Cycling, Prime & Stability

[Sausage]

Hi,

Im not sure if many have experience using seachem prime and stability but have a few questions regarding the use of them.

I have a 48 litre (10 uk gallon) tank. Been cycyling for 6 weeks now. I use prime whenever i do a water change. How much dosage do you recommend for a 25% water change? I currently use 6 drops, is this too much or not enough?

Also i hear that prime combines and binds both nitrites and nitrates when added. Does this mean when i do a test with a liquid test kit, that my nitrites will show higher as the nitrates will also be part of the result? My nirtites are high at 5ppm each day unless i do 25% water changes everyday. My ammonia remains and holds at 0. Im hoping my high nitrite reading is down to the combined nitrite/nitrates reading rather than just a high nitrite reading. Or maybe just that my seocnd set of bacteria for nitrites has still not blossomed.

Regrading stability, i have been using this to aid my cycling process, will the bacteria attach itself to the filter foam or will it only settle on rocks and gravel ? I did have white gravel in my tank but since using stability i have had a greeny brown algae like colour appear on them. Is this the stability settling on the gravel ?

cheers for any help given.

 

[OldMan47]

Hi Sausage. The stability product, which I assume says it is loaded with bacteria, is not going to affect much at all. The Prime ties up some chemicals so that the bacteria in your filter can deal with it but it does not change nitrites to nitrates. The fact that chemicals like nitrites and nitrates have been bound, and made less harmful to the fish, does not prevent them being detected by your test kit. They are still present and the kit will still measure them.
A 1 ml dose of Prime is the nominal amount for a 5 US gallon water change, 20 litres. I often use twice that amount because it is not a problem for my fish and I do not trust my water supplier to let me know if they add more chlorine than usual to the water. A 2.5 Imperial gallon water change could be easily treated with 1 ml of Prime and there would be a surplus of the Prime to deal with chlorine concentrations higher than typical. I used a half ml today and counted 3 drops because I am going away with some fish and had just filled a dropper bottle to use while away. 6 drops sounds like it would be close to 1 ml so could easily treat all of your water change.
My guess is that your nitrites are not reaching 5 ppm and dropping to zero with a 25% change. I do not find it unlikely that you can drop 0.5 ppm to less than detectable with a water change that size though. Nitrates are never a problem in a tank getting daily 25% water changes. If I had any tanks getting that much water change I would not bother to try to measure it.
Be aware that the nitrate test kits that tell you to shake reagents for a certain time can be very optimistic about chemical mixing. If I actually want to know nitrate levels for purposes of adding more as fertilizer, I shake the reagents twice as long to make sure they are well mixed. It can make a huge difference in the readings if you don't get proper reagent mixing.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, completely agree with OM47 here. I think dosing at 1.5x or up to 2x the instructed dosing is a cheap and wise risk reducer especially during any form of cycling when the bacterial colonies are still fragile. I like to cut off the overdosing at 2x solely because of a discussion one time with Hovanec where he commented that he thought any higher than that would slow N-Bac development speed.

Stability, I'm afraid I have to agree with OM47, is probably just an example of how even a really good company can not turn down a chance to make some money on something people will keep buying as a wishful thinking thing.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Sausage]

Thanks for the reply guys, very helpful and appreciated. If you are interested a helpful tech guy on the seachem website also answered some of my questions. Here is what he said:

If you do a 25% water change on your 48 litres (12 gallons), that is going to be about 12 liters (3 gallons). Therefore, you would want to add 6 drops to the new water before it is added back to the aquarium, so you are perfectly on point!

Prime does not combine nitrites and nitrates. It forms a complex with them and binds them in a non-toxic form. The readings in your test should not be altered, but if dosing Prime, those levels should be non toxic since they are shielded from your fish by the compound in Prime.

The bacteria in Stability will attach anywhere that it comes in contact with, just as any bacteria will. They will attach to your filter, pad, gravel. pump, etc. but should not cause a visible buildup. What you are seeing is probably a coincidental incidence of diatom proliferation or brown algae which is commonly associated with new tanks.