Newbie nitrite spike

[Voylike]

Hi all, new to fishkeeping, and have been loving the whole process from researching, cycling, buying. We have a 100L tank and have recently had a spike in nitrate levels. Reading of ammonia , nitrates and nitrites have been ‘0’ for around 4 weeks. The only thing I have changed recently is I’ve started feeding with pellets, could this be the reason?? Also which is the best testing kits to have, I’m only using test strips, are these not good enough?
Thanks guys

[LookoutTrout]

Hi there, some nitrates are normal and usually present in tap water. If it's not over 20 I wouldn't worry about it, even then many fish can tolerate a lot more even if it's not ideal.
Test strips aren't great but many people don't bother testing nitrate which is fine as long as you do decent size water changes. I found 25% a week wasn't enough but it depends on your stocking level.

[Voylike]

Hi thanks for the reply, stocking wise we have 6 guppies, 3 platys, 2 mollys. Got 2 plants in which we have added 2 weeks ago so they are hopefully going to help soon. We have been doing 25/30% change per week and that seems to have been sufficient. Which would be the best way to test water then?
Thanks

[LookoutTrout]

Nitrate tests can be a bit awkward with people saying bang bottle 1 on a desk several times. I prefer to use ones with bottle 1 in powder form with a scoop, I use JBL but there are others available.
I don't think those fish are especially sensitive to nitrate, shrimp tend to be the first to suffer. I tend to test once a month maybe just to check levels aren't creeping up or down.
I like to keep about 20ppm as I have a lot of plants but it's not essential as they can feed from ammonia or nitrite as well

[Voylike]

Excellent thanks for the advice and help, I’ll have a look at that JBL

[black ghost]

Do you mean a nitrate or nitrite spike?
How much nitrate is there in your tapwater?

If you opt for a liquid nitrate kit then it’s bottle 2 you need to bang on a wall before you shake it. The API one is the most used liquid one.

[Stephen]

What level do you consider a nitrate spike ?

[Voylike]

Hi Stephen and ghost, as said I’ve been using the strips which I get aren’t excellent, but have been reading white on the strip so roughly ‘0’. I’ve tested yesterday and got a reading of nitrate roughly 20/30 ppm. I have a reading today slightly higher and nitrite reading is going up. Should I do more than a 25/30% change to get it out? Should I add filter boost when adding new water in?? Do you just feed as normal or stop to minimise waste?
Thanks again

[black ghost]

Trouble with the strips is they’re very inaccurate, so any reading you get could be wrong. If nitrite is really also rising it sounds like you’re not cycled.

So what nitrate reading do you get from the tapwater?

[plankton]

It does sound like you're cycling with fish, so you should be doing daily water changes to keep the nitrite below 0.25ppm.
Get a liquid test kit, they're easiest and quickest to sort out the cycle with (unless you really want to go with a powder one) and make sure that both ammonia and nitrite don't go above the 0.25ppm.
The nitrate reading from the tap is important so you know where you start from and what you can aim at.
I'm lucky as the nitrate readings are normally below 5ppm from the tap, so have never reached above 10ppm in any of the tanks, but anything below 40ppm is acceptable and below 20ppm is great.