nitrite spike, no ammonia!

Let me preface this by saying I'm a newbie and seem to be falling into
every newbie trap there is.

I fishlessly cycled my tank over a week ago...it took a week for
anything to happen, but over 5ppm ammonia (bottled ammonia) eventually
turned into about 40ppm nitrate...the nitrite level never reached more
than 0.50ppm during the entire cycling process. It's as if as soon as
the ammonia-eating bacteria turned the ammonia into nitrite, the
nitrite-eating bacteria turned it into nitrate.

Then I added 5 small (young?) golden barbs, 3 small ottos...and too
much food (I got regular Spectrum--I'm realizing now it might be too
big for them, and they're still skittish and hiding under the plants).

My tank stinks, but my Ammonia Alert never showed any ammonia. I could
see the Spectrum pellets disintegrating, but no ammonia activity.

Tonight I checked all my levels:
pH 7.2
ammonia virtually 0
nitrate 20 ppm
nitrite ~2ppm!!!!!!!!!

I almost had a heart attack.

I quickly did a very quick 2/3 water change (yes, too much but I
panicked), using AquaPlus to eliminate chloramine, and now my levels
a

pH 7.4
ammonia 0.5ppm (because of chloramine--my tap water is around 1-2ppm)
nitrite now 0.5ppm
(didn't check nitrate again, but it's probably dropped to less than
10ppm)

I can't add salt to help them deal with the nitrites, because I have
ottos and apparently they (being scaleless fish) can't tolerate salt
at all.

I have three questions, and I implore you for sage advice:

1) I've read that nitrite-eating bacteria establish themselves more
slowly...but weren't they still there from the fishless cycle? Why
aren't they keeping up with the ammonia-eating bacteria?

2) Why do my golden barbs ignore the food? They seem to eat it
aggressively for about 5 seconds, and then run back under the plants
while the pellets rain around them. Then they ignore the pellets for
the rest of the day. Is it too big? Are they too dumb to see the food
in my (similarly colored) reddish-brown gravel?

3) Why are the barbs almost always hiding under the plants? They come
out and "play" every once in a while, especially when I turn off the
lights, but generally just bunch up in a tight group under the plant
fronds.

Thank you in advance.
Jason

Let me preface this by saying I'm a newbie and seem to be falling into
every newbie trap there is.

I fishlessly cycled my tank over a week ago...it took a week for
anything to happen, but over 5ppm ammonia (bottled ammonia) eventually
turned into about 40ppm nitrate...the nitrite level never reached more
than 0.50ppm during the entire cycling process. It's as if as soon as
the ammonia-eating bacteria turned the ammonia into nitrite, the
nitrite-eating bacteria turned it into nitrate.

Then I added 5 small (young?) golden barbs, 3 small ottos...and too
much food (I got regular Spectrum--I'm realizing now it might be too
big for them, and they're still skittish and hiding under the plants).

My tank stinks, but my Ammonia Alert never showed any ammonia. I could
see the Spectrum pellets disintegrating, but no ammonia activity.

Tonight I checked all my levels:
pH 7.2
ammonia virtually 0
nitrate 20 ppm
nitrite ~2ppm!!!!!!!!!

I almost had a heart attack.

I quickly did a very quick 2/3 water change (yes, too much but I
panicked), using AquaPlus to eliminate chloramine, and now my levels
a

pH 7.4
ammonia 0.5ppm (because of chloramine--my tap water is around 1-2ppm)
nitrite now 0.5ppm
(didn't check nitrate again, but it's probably dropped to less than
10ppm)

I can't add salt to help them deal with the nitrites, because I have
ottos and apparently they (being scaleless fish) can't tolerate salt
at all.

I have three questions, and I implore you for sage advice:

1) I've read that nitrite-eating bacteria establish themselves more
slowly...but weren't they still there from the fishless cycle? Why
aren't they keeping up with the ammonia-eating bacteria?

2) Why do my golden barbs ignore the food? They seem to eat it
aggressively for about 5 seconds, and then run back under the plants
while the pellets rain around them. Then they ignore the pellets for
the rest of the day. Is it too big? Are they too dumb to see the food
in my (similarly colored) reddish-brown gravel?

3) Why are the barbs almost always hiding under the plants? They come
out and "play" every once in a while, especially when I turn off the
lights, but generally just bunch up in a tight group under the plant
fronds.

Hmm - if you have nitrate - then the tank has cycled - but if you added too
many fish and too much food - in a newly cycled tank - you may have thrown it
into a mini cycle again - i.e. nitrite

I would:
1. Do a 20 % water change every other day for a few times and use something
like amquel plus as the dechlorinator
2. Don't feed for a few days - then feed less
3. Keep lights off for a few days - so fish can relax. May have left-over
toxicity.

Hi Jason, I'm still in the "breaking in" period myself - still pretty
new to aquarium-keeping, but I'll offer what I can, though my
knowledge is more from reading (and reading and reading and reading)
and benefitting from the knowledge of others than from experience.

I've not done a fishless cycle so I won't comment much on that, but
the process allegedly requires a lot of care and attention to be
successful. It seems to me that you must understand the process
thoroughly and control your water parameters very well. A lot can go
wrong if you don't do it correctly.

If I may, allow me to present the Rules of the New Tank I've learned
the hard way:

Rule of the New Tank #1:
If you have ammonia -OR- nitrite present in your water, your tank is
not completely cycled. No exceptions.

