Nitirite, then what?

I hear Nitrate turns into nitrite, but my lfs says its the other way around. Now i'm confused... They also say nitrite is reaaaaaaally bad and you need to get rid of it quickly, but I've heard a bit is fine as long as you do regular water changes.

 

Nitrite turns into nitrate, and nitrite is very toxic for the fish and must be cleared up immediately. Nitrate is okay in higher amounts (but not too high) as long as there is no ammonia and nitrite; though ideally nitrate should be 0 as well (but mine never has been).

 

Mine hovers at unde 10.0ppm

 

ammonia > nitrite > nitrate

 

you win, everyone above got it wrong!

any, and I mean ANY reading of nitrites or ammonia is a fish and coral killer.

most can tolerate low readings of nitrates

 

if you have nitrite readings, then you're cycling.

Are you still cycling?

 

DUH!!! Lol Wow, I need to go back to 101...haha it's only been 5 months since I cycled and I already forgot. But I also just woke up from a nap and am feeling a lil' groggy. ;-)

 

Nope, It read a bit last week when tank finished cyclin now thats over no more nitrite.10ppm was ammonia, sorry just blacked out since I tested everything and now I have none.

 

if you read a bit of nitrites and/OR ammonia, then it was not done cycling... both need to be stable at 0 for a couple weeks before you can really consider the cycle over...

if you now have none, make sure it stays that way for at least two weeks because sometimes it comes back... ya know, in cycles

 

The last Gas to be formed in the denitrification process is Nitrate NO3 then that just stays unless you deal with removing that Ammonia appears first then the bacteria break that down to nitrite (NO2) Then more bacteria species breaks the nitrites down into almost harmless nitrate gas (NO3), Thats the very end of the line , takes high levels to effect most fish But most soft corals do not need it much higher then about 10 PPM and LPS and SPS have no need for it and the NO3 Gas will feed problem algae.

I run a NO3 nitrate coil to remove the last gas from my system so as to not have to worry about my SPS corals