Help Bad Water Parameters!

[Jackiee]

I have some sort of driftwood that came with the tank, 2 pieces actually. a large piece and a small piece.
I posted a different forum asking how to get the large piece to sink.
the small piece sank immediately.

I also am not sure what type of wood it is, I think it is bogwood, I posted a picture of it in the other forum.


So do I need to overdose with the Prime or just use it to treat the water.

Also, when I add the prime, how long until it wears out and the ammonia/nitrite becomes harmful to the fish again?
How long does the Prime stay effective?

 

[KittyKat]

I have some sort of driftwood that came with the tank, 2 pieces actually. a large piece and a small piece.
I posted a different forum asking how to get the large piece to sink.
the small piece sank immediately.

I also am not sure what type of wood it is, I think it is bogwood, I posted a picture of it in the other forum.

It will sink by itself once it is water logged.

So do I need to overdose with the Prime or just use it to treat the water.

Also, when I add the prime, how long until it wears out and the ammonia/nitrite becomes harmful to the fish again?
How long does the Prime stay effective?

What do the instructions say? I think to treat ammonia, you have to overdose.. you may want to contact Seachem to ask them for best recommendations. You might also want to find out if it is even legal for your tap water to contain that much ammonia.

From what I understand about how it works, it is effective until new ammonia is added into the water and it is all used up. It may be worth investing into a test kit which will tell you how much of your ammonia is NH[sub]3[/sub], I think Seachem do one.

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

Your tap water probably has chloramines in it. Chloramines is a combination of chlorine and ammonia bundled together. Municipal water companies use it, because, unlike chlorine, chloramines do NOT evaporate .. so it is deemed a better chemical for removing bacteria from drinking water. Decholorinators that handle chloramines break the chloramine apart ... then render the chlorine harmless, but free the ammonia. Some dechlorinators, like Seachem Prime, take the extra step of binding the free ammonia so that it becomes ammonium (for a time).

And .. how much time .. you specifically asked.

I asked the Seachem folks the same thing. The rep. told me it will bind the ammonia as ammonium for about 24 hours. But, I imagine that 24 hour value might vary quite a bit based on other parameters in your water.

For example, it is known that ammonia is more harmful at higher PH levels. I don't know if this is related, but perhaps the Seachem Prime can't keep the ammonia bound as long in higher ph water??

Well, I don't know the answers to these things, but wish I did. In any case, for me, I think I am going to filter my water in a separate aquarium and do my water changes from there (or use an RO Unit and add minerals)

 

[Jackiee]

I now have more filters running and my parameters seem to be slowly fixing themselves.
I'm having ALOT of problems with my Fluval 304's though ..... I had one up and running fine.
then tried starting the other one, well the cannister container where the latches lock in place broke on one side and when
i turned it on, water started gushing all over my floor.

I turned the filter off and took the hoses out of the aquarium and mopped up my floor.
Then I got a replacement container, transfered my baskets and lid over to the new container, turned it on, and it was leaking.
So then I stopped it again, took the o-ring off, rinsed it off, wiped the area around it, and put it back on, it was still leaking,
so then I got a replacement o-ring, started the filter back up, and it leaked very slowly, dripping, for an hour and then quit.
so I think just some excess water from the seal was coming out. It is now working fine.

After that was all said and situated, I stopped the original fluval 304 that i had running and hadn't had any problems with to replace the carbon.
I did all of this with no problem until I was trying to prime it. everytime I try to pump the filters to fill them up with water, they dont do it, so I have to
manually fill them up myself with cups of tank water. and then put the lid on, and then pour cups of water down the intake hose until it's full enough to start.
Well while I was doing this, the lid popped off of the cannister. Which is absolutely rediculous because slowly pouring water down a tube should not be enough
pressure to pop a locked lid off.. well i discovered the same hinge where the latches are supposed to lock that broke off my other one, this container was starting to
do the same. It hadn't completely broke off, but it was cracking. so I dared not turn it on because im NOT about to have water spill all over my floor again.


But anyways, I still have a Penguin Bio-wheel (170gph), Marineland hot magnum (250gph), Whisper power filter 60 (330gph), and one Fluval 304 (260gph) running in my 90 gallon aquarium.
My Fluval is stocked with bio-rock, carbon, and some beige looking rock in one of the baskets I'm thinking is Zeolite? correct me if I'm wrong?

