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Comments invited. Do I have this right?
I am "often" forced to have too many fish in a tank for a while. When you add a heap of fish, the ammonia level increases. Most fish are quite tolerant of high levels of amonia, while others drop dead quickly. After a while, the additional ammonia provides nutrition for bacteria that convert amonia into nitrites. This causes these bacteria to flourish and for the levels of nitrites to increase. Most fish drop dead at the appearance of nitrites. (Those that don't are the type of fish that are very cheap, just because they thrive in anything). When fish or plants die and are left in the tank, they decay and produce ammonia. If fish die from Nitrite poisoning, then this means there are plenty of bacteria present for converting ammonia into nitrites and not enough bacteria that convert Nitrites into Nitrates. Hence the decaying fish quickly add to the over-abundance of Nitrites, killing more fish. As the Nitrite level grows, the amount of bacteria that converts Nitrites into Nitrates also grows. As it grows, the rate of conversion from Nitrites to Nitrates also increases. Unfortunately, most of the fish will be dead before the Nitrite to Nitrate conversion process can beging lowering the Nitrite levels. All we can do to help is frequent water changes and remove dead fish. Now, when you add extra fish for a dew days and then remove them, it oftens appears that you have escaped without upsetting your aquarium and killing fish. However, two weeks later, your remaining fish start to drop dead at an incredible rate. This is because there has been a build up in the level of ammonia over the time the aquarium was over-stocked. This ammonia remains after the excess fish are removed. The bacteria to convert this into Nitrites slowly begins to flourish and to convert the ammonia into Nitrites. All of a sudden, the Nitrite levels reach the point of toxidity - well before the ammoinia level has dropped to normal - and death strikes. The solution (other than not over-stocking) is: 1. severely underfeed the fish during the time they are over crowded. This means less fish poop and no leftover food to decompose. Hence the increase in Ammonia levels is kept to a minimum. 2. daily water changes while over stocked 3. continue water changes for two weeks after extra fish have been removed. Jim |
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