Can you shock your fish if...

[Karen B.]

I have been a bad bad fish mom!

just tested my water and I had .5 ppm of nitrite and somewhere between 40 and 80 ppm of nitrate!!!!

I did a 1/3 wc but my question is - can it shock the fish to suddenly have 0 nitrite and about 10-20 nitrate?

If I test my water right after a WC, are the results still accurate or the Prime/Stability might mess up my results?

Gosh I hope my coridoras will be ok.  Poor little chubbies (my sweet name for them!)

[FrozenFins]

I have never heard of a fish getting shocked from a sudden drop of nitrates and nitries and neither as it happend to me. I don't think the prime would mess up your results.

[Karen B.]

2 minutes ago, James Black said:

I have never heard of a fish getting shocked from a sudden drop of nitrates and nitries and neither as it happend to me. I don't think the prime would mess up your results.

Phew! Thanks, I feel a little better.

[darkG]

Well, I've heard of fish living in really neglected tanks that didn't quite make it in suddenly cleaner water. 0,5 ppm nitrite isn't too bad though, afaik.

[FishyThoughts]

I would agree that the small drop that your showing shouldn’t cause any issues with your fish. Though I do believe that prime will skew the results, it detoxifies Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. So it should have been binding some of those elements up when added to your tank. With your results showing as they did, I would say that’s what the prime did as well. The 30% WC should have lowered your nitrates to somewhere around 30-60ppm. And the results may still show some nitrites in a day after the prime is no longer binding those elements. 

You could also not feed for a day to allow the tank to process some of those nitrites without adding more. Also if you test regularly and this is a drastic change you may want to check if something died, or what may have changed.
 

And would suggest not to do too much to correct your parameters too quickly. Your fish won’t mind the clean water, but your cycled tank might. 

[Karen B.]

1 hour ago, FishyThoughts said:

I would agree that the small drop that your showing shouldn’t cause any issues with your fish. Though I do believe that prime will skew the results, it detoxifies Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. So it should have been binding some of those elements up when added to your tank. With your results showing as they did, I would say that’s what the prime did as well. The 30% WC should have lowered your nitrates to somewhere around 30-60ppm. And the results may still show some nitrites in a day after the prime is no longer binding those elements. 

You could also not feed for a day to allow the tank to process some of those nitrites without adding more. Also if you test regularly and this is a drastic change you may want to check if something died, or what may have changed.
 

And would suggest not to do too much to correct your parameters too quickly. Your fish won’t mind the clean water, but your cycled tank might. 

Thank you very much for all you advices. Nothing major died except squished pest snails that I was leaving in for my cory to eat but I will be more careful. Thanks for the tips about not feeding for a day. Perfect timing, I never feed my fish on Sunday, haha.
 

should I do daily WC until everything is good or every other day? My nitrates were down to 10-20. But there was still some nitrites showing. I guess I could skip tomorrow as the Prime will bind it to give my cycle a chance and do a WC in 2 days. 

[FishyThoughts]

52 minutes ago, Karen B. said:

should I do daily WC until everything is good or every other day? My nitrates were down to 10-20. But there was still some nitrites showing. I guess I could skip tomorrow as the Prime will bind it to give my cycle a chance and do a WC in 2 days.

Yeah, I’d check it again after the prime has had time to dissipates. Then maybe another WC if nitrites are still showing. 
And I guess it was perfect timing to skip a day of feeding!  It may have been those snails that were causing the increased nitrites.