Old-School

[Dave Waits]

As some of you know, I'm fighting high nitrites right now. Yesterday I decided to go old-school. I cranked the temp up to 81 degrees.I just tested again after 28 hours, Nitrites are still high but, the nitrates went from 5 ppm to 20 ppm! The higher the water temp the faster the colony grows!

Whether you're doing a fishless cycle or a fish in cycle, turn up the heater! A minimum of 80 degrees should be enough. I had forgotten this salient point until yesterday when it hit me.

I hate 'Senior-Moments!

I'm going to run it at 81 for another couple of days and do a water-change tomorrow after testing again.

[Orion5]

Interesting solution, a first for me. :)

Why might your nitrites be high? Is your tank not fully cycled?

[Dave Waits]

I thought it was...evidently not. Really puzzled me too, ammonia-0 ppm, nitrates were 5 ppm nitrites were 5+ ppm.

[Orion5]

Very odd... Well you could always just do partial water changes until it stabilizes and the filter grows enough BB. Interesting though that raising the temperature did that.

[Dave Waits]

I've changed 150% of the water in the last four days, Nitrites remained the same.