Ammonia levels in my tap water

[quadb]

I tested my tap water recently and the ammonia is at 1 ppm. I use prime to condition the water. I checked my water after doing a water change and the ammonia in the tank went up from 1 ppm to 2 ppm. How often should I be doing my water change? How do I tell if the ammonia is toxic or not?

 

[devsi]

Just to clarify - the ammonia in your tank was 1ppm before a water change? Is your tank cycled?

 

[jdhef]

Test you tap water for ammomnia.

Ammonia starts becoming non-toxic as your pH drops below 7.0. By the time the pH hits 6.0 all ammomia is non-toxic.

 

[devsi]

Test you tap water for ammomnia.

Ammonia starts becoming non-toxic as your pH drops below 7.0. By the time the pH hits 6.0 all ammomia is non-toxic.

Wow, really? TIL!

 

[jdhef]

Yes, (well it's a little more complicated because water temp plays a role but this is a good rule of thumb) at a pH above 7.0 ammonia in the water is in the form of ammonia (toxic). As the pH starts dropping below 7.0 toxic ammonia starts turning into non-toxic ammonium. Between pH 6 or so and 6.9 you will have both ammonia and ammonium in the water. By the time your pH gets to 6.0 all ammonia has turned into ammonium.

 

[devsi]

Yes, (well it's a little more complicated because water temp plays a role but this is a good rule of thumb) at a pH above 7.0 ammonia in the water is in the form of ammonia (toxic). As the pH starts dropping below 7.0 toxic ammonia starts turning into non-toxic ammonium. Between pH 6 or so and 6.9 you will have both ammonia and ammonium in the water. By the time your pH gets to 6.0 all ammonia has turned into ammonium.

That's fascinating, thanks for sharing! So, theoretically, in a tank with a pH of 6 or below, you don't need to be concerned with ammonia at all?

Only the conversion to Nitrite and Nitrate?

 

[RayClem]

It is becoming more common to find ammonia in tap water. Many local communities are starting to disinfect the water supply using chloramine rather than chlorine. Chlorine is so reactive that maintaining a residual level chlorine at the end of the pipeline is difficult. They can resolve this issue my having multiple injection points along the pipeline, but this is cumbersome.

Chloramine is typically derived by adding 1 ppm ammonia to 3 ppm chlorine gas. This forms a stable compound that is toxic to harmful bacteria, yet is less reactive than chlorine. Unfortunately, chloramine can give the water an unpleasant taste. While chlorine can be eliminated by allowing water to stand for a few days; that will not get rid of chloramine.

If you treat tap water that has been disinfected with chloramine with a water conditioner based on a reducing agent such as sodium thiosulfate, the bond between the chlorine and the ammonia will be broken releasing chlorine gas and ammonia. The chlorine gas will be reduced to chloride ion which is harmless. However, that leaves the ammonia.

The toxicity of the ammonia will depend upon the pH. At pH levels above 7.5, most of the ammonia will be in the highly toxic ammonia form. At pH levels below 7.0, most of the ammonia will be in the less toxic ammonium ion form, At intermediate pH levels, there will be both ammonia and ammonium ions in equilibrium.

It is possible to remove ammonia from freshwater using zeolite, which is a type of clay that absorbs certain contaminants. However, if your tank is properly cycled, the nitrifying bacteria will quickly convert either ammonia or ammonium ions to nitrite and then nitrates. If your water is treated with chloramine, I suggest that you avoid large water changes. For example, if you do a 50% water change and the tap water contains 1%, ammonia, the tank water will jump up to 0.5% ammonia until the nitrifying bacteria can do their job. At higher pH levels this level is high enough to cause gill damage to fish. Seachem Prime is designed to render ammonia less-toxic by ionizing the ammonia until the bacteria can process it, so if you have chloramine and a high-pH level using Prime might be helpful.

My tap water is treated with chloramine, plus it is very hard and very high in pH. Thus, it is not ideal for fish. I use a reverse osmosis (RO) system to purify my water to eliminate all the problematic contaminants and then add back desirable minerals to produce water ideal for aquatic life.

 

[Flyfisha]

quadb
I still don’t know why you have any ammonia BEFORE the water change.?

devsi
The percentage of safe ammonia may even be a little higher than this chart ?
But it starts to explain how temperature as well as PH plays a roll.

