New Saltwater Aquarium with high Nitrite levels!

[newbie27]

Hi,
I set up a 180 litre tank with coral sand, a couple of dead coral rocks for decoration and the water and salt. All the levels came back 0 but unfortunately i ran out of funds at this time and the tank was left like this for a few months. I have gone back to it now. cleaned out the dead insects and dust and have done a 50% water change. All the levels are showing 0 other than the nitrites which are high. Has the Tank cycle started as i haven't added any ammonia or had any readings for any. I've  just also added Bactozym to try to get the cycle started and the nitrite levels down. What else can i do to get the cycle going and levels okay.
Thanks very much for any help you can give

[WhiteDevil]

You can feed the tank flake food, the break-down will start the cycle, takes alittle longer and smells pretty foul but it does work if you dont want to add ammonia or start over.

[newbie27]

Thanks for the reply.  I've now added a few pieces of live rock but still no change. The Nitrite levels have been very high now for about 2 weeks but still no readings on anything else other than the PH which may be a bit low. Don't really want to do another water change as will have to buy loads more salt which isn't cheap where i live. Are there any solutions i can add to the tank to get the Nitrite down or should i just carry on waiting for the cycle to kick in
Thanks :)

[Ottomund]

I wouldn't do any water changes while the tank is cycling.  Let it get through the cycle until nitrites are 0 then check your nitrate level.  If it is too high at that point then you may want to do a water change.  Are you using a skimmer?  That can help take out some of the waste and reduce the frequency of water changes.

If you have high nitrites then you have started the cycle.  You may want to introduce something to create a small amount of ammonia as WhiteDevil suggested.  Otherwise all of the bacteria that were established to convert ammonia to nitrite may not be there when you add fish.

Saltwater tanks take a lot longer to cycle than freshwater.  6-8 weeks is not uncommon.

[newbie27]

Have a protein skimmer but have turned it off while the tank cycles and have added some fish flakes to get the ammonia up.
Thanks all for the help. Will keep checking the levels.

[WhiteDevil]

Keep us posted.


Raw cocktail shrimp will get the cycle going strong in SW.

[newbie27]

Thanks very much all. I'm very glad to say the Nitrite levels have gone down. :D

Could do with a little more advice. I used declorinated tap water which i've been told now was a very bad idea. I really can't afford an R/O unit at the moment and the tank seems to have cycled so don't want to start again.
Can i start using bottled water from the supermarket and start doing partial water changes to solve the tap water problem. there aren't any fish shops in the area so can only use tap water or the bottled stuff.

[WhiteDevil]

Thanks very much all. I'm very glad to say the Nitrite levels have gone down. :D

Could do with a little more advice. I used declorinated tap water which i've been told now was a very bad idea. I really can't afford an R/O unit at the moment and the tank seems to have cycled so don't want to start again.
Can i start using bottled water from the supermarket and start doing partial water changes to solve the tap water problem. there aren't any fish shops in the area so can only use tap water or the bottled stuff.

I used tap on my 90g marine tank years ago, no adverse effects, but to answer your question yes you can use distilled or filtered water for Wc's