TSS & Prime

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.

Me too. I use well water, but I call it tap. I guess it's incorrect. I live around a lot of farms and right by a field. This is really a bad situation for fish tanks.

toosie I didn't get them back. I'm just going to send them in again. I'm getting annoyed a little bit...

 

Here's the reply I got from Seachem regarding Prime being used with Stability. Whatever is in prime must just not got along with Tetras form of bacteria in a bottle.

"Hello Ian,

Thank you for your email. It is just fine to use Stability and Prime in conjunction to cycle the tank. In fact, we highly recommend dosing Prime every 48 hours to detoxify ammonia and nitrite while Stability is being use to seed bacteria colonies. There does not need to be a buffer time between these products, although you can certainly wait an hour or so after dosing the Prime to add the Stability if you prefer.

Prime can be overdosed by up to 5x the recommended amount to detoxify ammonia and nitrite in a new fish tank. This will bind ammonia and nitrite in a nontoxic form but will not remove them from the tank - they are still present and still usable by the bacteria colonies. Thus, Prime can be dosed every 48 hours to protect the fish from the ammonia and nitrite while the Stability can be dosed every day for the first seven days to seed the bacteria colonies need to establish a complete nitrogen cycle in the tank.

Chemically speaking, Prime does not have a direct effect on the bacteria colonies. I cannot speak for the formulation of any Tetra product, but I can say with some certainty that when used in the recommended amounts, Prime will not interfere with bacteria in established tanks nor with the bacteria spores included in Stability.

Please let us know if you have any more questions.
Seachem Support 10256"

 

Thanks Bluestreakfl The up to 5X as much still gets me because they don't really give a guideline on when to use that much. Are we suppose to guess? It confirms what Machine11 said about being able to use Prime with Stability and that's good to know.

 

toosie cmclien

How's this look? I'm getting ready to add the fish.

 

toosie cmclien

How's this look? I'm getting ready to add the fish.

That looks good by me! You totally cleaned everything?

 

Yep. Everything got rinsed off in the sink and left out to dry, except for the substrate. I just rinse it in the tank and left it. I even got a new sponge and filter pad.

 

Yep. Everything got rinsed off in the sink and left out to dry, except for the substrate. I just rinse it in the tank and left it. I even got a new sponge and filter pad.

Sounds like it should be sufficient enough to get rid of most of the bacteria off of things. New filter media definitely helps. We haven't heard back from cmclien to see if all the levels are good with her, unless I missed her post? but if she'd like to see any adjustments, it's not too late.

 

I just have to make a post on the details and whatnot in the cycling forum.

What do we want to call this project?

Prime use during cycling?

Kind of long, though. Any ideas?

 

Hmmm.... Experimental Prime Project?.... Does Prime really protect?..... A Prime project?.... I don't know. I hope other's will make suggestions before you make a thread.

 

Thanks Bluestreakfl The up to 5X as much still gets me because they don't really give a guideline on when to use that much. Are we suppose to guess? It confirms what Machine11 said about being able to use Prime with Stability and that's good to know.

I have taken this to mean for every 1.0 part of ammonia and nitrite you have you add another full dose.....though I suppose they don't actually say that but I figure if one dose is good for 1.0 then each dose added should be also??

Hmmm.... Experimental Prime Project?.... Does Prime really protect?..... A Prime project?.... I don't know. I hope other's will make suggestions before you make a thread.

I like does Prime really protect? because by the end you'll have an answer of some sort.

Sounds like it should be sufficient enough to get rid of most of the bacteria off of things. New filter media definitely helps. We haven't heard back from cmclien to see if all the levels are good with her, unless I missed her post? but if she'd like to see any adjustments, it's not too late.

I keep missing stuff
I went to work out and run an errand and look at all that went on!
Everything looks fine to me.

 

Hmmm.... Experimental Prime Project?.... Does Prime really protect?..... A Prime project?.... I don't know. I hope other's will make suggestions before you make a thread.

Lol I can wait til tomorrow if anyone else wants to chime in.

 

I have taken this to mean for every 1.0 part of ammonia and nitrite you have you add another full dose.....though I suppose they don't actually say that but I figure if one dose is good for 1.0 then each dose added should be also??

So.... you think they mean that Prime can protect fish from nitrites up to 5ppm? Interesting. I honestly don't know what they are trying to say. I'm wondering if it's not as Machine11 said in one of his previous posts about needing 5x the dose for 1ppm and lower for nitrites. It wouldn't surprise me if nitrites are harder to detoxify than ammonia. Maybe this experiment will help us determine that.

