What Does Everyone Think Of Special Blend?

[elee49]

The LFS suggested this. I know LFS? But that's why I run it past you guys. It's supposed to be good bacteria. It's says Eco system microbe lift? I'm willing to try any thing to get this pregnant platys ammonia down just till she births! Then for my 55g that too high as well. So what does everyone think?

 

[Tuxyu3]

What do you mean get her ammonia down? There should barely be any trace whatsoever of ammonia in the water if your filter is cycled properly. If indeed there is ammonia in the water the only recommendable thing is very large water changes daily, you don't want to be throwing chemicals into your tank in an attempt to solve problems.

 

[elee49]

Yes I would love to do a full fish less cycle, however my platy that's in this 10g breeder tank is pregnant and I wanted to isolate her. I originally put the water from my cycled tank in the 10g thinking great! Well come to find out my husband cleaned the good media from the filters in the cycled tank and both tanks have ammonia. This stuff is a bacteria for the water to help grow bacteria? I don't know anything about it? I just want to get her through this pregnancy then cycle this 10g properly! I might add my tap water here in good ole Florida is 2ppm too high so I have to load it up with prime or am quell before placement in the tank.

 

[Tuxyu3]

Some people insist these bacteria products help and some insist they don't, I'm inclined to believe the latter but won't go all scientific on as to why. I personally don't see why adding it would cause any harm whether it actually helps or not but one thing you should be doing are extremely large water changes (around70-90%) daily until you are cycled and drill the idea of not cleaning filters in tap water into that pesky husband of yours head

I don't want to put a downer on this but I wouldn't hold up to much hope for a successful birth, even if the mother isn't too stressed to have the babies successfully the fry are incredibly senitive to things such as ammonia in the water.

 

[elee49]

I did get the tanks to 0 ammonia today after putting double doses of amquell in my water bucket. I know it needs to cycle but just for the fry. It's always in my mind that either she will abort or they will die from the ammonia. That's why the urgency of my posts. Thanks so much for the replies. I hope your tanks are doing well.

 

[SikkAquariums]

Honestly, I use it in ALL of my tanks, and my tanks are pretty stable most of the time. I use the Special Blend, The Water Conditioner (Heavy Metal Detox), and Nite out II for ammonia and nitrite detoxing. I use so many becuase my tap water shoots around in ammonia levels, and the Aqueon is what I have used for the past year or so, and no problems, and then one day I did water change in all my tanks, and did water tests a few days later, including the new snail tank i had up, and nothing seemed to help but constent water changes and different additives. I still need to check parameters in my 80cichlid since i just re set it up and didn't have time to cycle, but so far levels are pretty low like .50ppm ammonia, and .25 nitrite, and 10-20ppm nitrate. I had a fish emergency while adding them back into the tank, and unfortunately shocked about 5 of my good fish and the rest of fine, but i had to remove about 27 gal of new water and reintroduced about 23gal of old water, but that was 3 days ago, so i added water (rather than doing a water change, since it was low still), and added amquel (from LFS) for the 5 extra gallons i just added.

 

[elee49]

I think I'll just keep with WC until it cycles then I will use the prime or amquell to treat my water from the tap. I never had water issues until the pregnancy of this fish. Perhaps this is a lesson in complacency !