TSS & Prime

Makes me wonder how decent Seachem Stability product is with beneficial bacteria.

 

I've cycled 6 tanks with stability. Once the tank is fully cycled I've never added the stability following a water change and never lost the cycle.
Which leads me to believe that need to add these products following a water change is just a marketing gimmick designed to keep you buying the product after its no longer needed

 

I got to thinking, and tried to find an answer on whether or not Stability is adversely affected by Prime. I couldnt really find a solid answer, so I wrote the following letter to Seachem, and hopefully ill hear something from them soon.

"I used Tetras Safe Start bacterial additive to cycle my first tank. Needless to say it was complicated due to high ammonia in my tap water, and not being able to use prime in conjuction with safestart. I was reading the product info for Stability, and am considering trying it out for the 55 gallon tank I plan on setting up soon.

My question is, can I use prime to treat my tap water, and safely use stability to cycle the tank? I know prime and Tetra safestart don't get along. I couldnt find any info on whether or not prime would damage the bacteria in stability. If prime is safe to use with stability, does there need to be a buffer time, like waiting 24-48 hours after using prime before adding the stability and fish? Any elaboration would be greatly appreciated, I'm fairly new to fishkeeping, but would love to understand how the bacteria is affected on a chemical level by water conditioners like prime. Obviously ive found that safestart doesn't like prime, but I prefer prime over Aquasafe for its additional benefits, and if posibble would like to find a bacterial cycling aid/additive that is prime friendly if at all posibble. Email would be my preferred method of contact due to my work schedule. Thankytou for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!"

I tried to butter them up a bit too, so hopefully theyll give me some solid info. As soon as I hear back, ill let you all know what the word is.

 

You certainly can use prime and stability together. Prime won't have a negative impact on using stability

 

Has anybody read this before?

Q: How does Prime make a difference in reducing Nitrates?

A: The detoxification of nitrite and nitrate by Prime (when used at elevated levels) is not well understood from a mechanistic standpoint. The most likely explanation is that the nitrite and nitrate is removed in a manner similar to the way ammonia is removed; i.e. it is bound and held in a inert state until such time that bacteria in the biological filter are able to take a hold of it, break it apart and use it. Two other possible scenarios are reduction to nitrogen (N2) gas or conversion into a benign organic nitrogen compound.
I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that when they overdosed with Prime they were able to reduce or eliminate the high death rates they experienced when their nitrite and nitrate levels were high. We have received enough reports to date to ensure that this is no fluke and is in fact a verifiable function of the product.

https://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime.html

jdhef , this must be something like the info you were referring to. Maybe we're playing up the nitrite, nitrate detoxification a little too much. Are we giving people a false sense of security? It says "when overdosed", but how often are people told that they have to overdose if they have nitrites? What do they consider "high" levels of nitrite and nitrate? They leave that open to interpretation. Does Prime HAVE to be dosed at "elevated levels" to detoxify nitrite and nitrate? In other words, does it take more product to detoxify .25ppm nitrite than it does to detoxify .25ppm ammonia? To me, that seems to be what they are saying. I can't think of an instance where I would recommend to somebody to overdose Prime for nitrates instead of getting them to do water changes, and by the time nitrates are really high, (80+) I'm more worried about where KH and pH are, than the nitrates themselves.

Why are they offering scenarios instead of facts? DO they research and test their products?

"break it apart and use it" and "bound and held in a inert state" doesn't really sound like ammonia would be converted to ammonium, does it? It sounds like the bacteria need to work harder to process the nitrogen compounds in their inert state which could make the nitrification process less efficient and maybe take longer. The bacteria in TSS while free floating in the water column, might be at even more of a disadvantage making them even less efficient again. I don't know if that is the only factor though. Tetra does say that AquaSafe messes with the food source... I think they word it a little more harshly when they talk about Prime, but maybe this is all they are talking about.