I wish I could find a nitrite toxicity chart. I'll have to have another look, but I doubt I'll find one.

 

I just have to make a post on the details and whatnot in the cycling forum.

What do we want to call this project?

Prime use during cycling?

Kind of long, though. Any ideas?

The Prime Example

The Prime Directive

Prime Numbers

 

The Prime Example

The Prime Directive

Prime Numbers

Oooooh, those are really good!! I think I like the Prime Example the best, although .... dang... all three are good! Very catchy! Prime Numbers might be the most suiting.....

Edit: Nope, I like The Prime Example best. That's my vote.

 

The prime suspect?

On a side note, I may have to add an air stone to the tank.

 

The prime suspect?

On a side note, I may have to add an air stone to the tank.

I like that one too.

Yeah, that's fine if you want to do that.

 

The prime suspect?

On a side note, I may have to add an air stone to the tank.

Whatever you like is good with me since you're the one doing all the work

 

Prime suspect it is, then. I'll start my report when I get home and post a link here

 

Some notes as I try to catch back up with all of this:

MSDSs are often disappointing when trying to find out what's in a product. I'm no expert on MSDSs, but the way I understand it, only items that are "controlled" need to be disclosed at all, and then, only if they're in a higher concentration than their "disclosure limit". So when trying to figure out what's in a product, the MSDSs are usually disappointingly incomplete. But, if every manufacturer was required to list all ingredients, and their concentrations, how could anyone have any trade secrets? It'd be a terrible burden on manufacturers.

So we're left with reading product labels and directly asking the manufacturers. And they are justifiably careful about what they list on bottles and packages and what they tell us elsewhere.

Toosie Asked:

"Plus these chemicals can also remove heavy metals. What else are they doing to the water? It's not like it's separate chemicals doing separate jobs."

I believe that they ARE separate chemicals doing separate jobs. Lots of these bottles and sites refer to "chelating compounds". These substances are added to deal with metals, mainly. And they're separate from the chlorine/chloramine/ammonia "removers".



Most of these products are "cocktails" containing a number of different things to do different jobs.

Toosie: "It seems to me that you can't add Prime at any time during the TSS process, until the tank's cycle is complete, or you run the risk of messing up the cycle. "

I agree. And further, I'd say that doing water changes would likely also interfere with a TSS (or other "bottle 'o bacteria" (BOB)) cycle because you're removing the very free-floating bacteria you paid to put into the tank. It seems to me that ideally, you'll add the BOB, add a few fish (or pure ammonia periodically) and then do nothing. No additives, no water changes. Nothing. For the full two weeks or whatever the manufacturer of the BOB recommends.

That way, the free-floating bacteria from the BOB will have food and time to multiply and time to adhere itself to surfaces and get a good biofilm established. Once that's done, you'll have a colony of BB that's proportional to the amount of food you've been adding (or that it's been getting from your fish).

From that point forward, you can probably safely use these products like Prime because they won't kill off bacteria that's established on the surfaces (including surfaces in the nooks and crannies of bio media). Hopefully, their effects will not starve the established bacteria.

But that's all assuming my guess that they affect free-floating bacteria differently than they do an estalished colony that contains a mixed-species population. And that guess might be completely wrong. It just seems like a nice hypothesis to explain how things like Prime can "hurt the bacteria yet not hurt the bacteria".

Toosie: "It is different because a different product is formed when formaldehyde is added. How that changes things, I'm still not clear on."

Again, I don't look at this as "they're adding formaldehyde". Formaldehyde is just a compound used in the synthesis of Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate. Keep in mind that when creating many compounds, you start with other compounds and elements, and force certain reactions to happen that build up or tear down the starting "precursors" to end up with the compound you want in the end.

While formaldehyde is used to "build" the Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate, and it can be released or re-formed if exposed to very acidic conditions, I don't think it's correct to think of Aqua Safe as having had formaldehyde added to it, or containing free formaldehyde.

It's like anything else. Table salt is sodium chloride. So it contains sodium (a highly explosive metal that bursts into flame when it contacts water) and chlorine (a vigorous and highly toxic oxidizer). But together as a compound, it's just plain old table salt.

