Hypo quarantine tank?

[davidwillis]

well I have been doing some research, and found out that my test kit reads total ammonia (even the ammonia bound by prime). However my ammonia alert just reads the free ammonia (the stuff bad for fish). I also found that prime stays in the tank for 48 hours, so if I dose every other day it should keep the tank safe for the fish until the bacteria gets active. So I will mainly just keep an eye on the alert, and do water changes less.

 

[svejil]

David,

Sorry I was away from the computer for a day.

Yes, you are correct, some test kits will still pick up ammonia after dosing with Prime, since it only detoxifies the ammonia and does not remove it.

Hagen makes a reagent that will read correctly (Nutrafin I think is the name on the box). If you dosed according to the instructions it likely detoxified all of your ammonia. The airstone is not a bad idea for the first hour or two after dosing, but after that, there is no need to keep it if you have good water movement. The depletion of oxygen from Prime is immediate and does not last very long.

Sorry that your Damsel did not make it, but 10 gallons is very small for the amount of fish you have. Keep an eye on the Flame angel, it could be that it is not MI, and instead a bacterial / or other infection. I would not have expected MI to have attached if you have been clear of spots for some time.

The Flame is very cramped in 10 gallons. I don't want to rain on your parade, because you are doing the right thin with hypo / QT, but the 10 gallon tank is no doubt causing enough stress on your fish load to make it very difficult. Stress by itself KILLS fish, without an illness going on. With them battling MI, and in a 10 gallon QT...you have your hands full.

Keep a close eye, and make sure they are eating well.

The reduction of toxic ammonia should help. What is your pH, and nitrite readings? Also what is your water temp?

SV

 

[geaux xman]

i really dont think you should attempt hypo without a properly calibrated refractometer. hydrometers are more for "ballpark" readings.

 

[davidwillis]

Thanks... Luckily they are all eating very well...

How can I tell if it is bacterial? It is very small, I may have missed the other day....

ph 8.2 nitrite 0 temp 76

Edit:

Also, I am not so sure it isn't just air bubbles I see on his tail. I didn't see any until I started the air stone, and now there are more, and it even looks like there are some on my ammonia alert (which could not be ich). So I shut off the air stone, and I will see if they all go away.

 

[davidwillis]

Here is a picture of my flame angel before I took him out and put him in the quarantine. You can't see from the picture but there are spots all over his body. But in the picture you can only see the tail ones.

 

[davidwillis]

Here he is now. Sorry, I had my camera set to the red eye reduction, and it scared the fish with the blue light it put out. So I only got one picture, and now he is hiding... So this is not a very clear picture. I will try again later.

 

[davidwillis]

one other question I had. Prime lasts 48 hours, but do you know if running carbon will reduce that time? Should I pull out the carbon?

 

[davidwillis]

here is a little better picture.

 

[svejil]

David,

I couldn't make out any markings on the Flame. I did see the MI on the before picture, and he looks clean in the current shot. Possible it was the air bubbles. Any spots on the other fish?

Most detoxifiers state the carbon will not remove them. Prime will stay in your system until it has detoxified ammonia, so if it takes all the Prime you dosed to detoxify what is in your water, then none will be left over. Only if you read 0 on the ammonia test could you still have some detoxification left over, but if you are still reading some ammonia, then likely there is no available Prime in your water.

Very good news that everyone is eating well.

SV

 

[davidwillis]

Yes, I think it was just an air bubble. I turned off the air stone, and have not seen any since.

I have not seen any spots on any fish besides the flame angel, however the clown fish were scratching on the sand before I moved them to the quarantine tank. Since then I have not seen them scratching on anything.

Also, I just did a test:

Total ammonia 1.0 ppm (free ammonia was reading between alert and alarm, so I put some more prime in)
nitrite: greater than 0, but less than 0.25ppm
nitrate: 5-10 ppm

That tells me the bacteria is starting to get active. Hopefully it won't be long until I no longer have to dose prime, or do water changes every day.

By the way, here is a better close up picture. I see no ich. Also, I didn't mention, but he was recovering from HLLE, and that seems to be getting better as well.