If TSS is suppose to be able to cycle a tank in 2 weeks, and Prime is added after TSS has had a chance to adhere to surfaces, maybe Prime slows down the bacteria enough in it's still delicate state, that it would take 3 or 4 weeks or longer, to cycle the tank if Prime is used than it is suppose to. Most of the advantage to using TSS is to be able to cycle the tank faster, so approving the use of a product that could slow it down, would not make good marketing sense. Most people would say that TSS failed to cycle their tank, and that is not what Tetra would want. They want you to be able to cycle your tank in 2 weeks and like the product so much that you are willing to continue to buy it to add to the tank with your water changes.

 

All very valid questions posed. In reference to "overdose" part. If I'm not mistaken the instructions on the bottle of Prime state to use 5x the recommended dosage for the tank treated to protect against nitrites. Anecdotally I've read on the forum that this dosage is only effective for nitrite levels at 1.0 or lower for 24 hours

 

toosie that is exactly what I was talking about. One would think that SeaChem's chemists would have an explaination, rather than taking the word of (possibly fanboy) users who claimed that when overdosing, the didn't lose as many fish. What I really want is scientific facts, not anecdotal evidence.

 

All very valid questions posed. In reference to "overdose" part. If I'm not mistaken the instructions on the bottle of Prime state to use 5x the recommended dosage for the tank treated to protect against nitrites. Anecdotally I've read on the forum that this dosage is only effective for nitrite levels at 1.0 or lower for 24 hours

I have asked Seachem this before. The regular dose stated on the label will take care of 1.0 ammonia + nitrites. Anything higher you have to use more than the regular dosage.

Based on that though, anyone cycling without TSS or with Stability or nothing, no matter what should be doing large water changes when ammonia + nitrite gets up 1.0. I only have anecdotal from the goldfish forum and I've seen literally 100's of people cycle with prime alone with no fish harm (that was visible) or death. It would be nice if there was actually some scientific evidence of this though!

 

I have asked Seachem this before. The regular dose stated on the label will take care of 1.0 ammonia + nitrites. Anything higher you have to use more than the regular dosage.

Based on that though, anyone cycling without TSS or with Stability or nothing, no matter what should be doing large water changes when ammonia + nitrite gets up 1.0. I only have anecdotal from the goldfish forum and I've seen literally 100's of people cycle with prime alone with no fish harm (that was visible) or death. It would be nice if there was actually some scientific evidence of this though!

If you did water changes when using TSS when levels reached 1ppm, you'd have to wait 24-48 hours and redose the TSS and potentially still harm the food source for any TSS that was remaining when you dose Prime. You would negate the purpose of using TSS to cycle the tank because the tank isn't likely to cycle in the 2 week time frame, because you would be regularly removing much of the bacteria with each water change, and then waiting a couple of days to bring bacteria levels up again.

This is what Tetra says you can expect levels to go up to when using their TSS product.

At this point, I would leave the tank alone. It is perfectly normal for the ammonia and nitrite levels to rise to around 1.5 ppm, maximum, and gradually lower over a period of a week or two. Remember, this is not a chemical, but a bacteria that you have added to the tank. It takes time for it to do its job. Also, low levels of ammonia like you have described are not harmful to the fish. I suspect the oto died because they ONLY eat algae, and will starve to death in new aquaria. BREX

January 28, 2015
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The real fact of the matter is, if a person doesn't want their fish to have to go through an aquarium cycle, and avoid subjecting them to ammonia and nitrites, then a fishless cycle is the best way to go. IMO, other than with the exception of having a good source of seeded media in which you can obtain an instant cycle on another tank with, fishless cycling is the best choice period.

I assume people on the goldfish forum are cycling tanks with more sensitive fish present and not only goldfish?

 

If you did water changes when using TSS when levels reached 1ppm, you'd have to wait 24-48 hours and redose the TSS and potentially still harm the food source for any TSS that was remaining when you dose Prime. You would negate the purpose of using TSS to cycle the tank because the tank isn't likely to cycle in the 2 week time frame, because you would be regularly removing much of the bacteria with each water change, and then waiting a couple of days to bring bacteria levels up again.

