Nitrites staying stagnant during cycle, but fish arrives in 3 days??

[Nia]

All of my parameters are perfect except for the nitrites. I've been doing my own research on whether or not doing water changes during a cycle is beneficial, but there's mixed answers. I ordered a betta fish online a few days thinking that all my parameters would be perfect when he arrives. Unfortunately I don't have an extra tank to hold him in if my nitrites don't go all the way down to 0 by the time he gets here so should I do a water change? Maybe dose the tank with seachem prime? 

Edited July 18, 2022 by Nia

[Fish Folk]

Do a 50% water change.

Add FritzZyme 7 Beneficial Bacteria Starter as recommended on the bottle.

Add an airstone.

Add plants. Lots of them.

 

[Ken Burke]

On 7/17/2022 at 7:11 PM, Fish Folk said:

Do a 50% water change.

Add FritzZyme 7 Beneficial Bacteria Starter as recommended on the bottle.

Add an airstone.

Add plants. Lots of them.

 

^^^^. And check water parameters daily for at least a week.  Change water as needed. 

[modified lung]

How much nitrite?

[Nia]

2.0ppm  nitrite 

I also already have lots of live plants in my tank

[Fish Folk]

On 7/17/2022 at 8:44 PM, Nia said:

2.0ppm  nitrite 

I also already have lots of live plants in my tank

If I understand correctly, "cycled" basically means that two different colonies of bacteria --  nitrosomonas and nitrobacter -- are sufficiently colonized in your aquarium that typical amounts of ammonia care converted to nitrite (by nitrosomonas) and nitrite converted to nitrate (by nitrobacter). When your ammonia is converting to nitrite, but not yet to nitrate, the deficiency is typically in the nitrobacter colony.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Fish Folk

[modified lung]

On 7/17/2022 at 5:44 PM, Nia said:

2.0ppm  nitrite 

I also already have lots of live plants in my tank

I've seen cycles stall for weeks when nitrite goes above 1 ppm. Then when the nitrite is brought below 1 ppm, the cycle starts again and the nitrite disappears within a day or two.  Try the 50% change like Fish Folk suggested and maybe it'll be okay when you're betta arrives.

Otherwise 0.25 teaspoons of aquarium salt per 10 gallons will make 1 ppm of nitrite completely nontoxic to most fish.

[_Eric_]

I think doing a water change is fine unless you have added bacteria that is still in the water column.  I had good results with fritz turbostart when starting a cycle from the beginning but the Seachem Stability product helped with stubborn nitrites one time for me (or it was a coincidence).  The aquarium salt is good advice.  Prime can help as well - it only makes 1 ppm nontoxic per dose but you can double dose it and be ok.  Good luck!  I know that is stressful as I have been there as well.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/17/2022 at 4:52 PM, Nia said:

All of my parameters are perfect except for the nitrites. I've been doing my own research on whether or not doing water changes during a cycle is beneficial, but there's mixed answers.

Water changes during cycling won't help or hurt anything. It's what you take along the way that will help or hurt.  If you have a ball of bits on the bottom, you had some weird growth and you remove it, likely not an issue.  If you decide to scrub every surface and clean out the media, that's what might hurt things.  As long as you leave the filter alone, change water, absolutely WILL NOT harm the process of cycling anything.

As mentioned above, dose your ammonia source, bacteria from the bottle, wait 24 hours before changing water and that should be sufficient to get those bacteria out of the water column.  This might be on the bottles in some cases, but it's just a general rule when dosing anything.

On 7/17/2022 at 5:56 PM, Fish Folk said:

When your ammonia is converting to nitrite, but not yet to nitrate, the deficiency is typically in the nitrobacter colony.

Awesome info, it's cool to see detail like this in answers that's "simple" but informative as heck and useful for researching what is technically going on.

Edited July 18, 2022 by nabokovfan87