Potassium Permanganate

[jarrod0987]

Hmm, a little unexpected. The tank colour has gone back to normal from pinkish but I got an ammonia reading between 0.25 and 0.5.

However I then tested tap water and that read 0.25 (normally 0).

So I'm wondering on the test kit a little. Either way it does seem there is some ammonia in the dosed tank now, just not quite sure how much.

The dosed tank is bare bottom with a small HOB filter. Mystery snail still doing fine. Algae looks fine.

Plan to test ammonia in display tank and also in a bottle of distilled water later on today to check ammonia test just in case.

Must be the tap. Happens a lot more then people think. Scary...But no one seems to have the power to make water treatment plants respond properly these days.

 

[jarrod0987]

Well I tested the two 40 gallon breeders I treated yesterday and surprise I have ammonia!
I then tested my 180 which had not been treated in a week and it too registered ammonia.
It has been so long since I tested ammonia that both my reagent bottles were brand new with 2017 expiration dates.
All the fish seem fine so I wonder.
I found numerous links to false readings but when I tested my tap and ro it would appear the test is semi accurate(tap had ammonia and ro had none).
I of course changed water and tested for nitrates.
All tanks registered nitrates in different ranges.
I really don't know what to make of this?
Since I'm not new to all this and will(did) change water when I feel needed I can believe the reading is effected by something?
Still treated the 180 moments ago so we will see.

Something to try but may not be useful. API kit tests total ammonia. Both Free Ammonia Gas and Ammonium Ions which are "Locked" and "Safe". The Seachem hang in tank product called Ammonia Alert only looks for Free Ammonia. It is not supposed to show Ammonium and I'm told was developed so that people who used Prime to lock there ammonia would not think it was not working and they needed to add more. I use both so I can compare the 2. However, Ammonia alert is very hard to detect the color change with the tiny amounts of free ammonia present vs the API kit which shows up much easier. Maybe something to try?

 

[coralbandit]

Seems like this would be a good product to use/reccomend to people when their fry get "pin-tailed" from fungus when their born in tanks with high nitrates/bioload. I personally use methylene blue because its safer, but i have been looking for something else to switch to and to use for fungus infections because methylene is so messy and stains everything. However i am skepital for using PP as a "cure" for columnaris, we all know columnaris is a bacteria that lives inside the fish and i don't see how this would cure anything internal infection wise.

This is one product where being skeptical is almost necessary!
It can be WAY more messy then any of the dye based meds.
As for whether it cured my columnaris 8 months of no deaths in a crowded breeding tank tells me it did,but who can really say(many links say it does also!)

If I have not mentioned this yet to me the #1 thing about this "tool" is be confident and competent in it's use.
It has little room for error and zero forgiveness if not properly used.

On the ammonia note without any real links to site I say the test were skewed by the PP.
When I overdosed my swordtails years ago my chlorine test went crazy!
So reading ammonia only makes me wonder and not ,to be honest have much concern!
At this point I have proper average test and knowledge to let my fish guide me through this.
Both of my 40s still showed ammonia later this am so I added prime (well SAFE in a single dose) as I still wonder?
I will say both of those tanks(my yellow GBR and my 2 year old breeding stock are looking like they are loving it(or atleast each other!)
The breeding and territorial behavior is ON!

In Dr roddys link he mentioned using the PP to grow the largest kio for the million dollar contest.
I think I will see how big of a ram I can grow!
Same link mentioned magnesium also I believe which Jarrod has questions about.
Hopefully he will be on board this thread shortly.

 

[jarrod0987]

Already here Scroll UP I don't remember anything about Mg? I was worried about accumulation of Mn which is a toxic heavy metal and a molocule in PP. Has to go somewhere. I read it turns into MnO2 but I know if that participates to the gravel that acidification could release it again. Interested in long term use experience where no water changes happened. If it was safe then, should be safe always.

 

[coralbandit]

^saw you were here right after posting^!
Glad to have you on board.
My bad on element confusion and one of the reasons you may be of some help here.
Being new to thread if you have not read this one give it look!
Potassium Permanganate

 

[jarrod0987]

^saw you were here right after posting^!
Glad to have you on board.
My bad on element confusion and one of the reasons you may be of some help here.
Being new to thread if you have not read this one give it look!
Potassium Permanganate

Book Marked it an hour ago. I have been thinking of some experiments to run while I was at lunch.