So don't think of the formaldehyde that's used to synthesize Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate as acting separately or being a separate additive to the coctail. They're just adding the Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate to get its chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia protection. The formaldehyde is just one of the ingredients used to synthesize the Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate.

cmclien: "The reasoning given for using 1.0 is if you change the water out too often it will take the cycle much longer to finish because there won't be an adequate supply of ammonia and nitrites to form the bacteria at a quicker rate. I think this is true because before I knew this I basically did what you said (with Prime in the water) and I changed out a good 75% water a day and it took my cycle 12 weeks to complete. It was awful and I used a lot of water! lol"

Keep in mind that when you do a water change, you're also throwing away any beneficial bacteia that hasn't attached to surfaces yet, too. So doing any water change too soon seems like a real waste of the TSS or other "BOB".

I really think there may be good reasons for avoiding water changes and adding of any treatments during a TSS cycle.

And remember: When you're testing for ammonia, unless you're using that Seachem MultI Test ammonia test, and only doing the "free ammonia" testing, you do not know if you have anything in the tank that would hurt the fish anyhow. I wonder how many people ruin a TSS cycle because they're needlessly alarmed by high "total ammonia" readings when, in fact, they have very little or no dangerous "free ammonia".

Seachem: "proprietary aqueous solution of complexed hydrosulfite salts"

So, that may well be the same Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate as Tetra puts into Aqua Safe.

Toosie: "Sounds good. Just be sure to add fish before all of the ammonia in the water has been converted. It might not be too good to let it get all the way to 0."

I agree. And make sure you're only testing for free ammonia! Complexed ammonia won't hurt your fish. And the back of the TSS bottle says that the water is safe for fish immediately after adding the TSS, and they want you to use it with fish-in the way I read it.

Who's to say TSS doesn't contain something that keeps the fish AND the bacteria safe and happy for the full 14 days. And perhaps they know that our typical tests will give us "false positives" and scare us.

Have people had issues using only TSS, doing NO water changes and adding NO treatments? I did it with my 55 and our two crayfish, and had no problems whatsoever. No water changes, no additives, nothing. Just the crayfish and then a few days later, a bottle of TSS.

Now, the crayfish did kill and eat 8 of the ten fish we added once the cycle was complete, so that didn't go exactly to plan, but I won't blame anything to do with the cycle.

Somewhere I have my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings over that time, but suffice it to say that it did just what was supposed to happen. First, total ammonia rose. Then it started to go down as nitrite rose. Then Nitrate started to appear and the ammonia and nitrite went to zero. And that's it. The tank has been stable with no measureable ammonia or nitrite since that time. The nitrate does go up up up as I put off doing water changes, but even that hasn't killed any of our remaining critters (the two fast/smart fish, and the two crayfish) ever since.

I added the TSS a few days after putting the crayfish into the tank just to help accellerate the cycle. And as far as I can tell, the cycle was then textbook.

I'll add more as I read further through this thread.

 

Jsigmo , good points about the MSDS. I still would have expected more ingredients listed, unless none are harmful when exposed to eyes, skin, or ingested. Part of the purpose of MSDS is so when accidents happen, medical help can find the ingredients and know how to treat the case. I would have expected more chemicals to be considered harmful enough to be listed, but maybe they aren't.

Toosie: "It is different because a different product is formed when formaldehyde is added. How that changes things, I'm still not clear on."

Again, I don't look at this as "they're adding formaldehyde". Formaldehyde is just a compound used in the synthesis of Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate. Keep in mind that when creating many compounds, you start with other compounds and elements, and force certain reactions to happen that build up or tear down the starting "precursors" to end up with the compound you want in the end.

While formaldehyde is used to "build" the Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate, and it can be released or re-formed if exposed to very acidic conditions, I don't think it's correct to think of Aqua Safe as having had formaldehyde added to it, or containing free formaldehyde.

It's like anything else. Table salt is sodium chloride. So it contains sodium (a highly explosive metal that bursts into flame when it contacts water) and chlorine (a vigorous and highly toxic oxidizer). But together as a compound, it's just plain old table salt.

So don't think of the formaldehyde that's used to synthesize Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate as acting separately or being a separate additive to the coctail. They're just adding the Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate to get its chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia protection. The formaldehyde is just one of the ingredients used to synthesize the Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate.

I understand your point, and I didn't mean to imply that formaldehyde was being directly added to AquaSafe, that's why I gave chlorine + ammonia = chloramines example, to try to clarify my meaning and my question.

Who's to say TSS doesn't contain something that keeps the fish AND the bacteria safe and happy for the full 14 days. And perhaps they know that our typical tests will give us "false positives" and scare us.