 

[RayClem]

Temperature does play a role but since most aquariums are typically maintained between 20 C and 28 C, there is little difference until you get below 7.0 pH. The line for 25 C (77 F) is probably the one most applicable for tropical aquariums.

 

[jtjgg]

a lot of city water dept use chloramines, its basically chlorine+ammonia. test your tank water 24hrs after doing a water change.

also, call your water dept and complain about the ammonia.

http://www.aztic.org/wp-content/upl...re-on-Ammonia-pH-Water-Temperature-v-2017.pdf

you could try zeolite, it can be recharged with salt.

 

[H Farnsworth]

Test you tap water for ammomnia.

Ammonia starts becoming non-toxic as your pH drops below 7.0. By the time the pH hits 6.0 all ammomia is non-toxic.

Does the conversion from ammonia raise pH? or rather have any effect?

 

[devsi]

devsi
The percentage of safe ammonia may even be a little higher than this chart ?
But it starts to explain how temperature as well as PH plays a roll.

That's a fascinating chart, thank you for sharing. I thought ANY ammonia was bad.

 

[FishDin]

Free ammonia is the toxic part of the Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN). The ledger to the right provides the line colors for 1 ppm through 5 ppm, the left side of the graph is the "True Free Ammonia" reading based on the pH value on the bottom. Notice that above the pH of 8.0 the toxicity of the TAN rapidly rises.*

*Aquariumworld.com

I tested my tap water recently and the ammonia is at 1 ppm. I use prime to condition the water. I checked my water after doing a water change and the ammonia in the tank went up from 1 ppm to 2 ppm. How often should I be doing my water change? How do I tell if the ammonia is toxic or not?

The ammonia in your tap is less of a concern than the ammonia in your tank before the water change.

A good rule of thumb for water changes is 50% weekly, but every tank is different. A lightly stocked tank, for example, will need smaller and maybe less frequent WCs.

Your beneficial bacteria will consume the ammonia you introduce with water changes, so the fact that there is still ammonia present prior to the WC indicates that your tank is not cycled.

How long has tank been set up? If recently, how did you cycle it?
What volume is it?
What is the stocking?
How is it filtered?
What is the pH?
Do you add any bottled products?

The chlorine gas will be reduced to chloride ion which is harmless. However, that leaves the ammonia.

The toxicity of the ammonia will depend upon the pH. At pH levels above 7.5, most of the ammonia will be in the highly toxic ammonia form. At pH levels below 7.0, most of the ammonia will be in the less toxic ammonium ion form, At intermediate pH levels, there will be both ammonia and ammonium ions in equilibrium.

We had this discussion a day or two ago. MacZ said that the ammonia that results from the breaking up of chloramine via Prime or other conditioners is chelated and nontoxic. Available to bacteria, but not toxic to fish.

 

[RayClem]

View attachment 860803

Free ammonia is the toxic part of the Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN). The ledger to the right provides the line colors for 1 ppm through 5 ppm, the left side of the graph is the "True Free Ammonia" reading based on the pH value on the bottom. Notice that above the pH of 8.0 the toxicity of the TAN rapidly rises.*

*Aquariumworld.com

The ammonia in your tap is less of a concern than the ammonia in your tank before the water change.

A good rule of thumb for water changes is 50% weekly, but every tank is different. A lightly stocked tank, for example, will need smaller and maybe less frequent WCs.

Your beneficial bacteria will consume the ammonia you introduce with water changes, so the fact that there is still ammonia present prior to the WC indicates that your tank is not cycled.

How long has tank been set up? If recently, how did you cycle it?
What volume is it?
What is the stocking?
How is it filtered?
What is the pH?
Do you add any bottled products?

We had this discussion a day or two ago. MacZ said that the ammonia that results from the breaking up of chloramine via Prime or other conditioners is chelated and nontoxic. Available to bacteria, but not toxic to fish.

Seachem Prime will chelate the ammonia, but I do not know if that is the case if you use a simple water conditioner that is based on sodium thiosulfate alone. Many water conditioners do contain chelating agents to bind with heavy metals, but I do not know if these chelants also bind ammonia released from chloramine.

 

[FishDin]

I wish I were a chemist so I could better understand.

According to Fritz aquatics the ammonia from chloramine is toxic, "but nitrifying bacteria will convert ammonia to non-toxic ammonium". What??

It's my understanding that nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia to nitrite and that ammonia vs ammonium is a function of pH.