The real fact of the matter is, if a person doesn't want their fish to have to go through an aquarium cycle, and avoid subjecting them to ammonia and nitrites, then a fishless cycle is the best way to go. IMO, other than with the exception of having a good source of seeded media in which you can obtain an instant cycle on another tank with, fishless cycling is the best choice period.

I assume people on the goldfish forum are cycling tanks with more sensitive fish present and not only goldfish?

I actually said without TSS, ha, ha, bet your eyes skipped right over that I probably should have worded it differently.
But yes totally agree on fishless cycling as fish-in cycling is stressful.

No, just goldfish as its never recommended to give them other tank mates. Most people buy the goldfish before they learn about the nitrogen cycle.

 

I actually said without TSS, ha, ha, bet your eyes skipped right over that I probably should have worded it differently.
But yes totally agree on fishless cycling as fish-in cycling is stressful.

No, just goldfish as its never recommended to give them other tank mates. Most people buy the goldfish before they learn about the nitrogen cycle.

:-[ Shame on my reading skills!! You're right, that is what you said. At least I know we're on the same page!

The reason I am hesitant to judge a product by how goldfish manage a cycle with it, is because goldfish have a way of detoxifying their bodies of ammonia, even when ammonia is present in the water. There has been a lot of research done on how goldfish do this. Most fish excrete ammonia out of their bodies through their gills, so when levels of ammonia are present in the water and they take that ammonia into their bodies, their bodies have no way of detoxifying themselves. It's like a steady stream of ammonia in and out. Goldfish excrete ammonia from their gills too, but when they are in levels of ammonia they seem to be able to switch functions so that they excrete urea instead of ammonia and are able to detoxify their bodies of levels of ammonia that would typically kill other fish.

I'll tell you a horrible story to go along with that. When I was a kid, I kept 2 comet goldfish in a 10 gallon tank, with nothing more than a little corner filter that had a little bit of activated carbon, some filter floss, and circulation was provided through it with an airstone. This is back in the 70's, and the nitrogen cycle and test kits to monitor the effects were unheard of, at least in my area of the world. Anyways, this tank got monthly water changes which entailed the removal of the fish, a total clean out of the tank with vinegar and rinsed well with water, substrate washed and all new filter media. Then it was filled up with water and AquaSafe used, and the goldfish were plunked back in. This is how I was taught to take care of this tank.

Every month this tank went through a cycle. I don't even know if the cycle could really even establish with the limited filtration and surface area for bacteria to colonize, and a huge bio-load. The fish may have been subjected to high levels of ammonia and nitrites all month, every month. I honestly don't know, but I suspect they must have been. These two goldfish survived for many years enduring these conditions. I say survived, because knowing what I know now, I don't really look at their unbearable existance as living. They didn't grow much, and I blame that now on the toxic affects more than anything, and although they lived many years, it was no where close to 30 years.

As I got further into fishkeeping and learned this neat new thing called the nitrogen cycle, I started to realize what I had done to those fish. How did they survive for as long as they did? My research took me to reading scientific articles on studies about goldfish, and even though much of it went over my head, I did learn what made it possible for them to survive.

Goldfish were often used to cycle tanks because they were "hardy" fish. This ability is at least part of what makes them hardier than other fish. Dr. TI'm came on this site a few years back, and in my mind, helped confirm the other things I had been reading. I'll link you to the page where he explains it. It's post #12.



I'm not saying goldfish should be abused because they have this ability, and I don't believe they should be subjected to levels of these toxins anymore than other fish should be, but what I am saying is that I believe that even without the use of Prime, and following the formula you say the goldfish site uses for cycling, that there is a good chance that you would see similar if not the same results, which is why I'm not convinced that Prime is the saving grace in these particular types of situations.

I'd like to see it compared to the same type of cycling using a more sensitive fish species. If Prime works as well as they say, then even the more sensitive fish should be able to handle the cycle well.

 

Very interesting toosie
Thanks for the link! I guess the only way to test the whole Prime claim would be with other fish who cannot do what goldfish do. I do get what he is saying. My PH is high at 8.3 and it is very toxic even at .25

Anyone want to test this? lol

 

I totally would have. I have a surplus of guppy fry and way too much prime. But I just set up my 5.5 gallon with TSS.