1 experiment would be to take sample of tap and RODI. test them for Total Ammonia to make sure there is no positive there. Then add some kind of tiny residual amount of PP to the sample and retest. If it is a false positive situation, it should show. You might also do with a larger amount of PP so see if it ****s up the test chemicals etc.

The other Idea I had would be a way to rule out BB death etc.
BB sticks to surfaces, not so much free floating. So when you do a water change, keep a 5 gal bucket of the "Dirty" water. Test it before and after your usual PP treatment. If it shows no ammonia then maybe it is a BB die off problem. If it does then it must be a chemical reaction forming Ammonia or more likely a false positive. I can't see how adding O to N would give NH4 instead of NO2 or NO3? Anybody looked for nitrite after PP yet?

 

[jarrod0987]

Read Article

OK I read your article. Here are my take away's.
As I suspected, Mn does accumulate over time with this method. The author states he does "Water Exchanges" which I have to interpret as water changes. He says he has levels of Mn at 30 to 40 ppm in his water over time but he does not say how he comes to this number. There is no Mn test kit I know of.
He states this is not an issue because levels up to 100 ppm make fish grow faster. Levels above 600 ppm retard growth. Some literature says Mn in higher levels is toxic to plants however it does not stick around long due to humic substances. The author makes no mention of plant toxicity but has lots of plants in his ponds and did not mention any issues. Has been using this treatment for years and is a chemist etc. He winds prizes for his ponds. So it seems safe but it still makes me nervous about Mn Accumulation. I would feel better if I had a test kit and could do water changes and see what the Mn level stabilized at over time. This still shows a lot of promise but I'm not ready to dose my tank yet. Will do some tests in water changed water before I dump it soon as my PP comes in.

EDIT: I also have read about a few products where you can add powdered humic substances to bind to heavy metals then use activated carbon to remove the humic substances with the metal in them. Triton method has such a product I believe. I run AC a lot so this could work for me.

 

[Delapool]

One other comment here which I think pretty important and that is whatever you do when measuring, don't spill it! Forget the health warning for the fish, I'm still finding pink spots around the kitchen sink.

 

[jarrod0987]

One other comment here which I think pretty important and that is whatever you do when measuring, don't spill it! Forget the health warning for the fish, I'm still finding pink spots around the kitchen sink.

Hmmmm.....Maybe there is some money in temporary tatoo's

 

[coralbandit]

OK I read your article. Here are my take away's.
As I suspected, Mn does accumulate over time with this method. The author states he does "Water Exchanges" which I have to interpret as water changes. He says he has levels of Mn at 30 to 40 ppm in his water over time but he does not say how he comes to this number. There is no Mn test kit I know of.
He states this is not an issue because levels up to 100 ppm make fish grow faster. Levels above 600 ppm retard growth. Has been using this treatment for years and is a chemist etc. He winds prizes for his ponds. So it seems safe but it still makes me nervous about Mn Accumulation. I would feel better if I had a test kit and could do water changes and see what the Mn level stabilized at over time.

In the material safety data sheet for manganese sulfate, the level of manganese which gives a 50% kill rate of carp in a 96 hour exposure is 2,850 PPM - that’s right, two thousand eight hundred fifty parts per million, or, expressed another way, 0.28 weight % in the water. That gives a huge safety margin of buildup of manganese in our koi ponds before any fish toxicity from manganese is expected to occur. It would take lots of 4 PPM potassium permanganate treatments to reach a toxicity level in the thousands of PPM of manganese. And very little water exchange


^^THIS FROM HIS LINK^^
I see water exchanges in words but no real mention of quantity?
I have to believe in all seriousness that he does not do all this and regular waterchanges on his pool in his basement!
Possibly touching base with Dr. roddy is in line if he is still reachable at his link?