Tetra actually doesn't say not to test. Somewhere along the line, the forum started not wanting people to test. This was done I believe, to help prevent people from panicking over seeing ammonia and nitrites during the cycle. I for one do not agree with this practice because in the event of TSS failure by the time the fish are showing sypmtoms of ammonia and nitrites, the levels are much higher than they should be. Tetra says levels should never go beyond 1.5ppm. If levels start increasing beyond that range, it would be nice to know and monitor if levels continue to increase, or to simply do a water change and start TSS all over again.

Tetra does say that they suggest waiting 48 hours before testing after adding TSS in the Q&A between Tetra and Lucy. I'll copy that bit and post the link.

You can test the water any time, but really, you should probably wait at
least 48 hours. We expect TSS to start slowly seeding the tank, and
making a difference in about that time. You have to have some ammonia
occur in the tank to provide the cycle needed, so it will usually create
levels or reduce levels to around 1.0-1.5 ppm, and they should stay
there for a week to 14 days, and then come down. Sorry, these levels
would be for both ammonia and nitrite. These are considered stress, but
not toxic, levels, and should not cause any long term damage to the
fish.

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/q-a-with-tetra-about-tetra-safestart.58116/

Have people had issues using only TSS, doing NO water changes and adding NO treatments? I did it with my 55 and our two crayfish, and had no problems whatsoever. No water changes, no additives, nothing. Just the crayfish and then a few days later, a bottle of TSS.

Yes, people can still have issues. People will even wait up to 48 hours after using Prime, before adding TSS and still have failure, even though water changes etc. have been avoided for the 2 week time frame.

We're making you work! That's what you get for neglecting us.

 

Here it is. dun dun dunnnnn

 

toosie I also got to thinking, as you know, my tap water is fairly high in ammonia. Tetras claim is that prime binds the ammonia, and thus killing the bacteria by starving it. I wonder if only enough prime was used to dose the tap level of ammonia, but not the ammonia solution in Tetras formula that's there to feed the bacteria initially, if it would still cause issues. Like say my tap is .75, I use a smaller dose of prime, just enough to bind that amount of ammonia, will the ammonia solution that's in TSS to feed the bacteria be affected? Just some food for thought.

 

toosie I also got to thinking, as you know, my tap water is fairly high in ammonia. Tetras claim is that prime binds the ammonia, and thus killing the bacteria by starving it. I wonder if only enough prime was used to dose the tap level of ammonia, but not the ammonia solution in Tetras formula that's there to feed the bacteria initially, if it would still cause issues. Like say my tap is .75, I use a smaller dose of prime, just enough to bind that amount of ammonia, will the ammonia solution that's in TSS to feed the bacteria be affected? Just some food for thought.

Yeah... I don't know if I have a good answer for that. You would still want to treat the water for the total amount of chloramine in your water, or you would endanger the bacteria due to that. To do that, how much above and beyond the dosage needed for the ammonia, would you need to treat all of the chloramine?

 

Id have to go back and look at the City water report in my old thread. I remember though my untreated tap tested at 2.0-2.5ppm for ammonia, but when treated with Aquasafe it only tested in at around .75-1.0, so I think the Chloramine skews the results in a way as far as tap water, and registers as more ammonia than is actually present, at least in my tap water.

 

Id have to go back and look at the City water report in my old thread. I remember though my untreated tap tested at 2.0-2.5ppm for ammonia, but when treated with Aquasafe it only tested in at around .75-1.0, so I think the Chloramine skews the results in a way as far as tap water, and registers as more ammonia than is actually present, at least in my tap water.

Yes, it's hard to tell which test result would be most accurate, but I guess my point was, you'd still have to use enough Prime to treat all of the chloramines, so that could be more than you would need to just treat the lower ammonia level.

Even if it worked out to be the same, I honestly can't answer whether or not the Prime would still affect TSS after the original level of ammonia was treated, and only that level. I'd say it shouldn't, but.... it very well could, considering the fact that a precise amount of ammonia and the precise amount of Prime required to detoxify it, might be difficult to determine. I would imagine there is some sort of a buffer zone, and therefore Seachem likely doesn't get exact on the dosage to treat a given amount of ammonia. Do you know what I mean?

 

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.

Keep in mind that reading the pH of RO water is virtually meaningless because of the extremely low ionic strength of RO water. Its pH may be kind of low, but the acidity would be near zero.

@Jsigmo , good points about the MSDS. I still would have expected more ingredients listed, unless none are harmful when exposed to eyes, skin, or ingested. Part of the purpose of MSDS is so when accidents happen, medical help can find the ingredients and know how to treat the case. I would have expected more chemicals to be considered harmful enough to be listed, but maybe they aren't.