On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to tear it down and rinse off the bio balls.

If you are all really interested in the results, I can totally conduct science and report daily @.@

 

I totally would have. I have a surplus of guppy fry and way too much prime. But I just set up my 5.5 gallon with TSS.

On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to tear it down and rinse off the bio balls.

If you are all really interested in the results, I can totally conduct science and report daily @.@

You're such a trooper oOBlueOo, but dang, I have to say that I'm trying not to torture too many more fish in my lifetime. I'd have to have more certainty that Prime is able to keep them protected than I do. Like I said, when I encounter people with ammonia and nitrite issues, the first thing I try to have them do is get the levels down to .25 or below, even if they use Prime to help detoxify the rest for 24 hours, and I try to get them to keep it that low with water changes for the duration of the cycle. What we are proposing are higher levels than that. It would be nice to be able to get the information without putting fish at risk solely for the purpose of conducting this test.

I guess my vote is, that I would prefer you didn't, but I would also like to see how much longer than average a cycle takes (if any) when cycling with Prime. I know cmclien said it took her about 12 weeks, and I wonder if that is common.

There must be other ways of doing this?

 

You're such a trooper oOBlueOo, but dang, I have to say that I'm trying not to torture too many more fish in my lifetime. I'd have to have more certainty that Prime is able to keep them protected than I do. Like I said, when I encounter people with ammonia and nitrite issues, the first thing I try to have them do is get the levels down to .25 or below, even if they use Prime to help detoxify the rest for 24 hours, and I try to get them to keep it that low with water changes for the duration of the cycle. What we are proposing are higher levels than that. It would be nice to be able to get the information without putting fish at risk solely for the purpose of conducting this test.

I guess my vote is, that I would prefer you didn't, but I would also like to see how much longer than average a cycle takes (if any) when cycling with Prime. I know cmclien said it took her about 12 weeks, and I wonder if that is common.

There must be other ways of doing this?

I don't have a problem testing it. It may seem rather cruel of me to say this, but in order for there to be answers, some fish have to die. It helps other fish in the long run. And these test subject guppies were going to be given to the lfs, so I'm not really attached to them.

Wow I'm sorry. I think that makes me sound like some kind of uncaring fish owner

 

Mine took 12 weeks because I was changing out 75% of the water daily and not letting the ammonia + nitrite climb to 1.0 which would have helped the BB's grow faster. I'm still betting on the Prime and think the fish would be alright up to 1.0.......

 

So would stability be used at this time, also? Or just strictly prime?

 

So would stability be used at this time, also? Or just strictly prime?

It would be strictly Prime using cmclien's formula.

I'm not sure what Mike would say about us conducting an experiment like this on the forum. This might not be something he would approve of.

 

Good point. I'll pm him and ask about it. If he is against it, I'll forget about the experiment.

Edit; pm sent. Just waiting for a response.

Edit #2: toosie I got the okay
cmclien what was your exact prime dosage? Did you use the standard dose or a double or triple? Did the dosage change throughout the cycling?


Also, are we doing water changes with this or no? I think I read that you did 75%, so I'm assuming we want to stick with that?


Edit #3 also, what type of water do we want to use? Mine already has nitrates in it, so 100% tap water disrupts the test. I was thinking of using the same water ratio of 3 gallons of RO water and 1.5 gallons of tap water. (I have to keep the water a little low for the filter to work).

I filled out my profile on the current tank set up. Let me know if the water ph looks ok and I'll head to walmart for some water tomorrow.

 

Well, cmclien will give you the guideline. I don't think she has 75% water changes in mind, because she has higher levels in mind than what she had when she cycled with Prime before.

Do you have a KH test kit? It would be good to know what level the KH is at. If it's too low, there is more chance of the pH dropping too far and interfering with the cycle. What is the level of nitrates in the RO blend, and what water are the fry in now?

 

Well, cmclien will give you the guideline. I don't think she has 75% water changes in mind, because she has higher levels in mind than what she had when she cycled with Prime before.

