I just picked up a bottle of Prime and want to use it with today's water change. I will be doing a 50% pwc and am not sure how much to use. I've got a 10 gallon tank (so will be changing 5 gallons). The new water is sitting in gallon milk jugs. Any idea how many drops to put in each jug? The directions say Prime can be added directly to tank water, so I suppose I could just add it after putting in all the new water, but my fish are already very stressed due to high ammonia/nitrite levels so I want to make this easy on them. Also, the directions say that in extreme conditions you can use up to 5x the amount of a normal dose. Is this really safe? As said, I don't want to stress these poor fish any more than they already are.
question about using Prime
- Thread starter mollymama
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Prime questions
I just picked up a bottle of Prime and want to use it with today's water change. I will be doing a 50% pwc and am not sure how much to use. I've got a 10 gallon tank (so will be changing 5 gallons). The new water is sitting in gallon milk jugs. Any idea how many drops to put in each jug? The directions say Prime can be added directly to tank water, so I suppose I could just add it after putting in all the new water, but my fish are already very stressed due to high ammonia/nitrite levels so I want to make this easy on them. Also, the directions say that in extreme conditions you can use up to 5x the amount of a normal dose. Is this really safe? As said, I don't want to stress these poor fish any more than they already are.
I just picked up a bottle of Prime and want to use it with today's water change. I will be doing a 50% pwc and am not sure how much to use. I've got a 10 gallon tank (so will be changing 5 gallons). The new water is sitting in gallon milk jugs. Any idea how many drops to put in each jug? The directions say Prime can be added directly to tank water, so I suppose I could just add it after putting in all the new water, but my fish are already very stressed due to high ammonia/nitrite levels so I want to make this easy on them. Also, the directions say that in extreme conditions you can use up to 5x the amount of a normal dose. Is this really safe? As said, I don't want to stress these poor fish any more than they already are.
roydooms
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It's 2 drops per gallon. It is fine to just add the water in the tank and add Prime but I would add prime for the total gallons of the tank.
roydooms
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I think what it meant by "extreme conditions" is when you have ammonia, NO3 present. Prime detoxify them making it less toxic.
The 500% dose is perfectly safe if you are trying to counteract a Nitrite spike. It is also perfectly safe to add the Prime directly to the tank instead of having to deal with each jug. Just make sure that you're not pouring the jugs directly into your filter or filter intake and you shouldn't have a problem.
Aspencer
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Just to clarify, I have a 10g with almost 3" in pea sized gravel for substrate...that means I really have maybe an 8g tank of water...
roydooms
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mollymama said:
Did you do a PWC to lower the ammonia and nitrite?
I have done several so far. First one was a 75% pwc, yesterday I did a 50%, and I'm getting ready to do another 50% now.
I should add that the tank is starting week 6 of cycling. Two fish--mollies. One is def. suffering from the high levels.
I should add that the tank is starting week 6 of cycling. Two fish--mollies. One is def. suffering from the high levels.
roydooms
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What are the readings now?
Looks like you already know what to do
Looks like you already know what to do
librarygirl
Look It Up
Yes, you want to use Prime for every PWC and it doesn't build up or become toxic.
For my 6 gallon tank - I usually use enough Prime to cover the bottom of the cap. (All Prime caps are the same size on every bottle ). It really does not matter if you slightly over-dose your tank, because It is much worse if you under-dose.
Prime is a "reducer", so all it does is:
* Breaks chlorine gas (CL2 = bad) into chloride ions (Cl- = ok)
* Breaks chloramine (CL2NH4 = bad) into chloride and ammonia and then locks up the ammonia.
Prime also has a 24 hour "half-life". Which means that 24 hours after you add the Prime to the tank - it is completely gone.
). It really does not matter if you slightly over-dose your tank, because It is much worse if you under-dose.Prime is a "reducer", so all it does is:
* Breaks chlorine gas (CL2 = bad) into chloride ions (Cl- = ok)
* Breaks chloramine (CL2NH4 = bad) into chloride and ammonia and then locks up the ammonia.
Prime also has a 24 hour "half-life". Which means that 24 hours after you add the Prime to the tank - it is completely gone.
librarygirl
Look It Up
+1 on that! Unfortunately my fish didn't make it after a month. I hope you have better luck.
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