Question about Nitrite levels

[ashirley]

Did a water test on the pond today and all of the levels tested normally except the Nitrite level which was around .25. My pond is about 5000 gallons with mechanical and bio filtration. I know it should be 0 but we are just now getting warmer weather and plants are taking off. Is this something that I need to worry about? I really don't want to add a lot of chemicals to the pond to fix it.

I did have a scare when the ammonia test was off the charts until I remember that I had been cleaning with ammonia based cleaner. I had hubby go get fresh water from the pond and retested and it was 0. For a minute there I was freaking out.

 

[crsublette]

Not yet, but definitely not something to ignore. Keep an eye on it and make a plan ahead of time on what you will do to fix it.

The cheapest solution is to do a slow major water change of around 40% for a couple days, and, if it still does not reduce, then do a 80% change for a couple days. To understand how to do a slow major water change, then read post#31 in thread Think I'm having an algae bloom. The major water changes is done slowly so to avoid shocking your fish's immune system. If the water change is done fast, then quite likely the pH change and/or water temperature change will put the fish into a shock or make them act quite odd.

A growing Nitrite reading can also occur due to an accumulation of organics in your biofilter, which is a sign the organics are essentially suffocating the microorganisms in the biofilter thus causing more Nitrite to being produced. To solve this, simply and gently rinse, not scrub, the biofilter. Personally, I would use pond water to do this.

This growing Nitrite reading could also mean there is too much organic decay in your pond, which indicates the pond likely needs a little vacuuming.

Fish can actually tolerate Nitrite much better than Ammonia, except Nitrite is still quite toxic. To remedy it, you have many options, that are talked about more in the thread, First Time High Ammonia. This thread also talks about products that can neutralize the toxicity of Nitrite while waiting for the biofilter to bounce back and convert the Nitrite into Nitrate.

So, just keep an eye on it...

 

[dieselplower]

On a goldfish forum I frequent, they say a reading of 1 or more when you add ammonia and nitrite is cause for a large water change. Does that seem about right Charles? I personally prefer to see less than .5 and know that if any of either is present, it is not a good sign. I agree with Charles on rinsing the lifters with a non chlorinated water and to try to net any debris out of the pond.

I am very curious to know what in the heck were you cleaning with a cleaning product? That was very odd to me. If you had any type of cycle going, you probably killed it with cleaning products.

 

[ashirley]

On a goldfish forum I frequent, they say a reading of 1 or more when you add ammonia and nitrite is cause for a large water change. Does that seem about right Charles? I personally prefer to see less than .5 and know that if any of either is present, it is not a good sign. I agree with Charles on rinsing the lifters with a non chlorinated water and to try to net any debris out of the pond.

I am very curious to know what in the heck were you cleaning with a cleaning product? That was very odd to me. If you had any type of cycle going, you probably killed it with cleaning products.

I wasn't cleaning the pond. I was cleaning in the house but I dipped water out of the pond into a container and then put my fingers in that water to fill the test tube for the test. I don't like to put any chemicals in the pond if I can help it. I will rinse the bio filter bags out tomorrow. I will add fresh water and test again in a few days. I

 

[crsublette]

On a goldfish forum I frequent, they say a reading of 1 or more when you add ammonia and nitrite is cause for a large water change. Does that seem about right Charles? I personally prefer to see less than .5 and know that if any of either is present, it is not a good sign. I agree with Charles on rinsing the lifters with a non chlorinated water and to try to net any debris out of the pond.

I am very curious to know what in the heck were you cleaning with a cleaning product? That was very odd to me. If you had any type of cycle going, you probably killed it with cleaning products.

I don't know... That sounds about right on the nitrite. I never really looked into it since I just always kept my nitrites at zero, or near enough to it. I would think anything around 0.25~0.50 ppm might be ok.


Also, everyone's water will have a different chloride concentrations, that is either naturally from their source water or due to supplementing calcium or using dechlorinators. Chloride counteracts the nitrite so that it does not poison the fish.

So, some folk's pond fish may likely be able to tolerate 5ppm Nitrite concentration due to their high chloride volume and other's folk's pond may can only tolerate 0.5ppm Nitrite.

There's one good fellow that I know, whom experiments quite a bit, has had a level of 15 ppm Nitrite, for 45 days, with a chloride salinity concentration of 0.5% and the fish never acted odd, except this is a crazy high chloride concentration. He was starting a new filter in a very overstocked tank and he figured out how to grow a fast ammonia oxidizing colony so he only had the crazy high Nitrites to deal with until the colonies got caught up. Another downside of high Nitrites is that it impacts the performance of the ammonia oxidizing microorganism by slowing them down.