Rule of the New Tank #2:
When cycling a tank, patience is the best medicine.

Rule of the New Tank #3
Repeat Rules 1 and 2.

Here is a potential gotcha I've been warned of repeatedly that might
have come into play he The large majority of water test kits test
for nitrate by first converting the nitrate to nitrite, and then
indicating the presence of the nitrite. Therefore, if you have
nitrite in your water, such a test will always indicate positive for
nitrate (even if it's not there). If you don't know better, you might
conclude that your cycle is finished, but.. refer back to Rule of the
New Tank #1. :P Adopt this rule of thumb and it will never lead you
wrong: Never test for nitrate until -both- ammonia and nitrite have
read zero for 24 hours. If both ammonia and nitrate don't test zero,
refer back to Rule of the New Tank #1. :P

In my (admittedly limited) experience, the nitrite-eating bacteria
establish themselves sloooooooooowly. For what that's worth. You ask
'weren't they still there from the cycling?', but I refer back to the
above. It's possible you had no nitrate to begin with (and thus, no
nitrite-eating bacteria), and your test fooled you. You may have, in
fact, only had nitrite and the bacteria hadn't established themselves
yet. And perhaps still haven't. Again - I hate to beat a dead horse,
but - if you have ammonia or nitrite present in your tank, it isn't
completely cycled.

The barbs, especially if small, may prefer smaller food or something
more manageable, like flakes. I think pellets are generally for
bottom-feeders and/or bigger fish (like cichlids). I'll bet they'll
do much better with flakes. Also, I'll bet they'll love a treat of
tubifex or daphnia here and there. Flakes are probably what they were
accustomed to in the pet store as well. A lot of non-bottom-feeding
fish just won't search for or eat food on the substrate, so that's not
unusual at all. Some will forage along the floor, but others won't.
It's just not in their nature. Feed them something that doesn't sink
(or sinks very slowly) and I'll bet you get far better results.

Your barbs are probably hiding because they're still unsure of their
new environment. That they stay bunched up together is indication of
fear or insecurity on their part. Some fish can take a long while to
acclimate. Get your water chemistry in line (so that stress from that
area is not a factor) and give them some time. Again, patience is the
best medicine.

Hope that's some help.

CD

Thank you, Martin and CD!

Around 5 hours after I did a water change that brought the nitrites
from 2ppm to 0.5ppm, the nitrites were back up to 2ppm. My fish were
panting and suffering. The water was filthy, so I finally just
prepared a 5g bucket (dechlorinated/dechloraminated water with
AmmoLock2, bubbler & heater--and all important plant to hide under
because they were terrified!) and transferred the fish to them. If I
had slept and woke up with nitrites off the chart and a bunch of dead
fish, I never would have forgiven myself.

I got a gravel vacuum in the morning and "scrubbed" my gravel--it was
indeed filthy. Overfeeding. The fluorite (broken baked clay) kicked up
quite a bit milkiness but it wasn't harmful. I basically did a 95%
water change (with dechlor'ed water, to not kill any of the nice
bacteria in the rocks & filter media), replanted the plants, and
finally put my terrified fish back in. For an hour or so, they bunched
together and panicked. I put in a fake hollow log which they promptly
moved into.

Thanks, Martin, for the advice about turning off the light--it's very
bright in my NanoCube and it really helped put them at ease. A few
hours later, and they're not "panting" or bunching together, and are
just swimming peacefully in the tank. The ottos have resumed their
algae-scrubbing.

When I was ready to put them in, I checked the levels: ammonia about
0.50ppm (from tap water chloramine) and 0.25ppm nitrite. I read to do
water changes to keep nitrites below 1ppm so I resolved to keep
monitoring it. After about 6 hrs, the nitrite level is back to zero.
So the nitrite-eating bacteria do exist after the cycle, but there
simply wasn't enough of them to handle the overload of uneaten food.
(The ammonia-eating bacteria, however, are amazing!)

CD: I don't think what you said about the test (at least my test--I
know tests use different reagents/methods to determine levels) mixing
up nitrite/nitrate is the case. At the end of my fishless cycle, I had
almost 40ppm registered nitrate, and no nitrite at all. Yesterday, I
almost had the opposite: over 2ppm nitrite, and only 10ppm nitrate
(because of water changes). My test seems to be able to distinguish
between the two.

While the cycle continues, and hopefully starts building more
capacity, I'm thinking of giving the barbs food this way: putting the
pellets in a small clear glass, adding tank water and letting them
sink to the bottom of the glass. Then slowly lower the glass into the
tank. If the fish are truly hungry (I'll wait until Saturday to do
this), they'll go in the glass and eat. Whatever they don't eat should
more or less stay in the glass, and I'll pull the glass back out
slowly. I just need to figure out a way to prevent the filter output
jet from creating too much turbulence and knocking all the pellets
out.

I just wanted to re-iterate one thing: the goal of the cycle is not to
produce nitrate, it's to eliminate ammonia and nitrite, which are
highly poisonous. The indication that the cycle has completed is not
solely the presence of nitrate, it's three things:

1.) No ammonia present
2.) No nitrite present
3.) Nitrate level increases steadily

If you don't have all three conditions, your tank is not cycled to
completion. After your tank is established, when you add more fish
the system will go through a new "mini-cycle", but it should manage
this easily as long as the first cycle was completed and your bacteria
is established. I'm sure it is possible to add enough fish to
overwhelm even an established system, but you shouldn't ever add fish
except in small numbers anyway.

CD