2 Questions

[chrisbassist]

first day since the end of the first week I am NOT doing a water change. this mornings test (24 hours since last test) and my nitrite is reading 0 (or there is a slight tinge of purple but you can only see it if you look down from the top so might be something like 0.01) but great, maybe I can drop to weekly changes, We'll see in the tests tomo, and the day after...

First Question:
can you get better test tubes anywhere on their own?
I've got all the tests I need, but now every single one of those useless plastic test tubes has cracked at the top. I can still do the tests, but on the shaking some can leak out the top if i'm not careful, I'd rather make tests easier since they're not exactly something I enjoy doing (but do anyway)

Second Question:
Prime says it de-toxifies small amounts of nitrite and nitrate, will this show up in the tests still or does it "remove" those so the tests won't show them?
I swapped to prime yesterday, I was running low on my water treatment, so I went to get more, having heard from here prime was great, I looked for it, it wasn't with any of the others, but I found it. It was a little more expensive than the others, but looking at how much you need to use, will work out a lot cheaper in the long run. (they also had a big bottle of it for £70, which treated 50,000 gallons... wow) but I was wondering whether dosing with that on yesterdays change could be the reason I'm seeing no nitrites today?

 

[jennybugs]

test tubes with lids

Not sure about how the Prime actually works. I use it on all my tanks and it is very cost effective. Maybe an email to Seachem will help?

 

[chrisbassist]

thanks for the link

not sure its worth an email, i'm not too bethered about it since either its all gone or all been detoxed

 

[waterdrop]

I don't know the true answer on the question about Prime, but I do know that we usually say that any of the various "detox" type benefits of Prime and the other conditioners usually works in the neighborhood of 24 hours. It doesn't really work as an ongoing thing - which is the reason we want cycled filters of course. The detox effect for nitrite and nitrate would be considerably less than for ammonia I think and of course the ammonia detox doesn't change what you read (since it just converts it to ammonium) from the test. So other than maybe a slight bit of skepticism about your first nitrite/nitrate reading after conditioning, I just don't think it would have a big effect on your cycling tests.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chrisbassist]

Cheers, we,ll see what it reads tomo, over 24 hours after so any effects from the prime will no longer be there.

 

[chrisbassist]

If anyone is interested, today's water tests revealed 0.1 nitrite.

This means any "detoxed" nitrite was not shown on the test. So the test with none showing was accurate.

 

[chrisbassist]

okay, now I'm confused.

I did email seachem asking the question (more out of curiosity than needing the answer)

my response:

Thanks for the question. When using a product such as
Prime to detoxify nitrites and nitrates, there is not a
test kit on the market that can distinguish between the
bound and unbound nitrites or nitrates. They will show up
on a test kit until they are consumed by your biological
filter. I can assure you that if you are dosing Prime,
then the nitrites are in an inert state and your fish are
safe. If you are nearing the end of the cycling process,
then it is very possible that your nitrites are now 0.

(plus a little bit more)

So that means that nitrites should have been showing still. which means that my tank actually had no nitrite left in it. I've been the last 2 days with no water change, and today had a small amount of ammonia, and a small amount of nitrite too. assuming my tests keep showing as they have the last few days, looks like I can change water every 3 days for the timebeing.

I'm assuming that the nitrite eating bac has finally caught up with what it was being fed, but my water changes were removing too much ammonia to let that grow to the required amount, so daily changes now will only slow the process. we'll see.

but at least I (andnow everyone else here) have a full answer about prime and any nitrite (or nitrate) shown on tests)

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, that's good information Chris. That confirms (and straight from Seachem) that the bound up nitrite/nitrate shows up on the test results just the same as ammonium does on the ammonia testing. And in the case of ammonia, we know that the autotrophs are just as happy to eat ammonium as ammonia, so there's no change to the encouragement of the cycle. So I suspect that the same would be true for the N-Bacs, they probably eat the bound nitrite just as readily as the ion form.

So there's no change to the Fish-In cycling process, you just judge your 12hour ammonia and nitrite results for their nearness to 0.25ppm and make a call on the percentage and frequency of water changing needed to keep you down in the below 0.25ppm range. But I believe what you were figuring out for yourself was that Prime doesn't make the nitrate or nitrate actually -disappear- from test results, which is good to understand. And, in the same vein, that for the 24 hours or so after a larger water change with a conditioner like Prime being used, the nitrite you see in a test result won't actually be harming the fish anyway, which is good.

In Fish-In Cycling, unlike Fishless Cycling, you have less leeway to do things to the bacterial "food" concentration (the ammonia or nitrite level) because you are forced to always keep the water safe for the fish. In a way it makes it simpler, because you just do what you have to do to keep them safe.

We've had a few beginners that mistakenly thought they could just dose something like Prime over and over and then allow the concentrations of the "bound" poisons to be higher, to try and speed up the colony formation, but it doesn't work, it inevitably gets out of control and carries a greater risk of killing the fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chrisbassist]

yeah, as tempting as it would be to do that so I don't need to do water changes I wouldn't like not knowing how much of the ammonia/nitrite in the tank is harmful, I couldn't do it without knowing EXACTLY how my stats stand.

hopeully the info will be useful for everyone

EDIT: I'mpretty sure the packaging says that the bacteria will readily consume the detoxed nitrite/nitrate