RayClem, It was Sodium thiosulfate that was said to have the chelating effect on ammonia. Again, I'm not a chemist

This is from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority:
"It is important to remember that a dechlorinating agent containing Sodium Thiosulfate will only
neutralize the chlorine portion of the chloramines, not the ammonia. Additional steps must be
taken to remove ammonia."

This is from the Berkeley County Water & Sanitation Dept.:
"If you treat the water with a simple dechlorinator, such as Prime, Amquel, or Aquasafe Plus that only contains sodium thiosulfate, the chlorine is eliminated leaving the free ammonia in the water."

But then they say this:
Ammonia is also very toxic to fish, so you will need to select a dechlorinator that also has a chemical in it that will convert it to (harmless) ammonium. This would include such products as: Seachem “Prime”. "

So they say Prime doesn't work and then they say it does. They also say Prime converts ammonia to ammonium, which I do not believe Seachem claims.

Amquel Plus (not regular Amquel) specifically says that it detoxifies ammonia as well as nitrite and nitrate. "Detoxifies all forms of ammonia/ammonium. Detoxifies all forms of nitrites/nitrates" The inventor of Amqual apparently disputes this.

From Fritz's patent application (for Amquel, not Amquel +):

"The treating material is a sulfur-containing, reducing agent, and, more specifically, is a water soluble, sulfur-containing, organic compound selected from alkali metal and alkaline earth metal formaldehydesulfoxylates."

It's interesting that much of the application states that they don't know how it works, but that it definitely does. " Sounds like Seachem.

Oh dear, I've gone down a rabbit hole...

 

[Flyfisha]

Water always flows downhill. Hot air rises. Look for the smallest amount of light FishDin . I hope these suggestions can help you find your way out of the rabbit hole?

I am not a chemist ,and I am happy in my ignorance.
I choose to not change more than 50% of the old water for new in order to limit risk from these things I choose not to worry about.

quadb.

When your tank has a fully working nitrogen cycle change some water once a week. If you change the same amount each week after 6 weeks you will have an understanding if the nitrates are rising. If your stocking is so high that weekly 45% water changes are not enough to keep nitrates low then you will have to change water more than once a week.

In regards to ammonia.
There should be no ammonia in a water test on the day before water changes. Even if your tap water has ammonia or with this business of conditioner “ making “ ammonia it should all be long gone in a week.

I seriously question if your tank has a fully functioning nitrogen cycle/ a full house of bacteria?

Further to dealing with ammonia.
Plants consume ammonia. Plants with their leaves in air consume more ammonia than plants under water.
A couple of snapshots.
Aquariums using plants above the water to help filter.
And outdoor tanks ( containers) with plants as there only filter.

 

[FishDin]

Thank Flyfisha!

Fortunately my tanks are not plagued by these problems. I just get annoyed sometimes at companies that make unsubstantiated / decieving claims.

 

[quadb]

Just to clarify - the ammonia in your tank was 1ppm before a water change? Is your tank cycled?

My ammonia in my tanks were at 0 ppm. I started using tap water with prime recently and that's when the ammonia level showed up in my tank. Yes, they're both cycled as well.

Test you tap water for ammomnia.

Ammonia starts becoming non-toxic as your pH drops below 7.0. By the time the pH hits 6.0 all ammomia is non-toxic.

I have tried to understand the non toxic and all that about ammonia but it still confuses me. My ph in my tanks stays at about 6.0. So, necessarily, how toxic would the ammonia be if my ph stayed at a 7.0 range?

Yes, (well it's a little more complicated because water temp plays a role but this is a good rule of thumb) at a pH above 7.0 ammonia in the water is in the form of ammonia (toxic). As the pH starts dropping below 7.0 toxic ammonia starts turning into non-toxic ammonium. Between pH 6 or so and 6.9 you will have both ammonia and ammonium in the water. By the time your pH gets to 6.0 all ammonia has turned into ammonium.

The ph in both of my tanks is at 6.0. So I guess that means the ammonia showing up in my test is in the form of ammonium which is non toxic? The temps in my tanks are 79/80 degrees Fahrenheit

 

[RayClem]

I wish I were a chemist so I could better understand.

According to Fritz aquatics the ammonia from chloramine is toxic, "but nitrifying bacteria will convert ammonia to non-toxic ammonium". What??

It's my understanding that nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia to nitrite and that ammonia vs ammonium is a function of pH.