Tetra actually doesn't say not to test. Somewhere along the line, the forum started not wanting people to test. This was done I believe, to help prevent people from panicking over seeing ammonia and nitrites during the cycle. I for one do not agree with this practice because in the event of TSS failure by the time the fish are showing sypmtoms of ammonia and nitrites, the levels are much higher than they should be. Tetra says levels should never go beyond 1.5ppm. If levels start increasing beyond that range, it would be nice to know and monitor if levels continue to increase, or to simply do a water change and start TSS all over again.

Yes, people can still have issues. People will even wait up to 48 hours after using Prime, before adding TSS and still have failure, even though water changes etc. have been avoided for the 2 week time frame.

We're making you work! That's what you get for neglecting us.

I think the amounts of the various chemicals in these aquarium products is so low, and they're so benign that firefighters and other emergency responders can pretty much ignore them. And workers exposed to them would also have almost nothing to fear. So the MSDSs are quite incomplete for us, unfortunately.

If people are going to test during fish-in cycling, I hope they pay attention to the pH/temperature charts to make sure their total ammonia readings are giving them the information they really need.

I suppose anything can fail. And there are so many variables at work, we probably can't know what causes some of these failures of TSS, stability, etc.

I've been purposely avoiding this particular thread because of the huge amount of time I can end up putting into it.

I've got a six-month class I'm taking on line that I am trying to complete in a month. It's pretty time consuming! (But it's good for a lot of credit hours, so it's worth it.)
So I've been putting off a lot of other projects at home and at work that I'm itching to do.

Yes, it's hard to tell which test result would be most accurate, but I guess my point was, you'd still have to use enough Prime to treat all of the chloramines, so that could be more than you would need to just treat the lower ammonia level.

Even if it worked out to be the same, I honestly can't answer whether or not the Prime would still affect TSS after the original level of ammonia was treated, and only that level. I'd say it shouldn't, but.... it very well could, considering the fact that a precise amount of ammonia and the precise amount of Prime required to detoxify it, might be difficult to determine. I would imagine there is some sort of a buffer zone, and therefore Seachem likely doesn't get exact on the dosage to treat a given amount of ammonia. Do you know what I mean?

I have to think that these treatment products already contain some degree of overdosage of the chemical used to treat the chlorine/chloramine/ammonia. That way, they're safe.

They can't know what your chlorine or chloramine levels might be at any instant, and unless you do a free and total chlorine test at your tap, you can't know, either. Also, the effectiveness of these chemicals on chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia depend on pH and temperature, too! So the usual approach is to make sure you're using plenty of whatever it is. For these companies to be confident, I'm sure they are giving us a LOT more than it takes to deal with the usual amounts under the usual conditions because they want to be certain they're hitting it hard enough. And generally, there's no problem with overdosing.

But, when we start trying to put in "just enough" of whatever product it is to deal with the chlorine or chloramine we happen to have at that moment from our tap, we get into the area of needing to try various doses, and do a free chlorine test for each dose until we just barely get rid of all of the free chlorine. So I don't think we're going to ever know exactly how much excess chlorine/chloramine/ammonia killing chemical is "left over" after treating just what we imagine we have out of the tap.

Doing an experiment like this is non-trivial to say the least!
@, and everyone. While we don't like the idea of purposely sacrificing fish for the sake of an experiment, it's good to keep in mind that something similar happens constantly, by government mandate in the US, and I suspect in many countries around the world.

At one of the lab branches of the lab chain where I worked, they did "aquatic toxicology" testing. This is required by many state and federal agencies as the way to test various industrial, commercial, and agricultural water discharges. Water is taken from streams, rivers, plant effluent points, etc., and sent to the lab to be tested to find out if it kills fish or daphnia. Here's the EPA's guide for the methods. If you're having a hard time getting to sleep, I highly recommend it:



This happens at a lot of labs around the country, and probably the world because, to meet EPA rules, a lot of different discharges have to be tested this way.

You'd all get a kick out of seeing the operations where they raise these fish and daphnia and then test the various water samples with them. It's really pretty neat in a lot of ways. Everything has to be very controlled so that the critters are all genetically identical and all of the other variables in their lives are held constant so that the only variable is the water that's being tested.

I also recommend that we might all get some pointers about how to conduct these kinds of tests by reading through that document. It covers a lot of the typical problems that lead to corrupted results and data, and talks about how to prevent those specific problems. If nothing else, it gives us an idea of how carefully everything needs to be done to get meaningful results.