Do you have a KH test kit? It would be good to know what level the KH is at. If it's too low, there is more chance of the pH dropping too far and interfering with the cycle. What is the level of nitrates in the RO blend, and what water are the fry in now?

I do have a KH test kit. Unfortunately, I can't find it at the moment, but I'm looking for it.

I rearranged some dressers and tables and a lot of the loose stuff got thrown in storage bins. I'm sure it's here in one of them....somewhere...




Edit: found it. Test took 8 drops for water to turn yellow. So if I'm reading the directions right, the KH is 140 ppm for the guppy tank.



I also tested the gh, which was 9
drops. So approximately ...155 ppm?



Nitrates: I tested twice, both results are at 5ppm.


The fry are in the 5.5 gallon.

 

OK, so you'd be using the same water mixture they are currently use to, with a GH 9, KH 8 and pH 7.4. API test kits for GH/KH as well as ammonia etc.? What is the temp of the tank going to be?

I'd like to use the water they are use to, because we're not out to try to kill your fish. It does mean the the ammonia won't be as toxic as in higher pH levels, but if these numbers look good to cmclien, then we will go with them. If she would like to see the pH higher for toxicity purposes, then maybe we could get you to slowly add a little more of your hard water to the tank, in a way that you would still know the ratio of hard water to RO for water changes. The nitrates would be slightly higher, but what ever level they are at before the cycle is started, would be ground 0, so we'd still know when you start to show nitrates from the cycle.

Are you sure you want to do this oOBlueOo? It could take a few weeks to cycle it this way..... it's quite a commitment on your part. Mind you... if you decided you had enough, I don't think either one of us would try to stop you from throwing in a bottle of TSS.

 

OK, so you'd be using the same water mixture they are currently use to, with a GH 9, KH 8 and pH 7.4. API test kits for GH/KH as well as ammonia etc.? What is the temp of the tank going to be?

I'd like to use the water they are use to, because we're not out to try to kill your fish. It does mean the the ammonia won't be as toxic as in higher pH levels, but if these numbers look good to cmclien, then we will go with them. If she would like to see the pH higher for toxicity purposes, then maybe we could get you to slowly add a little more of your hard water to the tank, in a way that you would still know the ratio of hard water to RO for water changes. The nitrates would be slightly higher, but what ever level they are at before the cycle is started, would be ground 0, so we'd still know when you start to show nitrates from the cycle.

Are you sure you want to do this oOBlueOo? It could take a few weeks to cycle it this way..... it's quite a commitment on your part. Mind you... if you decided you had enough, I don't think either one of us would try to stop you from throwing in a bottle of TSS.

Yes I'm using liquid API tests for everything. The temperature I plan on keeping the same, 80*F.

I have work this morning, but I'll get some more RO water after and wait for cmclien to answer before tearing down and setting up again.

And yes I can do this. Honestly. I love lab work

 

Yes I'm using liquid API tests for everything. The temperature I plan on keeping the same, 80*F.

I have work this morning, but I'll get some more RO water after and wait for cmclien to answer before tearing down and setting up again.

And yes I can do this. Honestly. I love lab work

Hi, sorry for the delay. So here is the formula recommended to everyone which they came up with after my tank was already cycled.

If ammonia + nitrites is less than 1.0 - double dose Prime and re-check in 24 hours

If ammonia + nitrites is 1.0 or greater - do a very large water change, like 80-90% matching ph and temp.
Double dose prime and re-check in 24 hours.

and so on until cycled. Now I do think the double dose was partly because of the huge bio-load of goldfish and the possibility of spikes in both ammonia and nitrites so I am not really sure you need to do that? But maybe with enough guppies in a 5 gallon it will be a similar bio-load comparison. Seems like with goldfish and using that formula most people were doing the large water changes every 2 or 3 days and/or daily once the nitrites spiked because they get so high so fast.

My ph is 8.3 which may have delayed my cycle also? not sure on that one. I would say if your natural ph is higher I'd skip the R/O and just go from a base of 5 nitrates. Up to you guys though as you know better.