RayClem, It was Sodium thiosulfate that was said to have the chelating effect on ammonia. Again, I'm not a chemist

For those who are interested in the chemistry, keep reading. Otherwise, skip it.

I am not a chemist, but I did take three years of chemistry during my Chemical Engineering curriculum, so I understand basic chemical reactions.

Sodium thiosulfate is the basis of most aquarium water conditioners. It is a potent reducing agent. Back in the days of optical camera with film, photographers used sodium thiosulfate, which they called photographers hypo, to dissolve silver bromide on the film and photographic paper, fixing the exposed image.

In aquarium use, sodium thiosulfate reacts with chloramine to split the compound into original chlorine and ammonia parts. Since thiosulfate is a reducing agent, it will reacts with chlorine, which is a potent oxidizing agent. The result will be::

Na2S2O3 + 4 Cl2 + 5 H2O = 2 NaHSO4 + 8 HCl

Thus, the result of the oxidation-reduction reduction in the presence of water will produce sodium bisulfate and hydrogen chloride, both of which are acidic compounds, but in weak concentrations are not harmful.

Sodium thiosulfate does not react with ammonia directly. Ammonia gas (anhydrous) has the formula NH3 and is extremely toxic. When dissolved in water, the ammonia combines with the water molecules to form ammonium hydroxide NH4+ OH-. However, since the pH of an ammonium hydroxide solution is quite high, most of the ammonia present will exist as NH3, except in extremely dilute concentrations such as, hopefully, will be the case in our aquariums.

While ammonium ion NH4+ is less toxic that ammonia NH3, it still cannot be considered non-toxic.

If you go back to the original reaction of sodium thiosulfate with chlorine, you see that is will produce two compounds that are acidic. Those compounds will react with some of the hydroxide ions of ammonium hydroxide, which is a good thing, but since the hydroxide ions associated with the ammonium ions are only a small percentage of the overall hydroxide ions in solution, it will not have a major impact upon the balance of ammonia and ammonium ions unless the pH close to neutral or even acidic as it would be in a black water aquarium.

In a fully cycled aquarium, the addition of a small amount of ammonia should not pose a significant issue as the nitrifying bacteria will soon begin converting ammonia to nitrite and the to nitrate. However, for aquarium that are at high pH levels (above 7.5) you might still have a short term spike in ammonia levels if you do large water changes such as 50% at a time. If the tap water contains 1 ppm ammonia as chloramine, you would spike the ammonia level to 0.5 ppm with a 50% water change. While this might not kill the fish, it might irritate their gills.

Water conditioners such as Seachem Prime and Kordon Amquel Plus claim to detoxify ammonia and other nitrogenous compounds. However, the formulations for such products are considered proprietary, so the exact mechanism of this detoxification has not been revealed. I presume that these water conditioners contain organic compounds that react with ammonium ions to form quaternary ammonium salts (aka amines). As the reaction removes ammonium ions from solution to form the amines, some of the ammonia (NH3) in solution would become ammonium ions to restore the balance between ammonia and ammonium ions in solution at the given pH. Thus, it is entirely plausable that the water conditioners are functioning as advertised.

 

[ruud]

I believe Prime is nothing but sodium dithionite. Sodium dithionite doesn't oxidize, which is the only way to detoxify. Or by lowering the ph of course, but sodium dithionite doesn't lower ph. There's no acid salt in Prime.

The point made about amine is interesting. I found this online: Prime converts ammonia into a complexed iminium salt. This is only possible under extreme conditions. And again, I believe Prime is nothing but sodium dithionite.

When chloramine dissociates, chances are ammonium gas converts to ammonium ions quickly. And because NH4 is much more harmless than the reputation ammonia has amongst fishkeepers, suppliers are actually taking credit for something that happens regardless.

It's marketing talk.
(apart from its important effect on chlorine of course)

Unless someone can show me how a certain chemical detoxifies ammonia and this detoxification is attributable to this chemical only. And of course, what is implied by "detoxification".

1 ppm ammonia is fantastic plant food.

 

[FishDin]

For those who are interested in the chemistry, keep reading. Otherwise, skip it.

I am not a chemist, but I did take three years of chemistry during my Chemical Engineering curriculum, so I understand basic chemical reactions.