 

Thanks Jsigmo. I will try to get time to read through the document later on today. I have to go fish tank shopping because my 85g went poof... kind of, so it won't be until later. Hopefully the others get a chance to read it sooner especially if it has potential to help make decisions.

Yeah, I know you're a busy guy and all of the things you've been trying to do. I just couldn't help myself from teasing you a little bit by putting in that silly little comment. Certainly didn't mean to make you feel like a slacker or anything. I hope that wasn't the result. I still think the "winky" guy could use a bit of a face lift. He looks more like a proud peacock than somebody that is letting someone in on a joke... or even a flirt if you were to use it that way.... hmmm, not that anybody flirts on the forum. Sheesh... sometimes I can't make a point without feeling like I'm putting a foot into it.

 

toosie Jsigmo I see exactly what youire saying. Each dose probably contains more than is actually necessary to complete the task, so that people have better results for the normal intended use. Also, it probably is hard to say what size dose would be enough to dechlorinate any given amount, as seachem doesn't state the ratios for how much dechlorinating is happening per a given dose.

 

HI everyone,

I bringing up a dreaded question that I've researched on lots of Fishlore threads and websites:
Question 1: Is it worth adding any TSS to help my tank finish cycling if I'm using Prime? Should I add Stability instead? Should I just keep doing water changes every 2 days and wait?

Current Stats:
Am .25
NI .5
Na 5
PH 7.3 ish


I have a 5 gallon with 1 large mystery snail named Gary. I'm not adding any other critters to the tank.

Day 21 of in-snail cycle.

Question 2: When/ How/ What should I clean in the tank?

I just really want the tank to cycle so I can have a drink and congratulate myself!!

 

If you're going to use any bacteria supplement, I'd go with Stability as that will allow you to do water changes and dose Prime which you'll want to do to protect Gary from those ammonia and nitrites. With TSS+, it's a hands off method with no water changes for 2 weeks and since snails are very sensitive to ammonia/nitrites, I wouldn't risk it.

Did you test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrates in your tap?

 

My tap ammonia us high at 1ppm. I've been using bottled.

Ok no TSS. Lol

 

You can use TSS + with prime yes, but you have to wait 24 hours after prime to put in TSS +

A snail isn't very good for a cycling tank, they are in fact very sensitive to bad water parameters. That is why many will climb out of a tank if a spike of ammonia or nitrites happen or they just die. When people do a fish-in cycle (which you are basically doing with a snail) they choose a hardy enough fish that can be okay while the water is cycling.

The other thing is I kind of doubt one single snail for ammonia source will keep the bacteria going in a five gallon. You may end up with minI cycles.

I like to recommend stability with fish-in cycling because you can do water changes and add prime at any time.

How you clean the tank depends on your substrate. Many use a gravel vacuum from phython or other brands. With gravel you put into the gravel and suck up the uh poop and other messes. With sand you can stir it up a bit, then hover the gravel vacuum above the sand (not in it) to pick up the dirt.

You also rinse the tank's filter in old tank water.

 

I just really want the tank to cycle so I can have a drink and congratulate myself!!

This made me chuckle

-Isovien

 

Gary was an emergency rescue so an uncycled tank is better than being dead. Lol He's quite resilient after living through a fellow teacher's neon tetra aquarium. I saved him right before she dosed the tank with fish meds!

Also, he's huge (2") and messy. I'm hoping it's enough to keep the tank going.



Admire his greatness!!!

Or maybe get another snail later? What kind can't an apple snail mate with? (I don't want 50)

 

Use stability every day, and periodically use Prime (max every 48 hours). IMHO. Keep the little guy alive!

 

I will do anything for Gary! I love him so much that I draw him every day!

 

Nothing to add expect Gary is very cute.

 

The bio load from my large snail is enough to keep a 10 gallon tank cycled and my plants alive without additional fertilizers. They are messy! I agree with Stability, Prime and frequent water changes. Good luck to you and Gary.

 

Thanks everyone!! I will continue with water changes to keep toxin levels low and use Prime to detoxify what remains. I'll get some Stability to help out.
Bbarb27 It's good to know that Gary can keep the tank cycled!
Dumpling He is VERY cute isn't he?

 

What a handsome lucky fellow!

I do believe you can have two Apple snails. If you get eggs just scrape them off. From what I understand, they lay eggs out of the water but in a moist area, if the eggs dry out they won't hatch.