Here's my stats as of tonight:

Ammonia has lowered to 1.0ppm
Nitrite is at 0ppm
Nitrate I THINK is at 40ppm,
it is hard to distinguish because the color on the card between 40ppm and 80ppm is extremely close..


I also went out and bought the medium sized bottle of Prime, and the directions on this larger bottle say
one capful for every 50 gallons, well I double dosed and put 200 gallons worth in my 90 gallon,
with my stats being out of wack, I dont want my fish to be harmed by the ammonia or nitrate.

 

[Jackiee]

Is anyone still following this?
I still need help,
I just tested my water again today and things are kind of worse..



Ammonia: 0.50ppm (better)
Nitrite: 0.50ppm (worse)
Nitrate: 80ppm!! (worse!)

I'm double dosing it daily with Prime, but what gives?
Shouldnt this be fixing itself?
I know 80ppm of nitrate is very very high. I only have one more level to go until im at the very bottom of the color chart!

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

The only way to really get rid of Nitrate is through water changes. You can't rely on Seachem Prime to do that for you.

Also, the Nitrite reading makes sense, honestly. Your tank is not yet cycled .. but it looks like you have some of the Nitrosomonas bacteria growing, so they are beginning to process your ammonia, and turn it into Nitrite. The Nitrobacter or Nitrospira bacteria are the ones that will process your nitrites and turn them into Nitrates. Those buddies are harder to cultivate. They take longer to show up and multiply slower I think. But you must have some of them too, otherwise you wouldn't have such a large Nitrate reading.

Constantly throwing extra Seachem Prime in your tank will only get you so far. It looks to me that you are in the middle of a fish-in cycle .. so I would read up on that.

You'll probably need to do regular large water changes (maybe even daily or at least as test readings indicate) for a good while until you are able to cultivate the bacteria in the right numbers. You are just going to have to be patient, do the regular water changes, and wait it out ... it will likely take weeks to months before your aquarium stabilizes itself and you can revert back to the typical once a week water changes.

Key thing with the water changes .. match temperature and hardness (and dechlorinate of course) .If you are using your tap water, then your hardness levels should probably always be same, so nothing to worry about there.

Hopefully someone with more experience than myself can also chime in.

 

[Jackiee]

I don't understand how my tank would be really cycling though. It has been doing this same thing for a long while now.
Even before I upgraded to a 90 gallon from a 29 gallon, it was doing this. And my 29 gallon was established for 3 years when it started doing this.

And when I upgraded to my 90 gallon, I used all the same filters, decor, used some of the same rock, and drained all the water
straight out of my old tank into my new one.

And also, my tap water is terrible, it has extremely high ammonia and has nitrites and nitrates in it as well.

I will do water changes, and it might make slight differences, but everytime I have before, It never really helps
to improve my water drastically. I even drained almost my whole tank more than once, left just enough water in for my fish
to stay submerged, and my stats stayed almost exactly the same. I was so frustrated.


I will start the almost daily water changes, and hope that it gets me somewhere.

Does the Prime detofixy ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate COMPLETELY for my fish while its in the water?
or is it still dangerous to them somewhat even if I'm dosing with it?

 

[KittyKat]

The nitrite and nitrate readings are actually a good sign for you, it means that both ammonia and nitrite are being processed. It is rather awkward that your tap water is so screwed, but the tank seems to be starting to cope with that.

I don't think Prime does anything to nitrate..? Water changes are really the only way here.

Even with the addition of Prime, there is still a chance that the ammonia and nitrite are toxic. You can't guarantee anything either way here, so I would suggest just keeping up the water changes (#41####, the tap ammonia doesn't help here).

Do you already sit your water for some time before adding it to the tank or do you have space to? It might be an option to use something like Nitra-Zorb to try to reduce ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in your tap water, but resins are very slow working and you would need to keep it in the water for some time (potentially days).

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

I still think a good idea for you is to establish a separate container (a tub, an aquarium, a large bucket, whatever) ... and attach a filter with mature media and a heater to it. Feed it regularly with ammonia. Eventually this "container" will be cycled just like an aquarium would, and now you will have a nice water source to use for your water changes since it will have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite (and you could change all the water in it a day ahead of your planned water change for your aquarium, so that you will also have 0 nitrates).