Sodium thiosulfate is the basis of most aquarium water conditioners. It is a potent reducing agent. Back in the days of optical camera with film, photographers used sodium thiosulfate, which they called photographers hypo, to dissolve silver bromide on the film and photographic paper, fixing the exposed image.

In aquarium use, sodium thiosulfate reacts with chloramine to split the compound into original chlorine and ammonia parts. Since thiosulfate is a reducing agent, it will reacts with chlorine, which is a potent oxidizing agent. The result will be::

Na2S2O3 + 4 Cl2 + 5 H2O = 2 NaHSO4 + 8 HCl

Thus, the result of the oxidation-reduction reduction in the presence of water will produce sodium bisulfate and hydrogen chloride, both of which are acidic compounds, but in weak concentrations are not harmful.

Sodium thiosulfate does not react with ammonia directly. Ammonia gas (anhydrous) has the formula NH3 and is extremely toxic. When dissolved in water, the ammonia combines with the water molecules to form ammonium hydroxide NH4+ OH-. However, since the pH of an ammonium hydroxide solution is quite high, most of the ammonia present will exist as NH3, except in extremely dilute concentrations such as, hopefully, will be the case in our aquariums.

While ammonium ion NH4+ is less toxic that ammonia NH3, it still cannot be considered non-toxic.

If you go back to the original reaction of sodium thiosulfate with chlorine, you see that is will produce two compounds that are acidic. Those compounds will react with some of the hydroxide ions of ammonium hydroxide, which is a good thing, but since the hydroxide ions associated with the ammonium ions are only a small percentage of the overall hydroxide ions in solution, it will not have a major impact upon the balance of ammonia and ammonium ions unless the pH close to neutral or even acidic as it would be in a black water aquarium.

In a fully cycled aquarium, the addition of a small amount of ammonia should not pose a significant issue as the nitrifying bacteria will soon begin converting ammonia to nitrite and the to nitrate. However, for aquarium that are at high pH levels (above 7.5) you might still have a short term spike in ammonia levels if you do large water changes such as 50% at a time. If the tap water contains 1 ppm ammonia as chloramine, you would spike the ammonia level to 0.5 ppm with a 50% water change. While this might not kill the fish, it might irritate their gills.

Water conditioners such as Seachem Prime and Kordon Amquel Plus claim to detoxify ammonia and other nitrogenous compounds. However, the formulations for such products are considered proprietary, so the exact mechanism of this detoxification has not been revealed. I presume that these water conditioners contain organic compounds that react with ammonium ions to form quaternary ammonium salts (aka amines). As the reaction removes ammonium ions from solution to form the amines, some of the ammonia (NH3) in solution would become ammonium ions to restore the balance between ammonia and ammonium ions in solution at the given pH. Thus, it is entirely plausable that the water conditioners are functioning as advertised.

Thank you RayClem!!

 

[RayClem]

Sodium dithionite is Na2S2O4. It is related to Sodium thiosulfate Na2S2O3. Another name for sodium dithionite is sodium hydrosulfite. Both will function as reducing agents with respect to chlorine, but the reaction would produce slightly different end products.

Sodium dithionite is not going to react with ammonia, so if Seachem Prime does contain this chemical, it would have to contain some additional chemical to detoxify ammonia.

 

[jtjgg]

key word: proprietary

sounds like Prime contains more that 1 sulfur compound.

Prime - Seachem Support Forums

post #2 "Prime does not contain any formaldehyde. It is a proprietary aqueous solution of complexed hydrosulfite salts."

post#4 "
The Ammonia Management SeaGram states:
"The classical reaction of ammonia with formaldehyde to form methenamine is the principal of most ammonia removing conditioners. It may be used either directly or as a bisulfite complex. The bisulfite formaldehyde complex has the advantage of odor control, enhanced reaction time, and improved methenamine stability."
This is the principal of MOST water conditioners, but not ours. The active ingredient in Prime is very similar and functions in the same manner, but does NOT contain formaldehyde."

 

[RayClem]

key word: proprietary

sounds like Prime contains more that 1 sulfur compound.

Prime - Seachem Support Forums

post #2 "Prime does not contain any formaldehyde. It is a proprietary aqueous solution of complexed hydrosulfite salts."

post#4 "
The Ammonia Management SeaGram states:
"The classical reaction of ammonia with formaldehyde to form methenamine is the principal of most ammonia removing conditioners. It may be used either directly or as a bisulfite complex. The bisulfite formaldehyde complex has the advantage of odor control, enhanced reaction time, and improved methenamine stability."
This is the principal of MOST water conditioners, but not ours. The active ingredient in Prime is very similar and functions in the same manner, but does NOT contain formaldehyde."

