Help Using Prime Urgent Please

[shiftingsands]

HI, please can you help

I started off 4 new small tanks ( 20L) 3 weeks ago in preparation for 4 small batches of fish arriving. All tanks were doing fine ( a little ammonia and Nitrite but with small daily water changes they were acceptable). Fish were added to the tanks and all is well in 3 tanks.

The 4th tank is not so good=
5 Endlers ( approx 1.5-2cm)
20L Temp 78, pH 7.3, lightly planted, bio-algarde sponge filter ( which does up to 45L)

Ammonia 0.50, Nitrites0.50, Nitrates 5.

I had been adding Cycle and doing 25% water changes daily which is how I got the other tanks ready, which seemed to work fine.
Yesterday morning I found one of the females dead in Tank 4, and I started panicking. I went to the LFS and he recommeneded Stability as a better filter aid than Cycle (?) and Prime (both by Seachem) to lock up the toxins. I am not a fan of this locking up idea but it seemed the only way to save my fish which are very precious ( I know they all are, but these REALLY are)
It said that in emergency Nitrite situations you can add up to 5 times the recommended dose, so I added 3 times the rec. dose.

Reading the Prime label it says it only locks up for 24 hours,

So after all that blurb (sorry) my questions are:
1) do I have to use Prime daily to keep the toxins locked up?
2) As my API water tests wont show a true reading how will I know when things improve/worsen? I dont want to wait until I lose more fish
3) Do I continue with daily 25% water changes, and if so how much Prime do I add? Would I just add it to the new water I add, or dose the whole tank again?

Please if someone can help I would be so grateful, I added the Prime at about 7pm Uk time last night , and the fish to seem a whole lot better and are actually "courting", so I dont want them to go downhill again.
Hope someone can help. Thanks for reading

 

[Tolak]

I use prime on a regular basis. With ammo & nitrite present, plenty of aeration helps. Either add an airstone, or drop the water level a little if you have a hob filter to increase aeration. Bio-Spira is the one to use for cycling tanks, but make sure it has been refrigerated. It's expensive, but it's the one that works. The others only make the fishkeeper feel better. If you have an established tank with some gravel or sand, put a small handful on top of the sponge filter.

1- If you add double the dose daily to dose the entire tank, it won't hurt anything. The chemicals used in prime are done doing their thing in a few hours, basically becoming inert.

2- The api tests will show ammo & nitrites, but they will be locked into a form that is not harmful to the fish. The tank will be cycled when they test out to 0.

3- Dose the whole tank, including the replacement water. You could go up to 50% on water changes, I do 50% to 80% weekly on most of my tanks, 50% daily on tanks with certain meds.

Tolak

 

[shiftingsands]

Thank you Tolak
So should I do a 50% water change daily, and add a double dose for 20L daily too and when the tests come out at normal can I stop using the Prime?
Can you get Bio-spira in the UK? I have searched for it but haven't found it yet?

 

[daddyfish]

I to am not a Fan of using something to so called Lock Up the toxins, the best way is to Remove them.

Through Both Water Changes as well as adding some Ammo remover to your Filter Box.

I use a small amount of Ammo Remover all the time in my filters, and it helps to keep it from all of a sudden going completely out of whack.

I don't like Cycle at all if you don't keep it Refridgerated just right after opening it, it goes sour on you so to Speak.

I don't like something thats not refridgerated before you Open/Buy it having to be Refridgerated after you Open/Buy It.

I prfer to use Bio Zyme it doesn't require refridgeration, and works 200% better for me then any other type of Cycling Aid.

In fact i add a little after every water change to help reseed any filter material I may have changed, and to help replace any of the bacteria that I may have lost due to Gravel hoovering.

Good Luck.