Yes, it doesn't solve your immediate problem, of course, and you'll have to wait 6 weeks or longer before this water source is ready, but in the long run I think it would be well worth it.

That is what I plan to do when I start a 30 gallon aquarium some time in the next year since my tap water registers 2ppm of ammonia -- even when filtered through a Brita filter!

Think of it this way, if you have 2ppm ammonia in your tap water, and you do a 20% water change with this water to your tank .. you have just made the whole tank register about 0.4ppm ammonia! Much too high for the health of your fish. Living day to day by depending on Seachem Prime to keep that ammonia detoxified for long enough for your bacteria to process it, is far from ideal, and risky too.

What happens if you get a sudden ammonia spike for some reason? Right now you have no good water source to use to quickly bring down your levels! With the separate container/aquarium whatever, you would have that source.

 

[Jackiee]

I like in a small apartment and have no room whatsoever for another tank to be set up or container to hold water for water changes that way.
and Theres no way I can have water set out, as I have a 90 gallon aquarium and that would be alot of buckets of water that would have to be sitting on the living room floor and I just have
no room for that whatsoever. The 90 gallon tank and stand itself takes up any extra space that I have.

Also, the Prime does say it nuetralizes nitrite and nitrate.

The Prime bottle says it "removes chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia, and converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily removed by the tank's biolfilter.
Prime may be used during tank cycling to alleviate ammonia/nitrite toxicity. Prime detoxifies nitrite and nitrate, allowing the biolfilter to more efficiently remove them. "

It says each dose removes 0.8 mg/L of ammonia. I don't know how many ppm's that is, but thats what the bottle says.

Guess I'll just have to keep doing water changes with my tap water. I mean, eventually my filters will be able to convert it and get rid of it.

*sigh*

 

[KittyKat]

"...Prime detoxifies nitrite and nitrate, allowing the biolfilter to more efficiently remove them."

That sounds.. odd, to say the least, because the filter doesn't *do* anything with nitrate

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

My unopened bottle of Seachem Prime says the following (on the other side of the bottle from where you read your quote .. which I also see ..):

"To detoxify nitrite in an emergency, up to 5 times normal dose may be used.".

Notice the term "emergency". I don't think they are expecting people to be constantly overdosing their tank with the product to try to control water parameters.

Personally, I would be a little concerned about constantly throwing Prime in high doses into the aquarium. Maybe you have no other option, though. Your tank is so large and your daily water changes will be expensive, probably, let alone time consuming. And you already ruled out using a different water source.

 

[Jackiee]

My tank is beginning to balance itself.

A couple days ago when I last checked,

My ammonia is all the way down to 0.25 ppm, almost gone,
my nitrite was 0ppm
my nitrate was 20ppm


I don't know how my nitrate lowered in that way, going from 80ppm to 20ppm, because I had not done a water change between these two times.

I even double tested to make sure i got an accurate reading because I was puzzled.
I was expecting my nitrate to build up even more.

I was about to do a water change after i tested the water to get rid of my nitrate, but then discovered after the test that my nitrate was
in normal range, so i didn't.


My fish have been acting completely normal, are brightly colored, and looking very healthy.

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

That is awesome! Glad to hear it!

Are you using the API Freshwater Master Test Kit? I use it. The nitrate test is a real pain in the butt. I am not sure I always get accurate results with it, even though I follow all the instructions carefully (there is a lot of bottle shaking, test tube shaking requirements that need to be done). All the other tests are so easy to do and dependable, which is good, since they are more important.

Luckily, nitrate isn't all that harmful, though everyone seems to disagree on when it becomes harmful. I have heard various safe limits: 40ppm, 80ppm, even 200ppm! Who knows the truth?

Are you still overdosing with prime? Maybe that is affecting the Nitrate test results somehow.

Anyway, glad to hear things are looking up.

 

[Jackiee]

I know! Yes, I am using the API liquid freshwater master test kit,
I try to do my best with the nitrate test also!

Here's my stats as of right now, I tested the water about 5 minutes ago:

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm
ph: 7.0 - 7.2 (hard to tell as the colors are extremely close to each other on the ph color chart!)

and no, I have not treated with any prime at all for at least 5 days now.
Looks like my abundance of filters is doing the job finally, and my new ones have matured enough to handle the load!