Nitrites in my pond

[davelin315]

I am a little bit concerned about a water test I took today. There are trace nitrites in my water (less than .1 ppm) despite the fact that there in not any detectable ammonia. I compared this to a test of tap water, which I did head to head several times, all with the same tinge of color in the tank sample. Background is it's a transferred over pond using a 1" deep substrate from an established pond that was set up for around 5 years or so and also all of the rock from it. It has been transferred over into about a 400 gallon system which has a new bat ray in it. Maybe this is what the problem is? The bat ray is a new addition, and I have been trying to gut load him recently so that he can recover from his shipping. He appears healthy in all respects and is eating well, and has become somewhat tame and responsive to me (actually, from some advice here, I think it's a female, so maybe she is more appropriate). All of the other pond parameters are normal, and I can't figure out what is going on. The only thing I suspect may be the problem is that I did not move a trickle filter filled with bioballs over to the new system, and left it on the old system temporarily. Could this have deprived the new filter of some of the nitrosomas bacteria (is that the one that converts nitrite to nitrate?) resulting in the trace presence of nitrite in the system, but no ammonia? Any help would be appreciated, it seems that the level has dropped since yesterday, but it is still a concern since I would have to do a quick transfer back to the holding pond with the bat ray. By the way, the pond ran for a week before the bat ray went in, and the filtration was in place during that time, with a small trigger in the refugium. Not sure of the source, or if I should be more concerned about the nitrite presence than I already am.

 

[monkeyboy]

That ray you have cost your LFS 3 cents right? j/k

Since theres no ammonia only one of the bacteria have been affected, i forget which one it is also but its the nitrite-nitrate one. IME that second strain is more fickle than the ammonia-nitrite guy (dont we sound like experts huh?). I've heard of many cases where nitrite has hung around for a while (one guy even had elevated nitrites for 3-4 months until i sold him a piece of LR). I've also heard that chlorine can disturb this type of bacteria also, wether it be nitrobacter or nitrosomonas. I would try to seed it again w/ more bio-media from another system. Sorry i cant be much more help!

[ September 08, 2001: Message edited by: monkeyboy ]

 

[davelin315]

Thanks for the advice Kevin, I actually just moved some bioballs from the old pond into an old homemade trickle filter to see if that would alleviate the problem. Thank god you're not a chemist, as I don't understand half of the technical threads here on this bb, and I know that they're all full of stuff that I could really use (or that I already know, just not with technical jargon incorporated). I was thinking of buying some live rock as well to restock my pond, but I would think that it would experience some die off as well, and then I'd be in a similar position except maybe boosting my nitrites past the trace stages. The bat ray actually cost me $65 with $50 for shipping (2 were shipped, one died in transit and is to be replaced). Not $.03, but compared to the $2000 my LFS was charging (they're now down to the bargain price of $599 for a really runty one - no doubt when they're back down to only having 1 the price'll be back up to $2000 as it did last year, going from $800 to $2000), it might as well be! Oh well, all's well that ends well, and I think the retail thread ended on a pretty good note.

My guess is the bat ray probably cost around a dime a dozen or something like that.

I'll keep on testing tonight while I'm on call and see if there are any changes in the levels.

 

[jmeader]

I would think you had a small ammonia spike from the move. You just happened to check at the point where ammonia had subsided and nitrite peaked. If I'm right there isn't much to worry about at that level. The nitrite will probably be gone by tomorrow night.

 

[davelin315]

Hope that's what the case is, and that's also what I was hoping was the problem. Just in case, I didn't feed her today, and won't until the nitrite subsides. I really don't want to stress her out at all, she's such a beautiful animal and I've already gotten very attached, as has my wife and my 6 month old daughter (the bat ray comes up to the top and waves at her and sticks her head out of the water to say hello when we're down there - basically, she's like a little dolphin).

 

[monkeyboy]

By any chance did you test your reef w/ this kit? If it shows any then i guess you can disregard these results. Just a thought.

 

[davelin315]

Yeah, I did test the reef, undetectable nitrites. I tossed in 2 chunks of live rock to aid the filter again, the nitrites are still hovering around .1 or less ppm.