I wonder if Seachem Prime contains glutaraldehyde, the same chemical used in Seachem Excel "liquid carbon".

While it is not the same as formaldehyde, it would react with ammonia in a similar manner. If glutaraldehyde is used, that would also explain the decrease in dissolved oxygen levels that have been reported when high doses of Seachem Prime have been used.

 

[ruud]

Proprietary...

I only like to see a study that shows how ammonia is "detoxified" with Prime. They don't have to tell me what magic they're using.

Did anyone ever cared to research the latter with a spectrometer?

 

[SparkyJones]

"Proprietary aqueous solution of complexed hydrosulfite salts:"

This can just be a more vague or misleading way of saying, "hydroxymethanesulfonate" which is AmQuel.

Sodium dithionite is a reducing agent. and yes it will remove chlorine, but it has other uses. Sodium dithionite can also be used for water treatment, aquarium water conditioners, gas purification, cleaning, and stripping. It has also been applied as a sulfonating agent., as a decolorizing agent, and can be used to turn white fabric that was dyed wrong, back to white again without the decay to the material strength that bleach would cause. In soil it can be used in experiments to find out iron content of silca material, in essence, extracting the iron from the soil as free Iron so that it can be measured.

Hear me out, I "believe" Prime does de-bond chloramines, offgassing Chlorine gas through reduction, and pH factors with the remaining Ammonia to bind it as ammonium, and whatever remaining ammonia and ammonium depending on pH and temperature, into an Ammonium salt, which will eventually break down in time back to it's base component, hence it doesn't "remove it" but binds it for a period of time which will eventually debond, yet it still remains available to the beneficial bacteria to break it down within the time limit as long as the colony could handle the amount of it and the prime were dosed to handle the amount of ammonium/ammonia.

Can I prove this? Nope. I'm no scientist or chemist, and I'm not going to reverse engineer the prime solution to figure out what all is in it just to find out the exact mechanism. But I think Ammonium salt is the likeliest mechanism used and how it does what it says it does for the length of time it says it will work.

I do think their story on Nitrites and Nitrates is baloney though. I can't see how that would happen or even why it would really matter, it's not that hard to water change once in a while.

 

[ruud]

"Proprietary aqueous solution of complexed hydrosulfite salts:"

This can just be a more vague or misleading way of saying, "hydroxymethanesulfonate" which is AmQuel.

Sodium dithionite is a reducing agent. and yes it will remove chlorine, but it has other uses. Sodium dithionite can also be used for water treatment, aquarium water conditioners, gas purification, cleaning, and stripping. It has also been applied as a sulfonating agent., as a decolorizing agent, and can be used to turn white fabric that was dyed wrong, back to white again without the decay to the material strength that bleach would cause. In soil it can be used in experiments to find out iron content of silca material, in essence, extracting the iron from the soil as free Iron so that it can be measured.

Hear me out, I "believe" Prime does de-bond chloramines, offgassing Chlorine gas through reduction, and pH factors with the remaining Ammonia to bind it as ammonium, and whatever remaining ammonia and ammonium depending on pH and temperature, into an Ammonium salt, which will eventually break down in time back to it's base component, hence it doesn't "remove it" but binds it for a period of time which will eventually debond, yet it still remains available to the beneficial bacteria to break it down within the time limit as long as the colony could handle the amount of it and the prime were dosed to handle the amount of ammonium/ammonia.

Can I prove this? Nope. I'm no scientist or chemist, and I'm not going to reverse engineer the prime solution to figure out what all is in it just to find out the exact mechanism. But I think Ammonium salt is the likeliest mechanism used and how it does what it says it does for the length of time it says it will work.

I do think their story on Nitrites and Nitrates is baloney though. I can't see how that would happen or even why it would really matter, it's not that hard to water change once in a while.

It's OK to believe it

 

[jtjgg]

I haven't found any evidence of Prime affecting nitrates, but so far there are atleast 1 in support of nitrite. Prime doesn't actually affect the nitrite itself. The sulfur compounds reverses the negative effects of nitrite which is methemogloblenemia aka brown blood disease.