 

[davidwillis]

Last night my ammonia alert was changing to alarm, so I did a 50% water change, and added some more prime. It is back down to the alert level now... Total ammonia is now at about 0.5, and nitrite about 0.25

 

[svejil]

Other than dosing the Prime, and bacteria, what is your biological filtration in your 10 gallon QT? I don't recall seeing if you had a sponge, or where your biological filter is at.

SV

 

[davidwillis]

I have a marineland penguin 300 HOB Filter with bio wheels and Hiatt carbon (they claim it has over 1150 m2/gram of surface area for bacteria) in the HOB filter.

 

[svejil]

I would suspect the bacteria will populate soon then. Surprised though, that you are not picking up any nitrite.

 

[davidwillis]

I have never cycled a tank using stability, but on the seachem forum I asked about that, and they said you may not see a nitrite spike. But I do see some, so at least a little bacteria is getting active. I would say the nitrates prove that it is cycling, but there are nitrates in my ro water (my 29 gal takes them all out, but the fill up water has 5-10 ppm nitrate).

 

[davidwillis]

it seems like this cycle is not starting very fast.

Total ammonia: 1.0 (still going up)
free ammonia: starting to to turn to alarm, so I added some more prime
nitrite: 0.25 (slowly going up)

I also put some hiatt right now in, because I used it on my reef tank, and it cycled almost instantly. I just don't know if it will work with the low salinity since it is designed for salt water. I could get the fresh water one, but I don't know if it will work with the salt that is in the tank....

 

[svejil]

What is "hiatt"?

Yes, your cycle is not happening very fast, that's for sure. I would keep dosing with Prime, and water changes until your bacteria kick in. It will kick in soon, I am sure.

Make sure after you water change, and dose Prime, you are able to get to almost 0, if not 0 altogether on your nitrite, and ammonia. There isn't really any reason I can think of that would keep you from reading 0 ammonia. Prime, I don't believe will remove nitrites, however you could place a PolyFilter in the equation, and it will lower ammonia, and nitrites. Very good high quality filter pad. It will change to a dark brown, or even black when it is exhausted.

SV

 

[davidwillis]

Hiatt makes a bacteria additive called "right now", that will cycle your tank in 24 hours I used it to cycle my 29 gal, and I never got an ammonia or nitrite spike. I didn't use it on my quarantine tank because they make a marine and a freshwater version, and I didn't know how it would work with the low salinity.

prime is supposed to lock up the nitrites as well as ammonia. However they say that it only locks the ammonia and nitrite for 24-48 hours. Also I asked on the seachem forum about not getting a 0 for the free ammonia, and they said that the alert indicator takes time to reverse the color back down. So I am guessing I get to 0 free ammonia after adding the prime, but it starts going back up before the indicator gets down....

 

[MikeTR]

I've been through this before... and essentially doing exactly what you did, waterchange, prime, waterchange, prime, waterchange and so on and so on... you don't have a lot of surface area in your quarantine for bacteria to populate so you may never get your cycle completed before treatment is over. The beneficial bacteria don't reside in the water column.

 

[svejil]

Not sure on the Hiatt. Did the folks at Seachem say after the 24 - 48 hours the ammonia will release back in? I have read on the Kordon website regarding Amquel, that it changes the structure of the ammonia molecule, therefore making it non-toxic....it's still there buy not toxic. One interesting note, is that the API test kit will give false high readings, so I had to switch to Hagen. They say the Nessler style reagents will give false readings, however the API which does not use Nessler still gives false high readings (according to warning label on Amquel). Seachem I am sure is a different formulation, so I am unsure about the ammonia readings on your test kits.

I believe what Seachem is saying is that after dosing the Prime is still available to detoxify ammonia for 24-48 hours, then is inactive. NOT that it will unlock the ammonia (become toxic again) after that timeframe. In either case, if you dose, you should be able to see a difference VERY shortly after with your test kit. If you get to zero, then you may have some active Prime still in your system that can lock up ammonia for the next 24 hours or so. If you still have ammonia showing up, then you have no more Prime availalbe, it has been used up.

Your HOB filter should become active soon. A PolyFilter somewhere in your flow path should be very beneficial, and since your tank is only 10 gallons, may last a while before turning dark brown / black.

SV