PH 7.6, Ammonia 0 ppm, Nitrite 0.25ppm, Nitrate 0 ppm. A month has passed since I had my betta Muhammad Ali. He seems very happy and energetic. Always exploring the tank. What to do for High Nitrite? I have silk plants and 3 gallon tank, 15W heater, slow flow filter.
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Posted by Ok_Mix5094
9 Comments
Water changes are the only way to deal with high nitrite. Please do as nitrite is toxic.
Here’s a good guide based on the API test kit for what % to change with the readings tested for:
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It seems like you’re mid cycle, 0.25 is not ideal but not a danger zone- just monitor to make sure it doesn’t go above that. If it goes above .25 do a 25-40% water change and keep testing your water daily to make sure it starts to convert into nitrate!
If you can, I’d suggest replacing some silk plants with live plants (depending on when you bought them you might be able to do an exchange) as live plants are better all around but can help keep your parameters steady as well 🙂
Water changes frequently
As well as sorting out the nitrite sort out your tank..3 gallons is too small and real plants look better and make the tank better
Live plants will soak up the nitrates. I’d use epiphytes like Java fern or Anubias. Floaters are really good at taking up nitrates.
Some people hate on it but duckweed devours ammonia and nitrate which also helps keep nitrite down
Plants, larger tank, 15-20% water changes every day.
Take a clean cutting of pothos (make sure to thoroughly rinse away any chemicals, debris, dirt, etc. that might be on it before using it in your aquarium), stick its roots in the tank water while keeping the rest of the plant stems & leaves up above the water. It’s an easy way to add additional fast-growing plant to an aquarium, and it has the advantage of having access to carbon dioxide in the air. A fully nitrogen cycled 3g tank should be getting TWICE per week 35-45% partial water changes – one midweek and another at the end of the week (this is the routine I noticed that kept the water quality best, when I was new to bettas and had smaller tanks). An uncycled 3g tank will need even more frequent partial water changes until it is fully cycled.
But ultimately if you can upgrade your betta to at least a 5g tank in the near future, it will be a lot better for you and for the health of the betta – larger volume of water is much more stable, and dilutes wastes better. My 5.5g betta tanks only needed once per week 25% partial water changes which was much more manageable. As soon as I tried the 5g tanks I knew I wasn’t going back to tanks smaller than that for bettas.
The possible exception to that rule is if a betta is disabled and cannot swim well or is completely blind and would otherwise have difficulty navigating in a larger tank. Certain bettas with extremely massive fins (halfmoons, over-halfmoons, rose-tail halfmoons, etc.) might surprisingly do better in a tank of 3g vs anything bigger simply because they can struggle to get around in larger spaces. In genral though, 5-10g is recommended for most bettas.
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5 gallon is minimum size for your betta. Bigger volume means more leeway for water changes.