Hi Joe,
I'm not sure if you received other replies on this. If so, I may have
missed them. As you're aware of needing to test for these water parameters
you've given us, I have to assume you're aware of needing to establish a
nitrogen cycle. I don't know though, if you're aware that it's preferable to cycle
your tank before adding fish. With already having a fish in your tank,
it's extremely more difficult to establish a cycle without stressing your fish
and without it forcing you to do so much more work in keeping your
parameters stress-free for your fish.
I'd even go so far as to recommend bringing this fish back to the store
until your tank is cycled -- which takes between 4 and 6 weeks on average. As
it appears you've set this 30 gallon tank up about 2 months ago, including
adding your fish to it at the time (unless there's something else I'm
missing), your tank should have been cycled by now. Since your nitrate has always
looked to be zero, and is still testing zero, your nitrites will never go
down of their own accord until you start getting a reading for your nitrate
indicating that the nitrite is being converted (to nitrate); in essence, your
tank is far from being cycled yet.
In the meantime, you're just going to have to continue making large water
changes to keep the nitrite level down, especially as it rises back up fast,
to 1.5 -- 2.0 ppm soon after making a PWC -- as I understand it. This would
indicate that your cycle is in it's second stage. The ammonia can be
expected to rise first, and as that comes down with bacteria for it becoming
established, the nitrite level will then rise after the ammonia-converting
bacteria continue to produce more nitrite.
For now, while establishing a cycle, you want to have some nitrite in the
water to feed the nitrite-converting bacteria and get them well established
also -- while still maintaining a safe environment for your fish by keeping
this nitrite down to a more stress-less level via water changes. While you
don't want 2.0 ppm nitrite in the water column if you can avoid it, you can
add a water conditioner, like Prime, at double the recommended amount needed
for breaking down chloramine and converting the ammonia in it to ammonium.
The extra Prime being added will address any toxic issues of high nitrite --
but you'll still need to keep up with PWC's until the tank is comnpletely
cycled. The beneficial effects of Prime are only good for up to 48 hours,
after which you need to add more Prime (enough to treat the entire 30 gallons,
not just an amount to treat the new water). You may need to make PWC's at
least this often anyway, while the tank is cycling, so adding more Prime
after 48 hours may be a moot point when you'll need to add it anyway.with the
water change -- but I just wanted to clarify Prime's effective time limit.
Fortunately, as opposed to ammonia becoming more toxic as the pH increases,
nitrite becomes more toxic as the pH decreases. With your pH of 7.4, it's
not nearly as toxic as it would be if your pH were at 6.8. Still, nitrite
in itself is much more toxic than ammonia, so the Prime is a requisite until
you see your nitrate building up as your nitrite decreases. At that time,
only enough water needs to be changed to keep your nitrate below 40 ppm (and
preferably as low as is practical for you). Additional aeration is always
an added benefit when using more than the usual amounts of water conditions.
Check your tap water parameters also, to see if that contains any nitrite
to begin with.
Ray
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