Also because it was goldfish and I was cycling in the summer my temperature was about 74-75 without a heater. So I would say go down to 76 if that's alright for the guppies, which I think they have a wide range of acceptable temperatures right?

This will be really great to finally know the truth about Prime and if nitrite and ammonia are truly detoxified.

 

Hi, sorry for the delay. So here is the formula recommended to everyone which they came up with after my tank was already cycled.

If ammonia + nitrites is less than 1.0 - double dose Prime and re-check in 24 hours

If ammonia + nitrites is 1.0 or greater - do a very large water change, like 80-90% matching ph and temp.
Double dose prime and re-check in 24 hours.

and so on until cycled. Now I do think the double dose was partly because of the huge bio-load of goldfish and the possibility of spikes in both ammonia and nitrites so I am not really sure you need to do that? But maybe with enough guppies in a 5 gallon it will be a similar bio-load comparison. Seems like with goldfish and using that formula most people were doing the large water changes every 2 or 3 days and/or daily once the nitrites spiked because they get so high so fast.

My ph is 8.3 which may have delayed my cycle also? not sure on that one. I would say if your natural ph is higher I'd skip the R/O and just go from a base of 5 nitrates. Up to you guys though as you know better.

Also because it was goldfish and I was cycling in the summer my temperature was about 74-75 without a heater. So I would say go down to 76 if that's alright for the guppies, which I think they have a wide range of acceptable temperatures right?

This will be really great to finally know the truth about Prime and if nitrite and ammonia are truly detoxified.

I think I'd like to keep using the RO water because of naturally (or unnaturally) high nitrates in the tap water.

I could lower the temperature, but I am unsure how they will act to it. They've been in 80* their whole lives. I could lower it over the course of a few days just to be safe.

As for the guppy count, I have 5 female fry from my second batch. They're about 2 months old. If that's not enough guppies, I could buy more today if we want a certain total. I'd kind of rather not, though because I don't know how those guppies were handled. Stress factors and all from the store.

Sometimes there's fry in the lfs guppy tank, so if they're there, I could even out the guppy total to 8.


On the other hand, this could be another element of the experiment, where we test the durability of store bought fish vs home grown.

I think I'd have to go with a few glofish instead of more guppy fry, just so I could make notes on the guppies vs glofish.

Opinions? Am I looking too deep into this? I probably am, but it's fun

 

I wouldn't add more fish because it would be another factor for possible death if the store fish contaminate your current fish with something.

Temperature also plays a part in the toxicity of ammonia, so if you'll be keeping the 7.4pH I wouldn't change the temp, to help keep the toxicity a little higher. I'll include here a toxicity chart so that everyone can see the association between ammonia level, ph, temperature and toxicity. You'll have to scoll down a ways but it's there.

 

Wow, at my ph and temp less than .25 ammonia is toxic to my fish! Good thing I have a cycled tank!

 

Wow, at my ph and temp less than .25 ammonia is toxic to my fish! Good thing I have a cycled tank!

Yeah... but you had to cycle it. Keeping the level as low as you did, even though it made the process longer, was a good thing to do IMO.

I guess the flip side is that the higher pH made the nitrites less toxic for your goldfish, because apparently nitrites also work similar to ammonia on the pH/temperature scale, but they apparently get more toxic as you go down the scale, whereas ammonia gets less toxic. I have yet to locate a chart on this though, but truthfully I haven't looked all that hard.

 

I wouldn't add more fish because it would be another factor for possible death if the store fish contaminate your current fish with something.

Temperature also plays a part in the toxicity of ammonia, so if you'll be keeping the 7.4pH I wouldn't change the temp, to help keep the toxicity a little higher. I'll include here a toxicity chart so that everyone can see the association between ammonia level, ph, temperature and toxicity. You'll have to scoll down a ways but it's there.

Okay. So just I clarify, we're going with a ph of 7.4, a water ratio of 3 g RO/ 1.5 g tap, and a temp of 80*f to keep ammonia less toxic?

 

Okay. So just I clarify, we're going with a ph of 7.4, a water ratio of 3 g RO/ 1.5 g tap, and a temp of 80*f to keep ammonia less toxic?

