New Problems... :(

[Kayleigh750]

FIRST OFF. long post warning, but I hope you would read it and answer as soon as possible...

1. I did a 30% water change today, and after refilling my tank I went away for a while, then came back to turn the light on. I looked in and saw my one molly was doing this weird thing... she goes like vertical and sorta vibrates.... she one time almost flipped completely over... and then she swims around like shes fine for a bit... and she does it again. I have never seen her do this before, I was watching them even when I got home from school almost four hours ago. And I was instantly thinking shimmies but I really can't verify this with my knowledge. yes she is in freshwater, but the other molly is completely fine? there are absolutely no other problems with her whatsoever. Do you have any Ideas on what this is and how I could possibly fix it on a little to none budget? Adding aquarium salt is most likely not an option, I want to house a dwarf gourami eventually, if my tank ever cycles...

2. I checked my water instantly after observing this problem. pH-7.8 , ammonia- 1.0 , nitrites- 0.25 , nitrates- 0. I use seachem prime conditioner and added a little more to the water. They haven't seemed to have had a problem with anything. But it's weird, I'm at week four of my cycle. and, When I checked my water around week two i had ammonia almost gone, it might even have been gone at some point before I checked it next... even had a nitrate reading. what the heck is going on?

3. they still don't eat anything I try to give them. They seem to have been living solely on whatever bacteria they are picking off surfaces of the aquarium... weirdos... they poop a lot, and they look fine for the most part. Are they going to be ok doing this? I've tried flake food, cucumber, peas, and carrots. nothing was eaten.

4. being week four of using a carbon filter, I know I should change it. but, with the tank not fully cycled yet, I'm cautious to just throw a new one in. There is some way to take the carbon out so I could still use the filter, right?

Thanks for help on any of the above questions in advance. I'm really trying my hardest with what I've got. I really love my mollies, and I know that most like brakish water but I was hoping I would have success, a couple of my friends have had great success with them... So if I unfortunately end up having to euthanize or let the fish die somewhere on it's own terms I will just have to live with that and move on... I won't get mollies again until I can get a brakish set up going... I would love to get a couple platys to replace her if stuff goes wrong...

 

[lauraf]

Sounds like your tank isn't cycled. Sometimes it can take weeks for a full cycle to establish. How often are you doing water changes? With any ammonia in there, you may need to be doing them daily.
A little aquarium salt won't hurt. I don't use it for my tank, personally, but some people do for all their tropicals. Your choice. If you've got mollies now, do what's best for them, not what you might have at a later date.
Whatever you do, don't change your filter. Just rinse it out in the used tank water you take out to dump.

 

[OrangeCones]

How are you testing the water?

 

[Kayleigh750]

I know the tank isn't cycled. Its the fact that the cycle was moving long great and now it has seemed to have back tracked. I do water changes of 20-30% every other day.

OC, I use the liquid test kits that everybody reccomends

 

[OrangeCones]

What temperature are you keeping the tank at?

 

[Lotus]

The nitrites and ammonia can have all kinds of effects on the fish. What you're seeing with your molly is most likely from either ammonia or nitrite poisoning, or both. Some fish simply don't take it as well as others.

While the cycle typically follows a pattern of ammonia rising then falling and nitrite rising then falling, it's not set in stone. Sometimes you'll get a spike in one or another of the parameters. Keep with it, and it should be fine in the end.

Note also that it's best to read your tests in daylight. Room lighting can sometimes make the readings look slightly different. Taking the tests near a window or outside will give you the most accurate reading. If you switch between daylight and artificial light, you may also think your readings are different when they're actually the same. Yellow tests seem particularly vulnerable to "off" readings under artificial lighting.

 

[Kayleigh750]

temperature is 99% of the time 80 degrees.

thanks lotus for the tips, will do.

 

[Kayleigh750]

Should I do another partial water change tomorrow after school? it may not be a big one because I'm busy, but it will help, yes?

 

[OrangeCones]

I would recommend doing a water change anytime there is measurable ammonia or nitrite. But I'll bow out now. Good luck with your fish.

 

[KcMopar]

You need to do what ever water change is necessary to keep the ammonia to zero-ish. Being busy might not be an options for your fish as ammonia can kill very fast.

 

[FlameTetra333]

IME aquarium salt doesn't do much for treating A/NI poisoning. It just helps the fish produce more slime coat to help protect it against additional infections. If the recommended dosage is used, the Dwarf Gourami will be fine. Do gravel cleanings and water changes whenever you can. Also, try some live foods or meaty foods like bloodworms.

 

[OrangeCones]

I respectfully disagree that salt is not helpful with nitrite poisoning.

If the chloride ion is raised to a point of 30x the level of the nitrite concentration, it prevents brown blood disease (methemoglobin). Methemoglobin prevents the blood from carrying oxygen, so no matter how much oxygen is dissolved in the water, the fish will sufficate.

 

[Kayleigh750]

hmm.. a peculiar thing that these behaviors have evaporated over the course of a day. The molly looks fine now, but I will definitely continue monitoring closely, daily water changes for a while and I will try meaty foods thanks. I also looked up nitrite and ammonia poisoning and will observe for these as well. so far, I don't see any of the colours or anything like lethargy etc... I'll keep posted.

 

[djm761]

I read this awhile back and it took awhile to find it again.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramines minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime will not halt your cycling process.

