Water additives question.

Hi all

I've a 120L setup with a brand new fluval U3, it's running a week & I've 5 zebra danio's in it 6 days, all seem healthy now but 1 didn't for a day or two, recovered fine though I think.
I'm doing daily 25% water changes & adding the recommended nutrafin cycle & either (nutrafin aqua plus or API stress coat+), I only got 30ml bottles of the aqua & stress coat so need something else asap.

What do you lot recommend I get, I've hard water & the PH is about 7.4, I've read everyone recommending Prime but I already bought the 250ml bottle of nutrafin cycle & the fish seem happy, anyone had success with the prime & cycling with fish?

Any advice welcome,
Cheers...

Prime is for conditioning water. It claims to do certain things, but what it does can be problematic in certain situations.

My thoughts are that Prime is being recommended for the wrong thing.

Get some more of the Nutrafin cycle stuff or similar bacteria-in-a-bottle.

Don't add anymore fish until you are confident that the biological filters are working to a degree capable of holding more fish.

I suggest testing for the nitrogenous products (ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates).

ian

igmillichip wrote:

Prime is for conditioning water. It claims to do certain things, but what it does can be problematic in certain situations.

Ah OK, so it just removes the chlorine etc?

igmillichip wrote:

Get some more of the Nutrafin cycle stuff or similar bacteria-in-a-bottle.

Exactly what I wanted to hear, I bought the 250ml bottle so have plenty left.
Are you saying I don't need the stress zyme to dechlorinate the tapwater I add when doing water changes?!? Am I OK with just the cycle stuff?!?

igmillichip wrote:

Don't add anymore fish until you are confident that the biological filters are working to a degree capable of holding more fish.

I suggest testing for the nitrogenous products (ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates).

ian

Thanks, I ordered the freshwater API master test kit off amazon last week, hope to have it tomorrow so I can do some real tests.

Also, the 5 zebra danio's are staying on their own, having read up on the nitrogen cycle & ammonia poisoning I definitely won't be adding anymore fish till everything is stabilised.

igmillichip wrote:

Prime is for conditioning water. It claims to do certain things, but what it does can be problematic in certain situations.

My thoughts are that Prime is being recommended for the wrong thing.

Get some more of the Nutrafin cycle stuff or similar bacteria-in-a-bottle.

Don't add anymore fish until you are confident that the biological filters are working to a degree capable of holding more fish.

I suggest testing for the nitrogenous products (ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates).

ian

+1.
Talk to your local fish/pet shop. They should be able to answer your questions. Always post any questions here too.

use a few drops of tea tree oil to soften the water

bren wrote:

use a few drops of tea tree oil to soften the water

Never heard that before.....

Good to know

Cheers lads, I'll have to look into the tea tree oil.

I got my API test kit today & my ammonia is at .25ppm, nitrite is 0 & nitrate is 5.0ppm.
Does that seem normal for a tank 8 days old & has fish 7 days ? Should anything there be lower or higher?

Hi

You need the PH and temp to figure out how much of that .25 ammonia is the nasty unionised stuff.

Ammonia and nitrite should be 0 and low nitrate is to be expected in a new tank.

You will need some dechlorinator for water changes, I think the stress coat has aloe Vera and maybe B vitamins that are good for the fish and is quite reasonable .

Q_Comets wrote:

Hi

You need the PH and temp to figure out how much of that .25 ammonia is the nasty unionised stuff.

Hmm, PH was 7.4 the other day, testing it now with the kit it's showing 8.4 it can't be that high can it
The temp is debatable, my heater is set to 24 but the stick on thermometer reads 28 so I'll have to get a proper thermometer tomorrow & see what it really is.

Q_Comets wrote:

Hi
You will need some dechlorinator for water changes, I think the stress coat has aloe Vera and maybe B vitamins that are good for the fish and is quite reasonable .

I picked up some more of the stress coat + today so I'll stick with that & the nutrafin cycle.

Prime does a little more than dechlorination. It can lock ammonia and nitrates etc but that is not permanent....it is just long enough to allow the biological filtration system to deal with the excess.
It is incorrectly used to "lower" ammonia.....ammonia should be lowered by other processes.

Thye ammonia level (even if it is total ammonia) is in an unsafe region as temperature and pH changes can make it swing towards unionised ammonia.....and 0.25ppm unionised ammonia is not what you want.

The pH can swing upwards....ammonia will increase pH as one example.

Heater temperature guides on the heater are just "guides". It is the thermometer that you should go by (and that is the same for any heater).

ian

Hi igmillichip, I never used the prime, I was only enquiring about it as I had to get some water dechlorinator today, I got the stress coat as it was the only thing available in my LFS. I'm sticking with the nutrafin cycle as per your recommendation, also adding stress coat to dechlorinate water before adding.
To sum it up, 8 days water in tank with only nutrafin cycle & stress coat added, also 25% daily water changes after day 2.

Thye ammonia level (even if it is total ammonia) is in an unsafe region as temperature and pH changes can make it swing towards unionised ammonia.....and 0.25ppm unionised ammonia is not what you want.

How do I know if it's unionised ?

Heater temperature guides on the heater are just "guides". It is the thermometer that you should go by (and that is the same for any heater).

That's what I thought but thanks for confirming, I'm colourblind so can't rely on the strip, I have a proper thermometer from a homebrew setup I'll get tomorrow so I'll know for sure & dial it in.

P.S. Off topic, would an easy to grow plant be beneficial to my tank & fish or should I forget about plants for now?

Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated everyone.

A lot more people on this site know a lot ore about this than I do, but two things pop out for me in your last post. Firstly, make sure you clean the thermometer before you use it (you don't want it bringing homebrew with it! ) but also don't use soap etc to clean it, you don't want it bringing detergents either!

Secondly, I'm brand new to this hobby and I decided to go with plants are the benefits outweigh the potential issues, to my mind. There are plants out there that even I can grow, like Vallis (long grasses), Anubas and Cryptos. They're all hardy, easy to grow, and good for the tank.

But please do get more expert opinions before you follow any of my advice!

J.

You can calculate the ratio of ionised to unionised using

www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/artic...ammonia-calculations

you don't have to know that at all......but if you ask, then that is what you get.

Easy to grow plants will be good for the tank.

ian

Cheers lads, I found a proper thermometer & the water was 29, I now have it dialed into 26

Jasonb wrote:

Firstly, make sure you clean the thermometer before you use it (you don't want it bringing homebrew with it!

haha, 1st rule of homebrew is sterilise everything, I wouldn't dream of putting a dirty thermometer into a brew or fishtank My homebrew barrel is actually currently being used for water for my daily water changes

Thanks for the advice on the plants, I'm going to see what they have in my LFS tomorrow & do a bit of research, I intended getting plants eventually but your all pushing me now LOL

Watch out for these they look nice but are not aquatic

Thanks for the tip, whatever I buy will be from a fish shop, I picked up an Anubias today

I only mention it because my local pet mania always has them and as you can see I got caught