Actually, the higher temp keeps the ammonia a little more toxic with the lower pH of 7.4. If you dropped the temp, it would become even less toxic. Even that puts 1ppm ammonia in the "safe" zone, meaning there isn't as much "free ammonia" which is the toxic form as it would be with higher pH, same temp, and same amount of ammonia. Is that confusing?

oOBlueOo cmclien Edit: I guess to really test Prime's ability to protect fish in toxic ammonia, you'd need to increase pH to somewhere between 7.6 and 7.8 and keep the same temp.

I'm going to let you and cmclien decide if that is something you want to do.

 

I went back and I looked at the chart closer. So the lower numbers with the higher temp mean it takes less ammonia to be toxic. Or that 1.0ppm ammonia is more toxic in 80* and less toxic 70*....
Is that what it means? If it does, I think I understand now.

 

I went back and I looked at the chart closer. So the lower numbers with the higher temp mean it takes less ammonia to be toxic. Or that 1.0ppm ammonia is more toxic in 80* and less toxic 70*....
Is that what it means? If it does, I think I understand now.

Yes, that's what it means.

I'm fine with the pH where it is, because like I was trying to say before... the ammonia is less toxic than at higher pH, but the nitrites are more toxic than in higher pH, so it's kind of like a trade off. I think we will still be able to get an idea as to how well Prime can protect the fish with these two toxins present.

 

Would it help much to go to 82 degrees?

 

It's the difference of going from a supposedly safe 1.5 to 1.2. I don't know that it would make enough difference. I mean... if you want to ensure the level is toxic... you could allow a little more ammonia, but then you wouldn't really be testing the formula used by the goldfish site.

I don't take these charts as absolutes. I think different fish can tolerate different levels of toxins than others, which is why you'll lose some fish at a given level, but not all fish, even of the same species. So, just use it as a general guideline to try to obtain the circumstances you want to test the product and formula against.

I'm just trying to give you a little added information so that you have more to base your decisions on.

 

Okay so a lower ph and lower temp?

Sorry for all the questions. I just want to make sure I get this right.

 

Okay so a lower ph and lower temp?

Sorry for all the questions. I just want to make sure I get this right.

I think she means (??) because your ph is at 7.4 than a higher temp would be more comparable to a higher ph and a lower temp if that makes sense. If your nitrates are only 5 out of the tap (is that what you said?) I'd still drop the R/O to up the ph some. What is your ph without the R/O?

 

What I am saying is leave the pH and temp where it is, unless cmclien would like some adjustments made, so wait for her response.

ninja'd. and yes that's what I was saying.

 

I think she means (??) because your ph is at 7.4 than a higher temp would be more comparable to a higher ph and a lower temp if that makes sense. If your nitrates are only 5 out of the tap (is that what you said?) I'd still drop the R/O to up the ph some. What is your ph without the R/O?

Nope. My ph in the tank with the RO water is 5. Out of the tap, it's illegal. Well, it would be if it was city water.

 

Nope. My ph in the tank with the RO water is 5. Out of the tap, it's illegal. Well, it would be if it was city water.

The nasty question... did you ever get reports back?

So... yes... oOBlueOo has 40 - 80 ppm nitrates in her tap water, so the mix of RO and tap water is how she is dealing with it. To increase the pH, a little more tap water would have to be used. This would increase nitrates some.

 

Nope. My ph in the tank with the RO water is 5. Out of the tap, it's illegal. Well, it would be if it was city water.

Oh gotcha! Mine is about 80 out of my well! It stinks. I have to run my water through a nitrite filter. So, just leave ph and temp at 80. For your nitrates to be illegal they would have to be 40 or so with the API test as it is measuring differently than the number they give you for legal level of nitrates. So for example a reading on the API test of 80 converts to around 20 of the nitrate they are talking about. Sorry for the vagueness I can't remember off the top of my head. I can find the info though if you're interested.

P.S. You're in WI? I'm in the Madison area. I think my nitrates are high from all the fertilizers used in the corn fields around here.