 

[Matt68005]

Is this similar to one of the ingredients in Furan-2?
Potassium dichromate or whatever they add to furan to kill fungus.
I keep forgetting, furan 2 is a decent biofilter safe alternative to methylene and can kill gram positive bacteria like tail rot and wounds, and along with clean water help kill the fungus that sets in as well. I keep forgetting about furan 2....literally just found an old box of it in my fish medicine cabinet in the garage and used it on my guppy tank tonight because some of the had frayed tails and a couple had wounds. Dont mean to get off topic, but in certain instances, we tend to go overboard and jump to OH ITS COLUMNARIS when in fact a simple drop of a tablet of furan 2 into the tank is all that is needed.

 

[Delapool]

I think so:


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_dichromate

'Reactions:-
Potassium dichromate is an oxidizing agent in organic chemistry, and is milder than potassium permanganate'

But I guess it would depend on the concentration levels as well.

 

[jarrod0987]

In the material safety data sheet for manganese sulfate, the level of manganese which gives a 50% kill rate of carp in a 96 hour exposure is 2,850 PPM - that’s right, two thousand eight hundred fifty parts per million, or, expressed another way, 0.28 weight % in the water. That gives a huge safety margin of buildup of manganese in our koi ponds before any fish toxicity from manganese is expected to occur. It would take lots of 4 PPM potassium permanganate treatments to reach a toxicity level in the thousands of PPM of manganese. And very little water exchange


^^THIS FROM HIS LINK^^
I see water exchanges in words but no real mention of quantity?
I have to believe in all seriousness that he does not do all this and regular waterchanges on his pool in his basement!
Possibly touching base with Dr. roddy is in line if he is still reachable at his link?

It is apparently optimal for Koi at 100 ppm. Maybe you can try to contact him.

 

[coralbandit]

Quick follow up on ammonia.
I got an ammonia reading on a different tank this week after treating so I am considering pulling media for treatments.
That being said I just pulled a group of free swimmers out of the yellow GBR tank that had ammonia last week.
Apparently the short spike or whatever had no effect on eggs or fish behavior/desire.
I did note that they were all very active after treatment;
Taken from last weeks post;
I will say both of those tanks(my yellow GBR and my 2 year old breeding stock are looking like they are loving it(or atleast each other!)
The breeding and territorial behavior is ON!
Next step is to remove the bio media and see what happens

 

[Delapool]

Just a note that the tank I dosed with PP seems to have surviving baby pond snails. Unless they are small MTS. Anyways some sort of very small snail in there

Just one or two getting around that I can see.

 

[coralbandit]

Just a note that the tank I dosed with PP seems to have surviving baby pond snails. Unless they are small MTS. Anyways some sort of very small snail in there

Just one or two getting around that I can see.

I too have not wiped out every snail yet in some tanks I use PP.
To me this is an indication I could have dosed more possibly depending on other reactions.
It also tells me that I can dose safely to simple life fomrs and still have positive effects on water quality.
The way I see warnings is it may happen or it may not .
In this particular circumstance there are a lot of variables in the equation.

 

[PoppaRyno]

When used properly, i have never seen a total wipeout of snails.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[jarrod0987]

Here is a few experiments I ran to help rule some things out for the Ammonia Issue and PP usage. I wanted to see if the PP itself or the Peroxide used to deactivate it was causing a false reading on the ammonia test from API. I tested the aquarium water. Undetectable levels of ammonia as expected. I removed 5 gals to a bucket for testing. I added quite a bit of PP until water was good and brown, enough organics to make it react right away. I retested for ammonia. no green at all. Deactivated with a peroxide and retested. No ammonia detected. I do know that if peroxide gets into the ammonia test it can turn it red/brown. I found this out when experimenting with peroxide. The normal color for ammonia indication is green. I have been told old ammonia tests turned brown in the presence of ammonia. I never saw a test like that. in the past I have used peroxide to successfully treat algae but I found it caused mini cycles from die off in my bio filter. I suspect this might be the issue here as well. Hope this is Helpful. I had fun trying it out. I love experiments where you have no idea what will happen

 

[jarrod0987]

I forgot to mention. I have heavy Tanins in my newly established Walstad test tank. That water is what I tested PP on. PP did not reduce tanins at all from what I can tell.

 

[jarrod0987]

Experiment with PP in Solution.

I wanted to see if a small amount of PP could be dissolved in RODI and stay pink/Purple for a useful amount of time. After 3 days I checked it. Was brown Looks like pre made stock solution is out