it were me, I'd probably mix up 10-15 gallons of new seawater and change 10% a day until you've used up all the new water. That won't equal a complete water change by any means (0.9^10 = 34% of your initial dissolved gunk remaining, if my math is right), but it'll be much more gentle.

"Nitrite, when in excess levels attaches its self to the hemoglobin and inhibits O2 transport in the blood"

How is that not harmfull?

Steve

called methemaglobinemia, the effects of which are offset somewhat by chloride. While still potentially toxic, it's less toxic to SW fish than FW, IIRC

from http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=384359

There we go. They did one experiment and finally killed a shrimp at 109ppm nitrite. 19 ppm for chinook salmon fry. In the nastiest FW tank I've ever had the joy of water testing, I've never seen it exceed 4ppm. I'm sure it's possible, but unlikely to happen.

Another long-winded thread by Randy: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...=nitrite+toxic

from the thread you posted
"Growth of the shrimps reared at 4, 8, and 20 mg/L nitrite-N was significantly lower than control animals and those reared at 2 mg/L nitrite-N after 20 days. EC50 (concn. that reduced growth by 50% of that of the controls)"

looks like even 4mg/l is having an advers effect to me. and it was stated that the effect in salt water was not as great as in fresh water. so that explains a lot there.

Steve

Yup. I think the ultimate answer to nitrite toxicity in sea water is that nobody really knows.
To me, a nitrite reading above zero makes me dash for my ammonia test kit, and if all is well, kick back and analyse the situation a little more thoroughly.