Reduction and suppression of methemoglobin loaded in the polymeric nanoparticles intended for blood substitutes - PubMed
Oxidation of hemoglobin (Hb) to nonfunctional methemoglobin (metHb) is a main challenge for the fabrication of an ideal Hb-based blood substitute. In this study, a novel nonenzymatic reduction and suppression route, combined with a fast prereduction, optimized double emulsion preparation, and a second sustaining postreduction, was developed to control the metHb in Hb-loaded nanoparticles (HbP) with porous microstructure to a desirable level. In the prereduction, the metHb in the raw Hb was effectively reduced from over 90% to 1.2% using sodium dithionite following gel filtration separation. During the preparation, higher the emulsion strength performed, higher was the extent of Hb oxidized. PEGylated polymer and addition of miscible solvent, such as acetonitrile, into the oil phase could pronouncedly suppress metHb formation. The resultant metHb level in HbP under the optimal fabrication was about 5.6%, which could be further reduced to 1.4% by the model reducing agents in human plasma with the help of superoxide dismutatse and catalase system, which are capable of sustaining postreduction. The oxygen dissociation curve of the HbP was close to that of native Hb, indicating that the oxygen-carrying ability of the Hb, despite initially losing this function due to the severe oxidation, recovered and retained well. The results achieved are promising for the fabrication of blood substitutes with controlled metHb level, which can fulfill the binding/delivering oxygen to tissues in vivo for future trials.

 

[quadb]

I am unsure why there is still ammonia in my test before I change the water. I tested again, and the ph in both tanks is 6.0, the ammonia in one tank is 1.0, and in the other 0.50. Nitrites are at 0 in both, and nitrates are at 5.0 and 0.

My tap water has a ph of 8.2, the ammonia is at 1.0, and nitrites and nitrates are at 0.

I understand that using prime should detoxify the ammonia but shouldn't it read 0 ppm in a test after 24 hours?

What do I do next?

My tanks are cycled. I have had both tanks up and running for over a year and have not had these problems before. Sorry to be annoying I am totally confused I kind of understand the ammonia and ammonium charts you guys have posted but I am just concerned.

 

[jdhef]

So your saying that the pH of your tap water 8.2, but in your tank it is 6.0?

If that is correct, it would appear that you have a low KH and GH. You may want to consider getting a GH & KH test kit to see what the levels are.

If your KH & GH are low, you may want to add some crushed coral to your filter to raise the KH &GH.

Here's the problem you could have. If your pH is 6.0, that ammonia in your tank has been converted to ammonuim. Amonnium is either far less toxic than ammonia or some claim it is non-toxic. But ammonium is a bad food source for the ammonia converting bacteria, Because of this, ammonia is not being converted into nitrites. So eventually your nitrite converting bacteria starves off. If you had ammonia converting bacteria it will become dormant for some amount of time before it too starves off.

So since you have ammonium in your tank (if you weren't testing regularly) the ammonium levels could get pretty high. Then you do a water change and the pH raises closer to 7 (because your tap water has a pH of 8) and all that harmless ammonium then turns into toxic ammonia. The ammonia converting bacteria "wakes up" and converts that ammonia into nitrites, but because your nitrite converting bacteria has starved off, you end up with sky high nitrites and you wake up in the morning to find all of your fish suffocated due to the sky high nitrite levels (don't ask me how I know this).

So by adding crushed coral, you can keep the pH in your tank closer to the pH coming out of the tap therefore keeping ammonia as ammonia and keeping the ammonia converting bacteria alive and converting ammonia into nitrites, therefore keeping the nitrite converting bacteria alive.

 

[jtjgg]

How often should I be doing my water change?

should be doing water changes every week.

according to a couple of US Water Hardness Maps, almost all of Florida has hard to very hard water. if you go too long between water changes, the acids produced by the nitrogen cycle will eventually drop your tank's pH.

 

[RayClem]

Another reason not to go too long between water changes is has to do with evaporation. If you are using tap water to replace water lost due to evaporation, you will be continually increasing the hardness of the water unless your water is soft. My tanks are uncovered and I add about 1 gallon of water daily to each tank. However, I use water purified by reverse osmosis, so the hardness does not increase.

I recommending getting one of the inexpensive GH/KH test kits to monitor the general hardness and carbonate hardness of your water on a periodic basis. You should also check your tap water quarterly as some water supplies vary due to seasonal rainfall. Who knows what will happen to drinking water supplies in Florida after Hurricane Ian?