If you are using a liquid based reagent test kit for example the API master kit. Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. or you can wait to test, Prime dissipates from your system within 24 hours

This could explain why sometimes we get ammonia readings with 0 nitrite but 10 - 20 nitrates, or permanent ammonia reading. Any dechlorinators will give you the same false readings as they will bind any chlorine present with ammonia.

Prime also converts ammonia into ammonium.
Ammonium is also a toxin, but is quite safe at the low levels found in aquariums.
Because ammonium is essentially ammonia with the Hydrogen atom removed, an ammonia reading will still be present when using test kits.
1 month ago Report Abuse Asker's Rating: Asker's Comment:

Sorce:Does Prime give false ammonia readings? - Yahoo! Answers NZ

 

[Kayleigh750]

hmm. Thanks for that djm. so, should I try and test my water 24 hours after I have changed it and added prime then?

 

[djm761]

hmm. Thanks for that djm. so, should I try and test my water 24 hours after I have changed it and added prime then?

With our city water we always have an Ammonia reading, so what we have done is test the tap water and use that as the new zero, and testing the tap water isn't a waste of time, sometimes you will find the ammonia is higher in the tap water than it is in your tank do to water main purging, broken mains or just routine maintenance what ever the reason many times our tap water has been between .50 and 1.0 ppm and in that situation we just wait a day or two and it comes down to between 0 and .25 , I consider .25 or less zero for our area. I hope this helps.

 

[Kayleigh750]

It helps a lot actually. I never thought to test the water straight out of the tap. Will do, thanks

 

[OrangeCones]

Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramines minus chlorine = ammonia).

Yes and no.

Prime removes chlorine and breaks the bind between chlorine and ammonia (the components of chloramine). Once the chlroine is removed from chloramine, Prime binds with the ammonia, converting it to ammonium.

The bond is not reversible

This is incorrect. The binding that happens with Prime and the ammonia (making ammonium) IS reversible. The ammonia is converted to ammonium and after 3 or 4 days, the free (toxic) ammonia will return, unless it was consumed by your biofilter. The beneficial bacteria can consume either ammonia or ammonium.

or you can wait to test, Prime dissipates from your system within 24 hours

This is incorrect. The binding Prime does does not dissipate that quickly. Same as above, the binding will break and the free (toxic) ammonia will return unless your biofilter has consumed it after 3 or 4 days.

No matter if its free ammonia or bound ammonia (ammonium), the liquid or dip-strip tests will read the ammonia. It is still in the aquarium, just may be in a not-so-toxic form.

You can take your pH reading, ammonia reading, and temperature and calculate how much of the ammonia reading is in the form of free ammonia and how much is in ammonium.

Ammonia Calculator

The higher the pH, the more of your ammonia reading is the toxic form. The lower the pH, the more of your ammonia reading is in the non-toxic form. One of the reasons the pH up and down products cause such problems for some is that when the effects wear off and the pH bounces back up due to the water's normal buffering ability, the formally non-toxic ammonium is suddenly present in toxic ammonia form, poisoning the fish quickly.

The manufacturer of Prime, Seachem Labs makes an Ammonia Alert Disk. It will only alert if you have free ammonia and ignores the bound ammonia. They claim to last a year, but I have one that was used starting in Feb 2010 and is still working correctly. I wish they'd come up with one that works as well with nitrite.

Because ammonium is essentially ammonia with the Hydrogen atom removed

Incorrect. Ammonium is NH4, ammonia is NH3. Ammonium is ammonia with a hydrogen atom added.

*sorry for double post*

 

[djm761]

OC I'm not a chemist and I didn't write the article that's why I included the source with the posting, and I'm sure your information is better, but the only point to the posting was to inform others that the test kits can and will give false ammonia readings under certain conditions, and it seems you do agree these readings can be misleading.

My tanks are established so if my fish are stressed I do a water test before a water change, and if the tap water had a strong oder or funny taste I would test the tap water before doing any kind of water change, the water has been so bad here at times it has clouded the fishes eyes over and they would start the rapid swimming up and down the sides of the tank. That's why my son and I have setup 55 gallon drums now we always have access to at least one good water change when needed.

PS: I like the link to ammonia calculator, I've never seen that before, I will be using it in the future.

 

[OrangeCones]

Yes, the info overall was to tell about the 'false positive' on the ammonia reading (when its really ammonium) is right, but it had a lot of misleading information. Especially the part about waiting 24 hours and Prime has 'dissipated'!

I've been warning of the test kit issues and ammonia (and really nitrite too since you can use Prime and others to detoxify nitrite also by overdosing per the instructions on the bottle) false positive readings ever since I've been on this forum.

There ARE test kits that can give you TOTAL and FREE ammonia readings (Total been ammonia + ammonium and Free being just ammonia). By comparing the two, you know what to worry about. But those kits are VERY expensive per use. I worked at a zoo as a teen and we used those kits. We'd use the same that we hobbyists use and if there was an ammonia or nitrite reading at ALL, we'd report that and they'd break out the more expensive kit (kept in a SAFE no less) to see what was really going on with the water quality. This was for a turtle, alligator, gar, and other native fish display in Florida.

That is one of the reasons that I love the Ammonia Alert Disk. I haven't tested for ammonia in months, but I do test to make sure the disk still functions (by holding it over an open bottle of ammonia and making sure the color change happens when the 'fumes' hit it). A quick glance at the disk and the thermometer and you know things are stable. Best $6 I ever spent.