Ammonia Chloramine Eliminator

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brunettebaby4571

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Nov 10, 2011
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596
Location
WV
So about a week ago I went to a pet shop near my house to get some prime but they didnt have any so I got this stuff called Ammonia Chloramine Eliminator I have never used it but figured it would be okay til I got some prime. Well now a week later all my crypts are melting. Nothing else in the tank has changed other than that. What should I do? Will they bounce back or is this stuff going to completely kill them off? It even says on the package that it is safe for plants? Thank you!
 
They arent new I have had them for a while and they were growing SOO well!! Then I look in the other night after a water change with the new conditioner and bam almost 50% of each plant had already melted off and the remaining leaves look like they already have one foot out the door :/ I really hope they bounce back they were growing like mad. I started out with one little tiny plant and it turned into about 6 large beautiful plants! Is there any hope?
 
I would do a water change with RO water only, at least 50% and add some plant food, whatever you have now if any.
 
Well I do not have any RO water or plant food lol I am the worst I know :/ I did transfer the crypts to a little few gallon tank and put about half tank water and a few bottles of bottled water but I cant but anything til friday and I really hope they make it. Think they will come back after this?
 
You can get RO from a vending machine. How big is your tank? You can buy empty 5 gallon bottles at Walmart. Drop a multivitamin! Yes the ones you take.
 
You can get RO from a vending machine. How big is your tank? You can buy empty 5 gallon bottles at Walmart. Drop a multivitamin! Yes the ones you take.

Why on earth would you put a vitamin in a tank?



Crypts often melt for no apparent reason. They almost always come back. They're incredibly difficult to kill; I've planted one upside down before and it did just fine if somewhat contorted.
 
It is a 40 gallon so its not so little...And yes I second the thing about the vitamin? And aqua chem I had a few tiny baby crypts and they weren't planted for a while and they got tangled with other plants and their roots were facing up and they grew a little wonky as well haha but yeah they were doing so well I was just so stunned to look in there and see them all withered away. I am hoping they do come back they are easily my favorite in the tank. Do you think it could have been the new water conditioner? I have always used prime except for maybe one other time when I had some little sample of another kind up until now.
 
Why on earth would you put a vitamin in a tank?

Crypts often melt for no apparent reason. They almost always come back. They're incredibly difficult to kill; I've planted one upside down before and it did just fine if somewhat contorted.

A multivitamin has minerals also. I use them all the time. I never had a fish die since I used them. And if you don't have anything else why not. People put regular plant fertilizers in the tank which could be far worse.
 
Well the crypts managed to melt completely. Is there any chance they will/can come back? The roots are still huge and look good.
 
Are we talking a multivitamin like centrum or some generic multivitiman from CVS??
 
Yes like centrum for women, because it has iron. You can buy generic too as long as it has minerals. If you are going to buy you might be able to find just iron and potassium in the supplements isle. You can also get magnesium if you use RO water, otherwise tap water already has magnesium.
 
I thought your methods were crazy, but rather than dismiss is out of hand, I ran some numbers.


Turns out its a lot less crazy than I originally thought.


I compare the mineral content of a multivitamin (Centrum Women) to the content of Seachem Flourish. I excluded nitrogen, phosphate, chloride, and iodine because it seems unnecessary for our purposes. The doses I compared was 1 pill of Centrum Women vs 5 mL of Flourish


Potassium
Flourish: 28.5 mg
Centrum: Not included

Calcium
Flourish: 7 mg
Centrum: 400 mg
Comparison: 57x greater in Centrum

Magnesium
Flourish: 5.5 mg
Centrum: 64 mg
Comparison: ~12x greater in Centrum

Boron.
Flourish: 5.5g
Centrum: Not Included

Cobalt
Flourish: 20 ug
Centrum: Not included

Copper
Flourish: 5 ug
Centrum: 1 mg
Comparison: 200x in Centrum

Iron
Flourish: 16 mg
Centrum: 7 mg
Comparison: 2.3x more in Flourish

Manganese
Flourish: 2.4 mg
Centrum: 5 mg
Comparison: ~2x more in Flourish

Molybdenum
Flourish: 45 ug
Centrum: not included

Zinc
Flourish: 35 ug
Centrum: 8 mg
Comparison: ~230x

Some things to point out. First, Iron is the highest demand ion for plants, so that's where you're most likely to see deficiencies. To dose Centrum 'iron equivalent' to Flourish, you need to dose Centrum at 1 about pill per 20g. Second, at an iron equivalent dose, you will have 500x the copper dose and 600x the zinc dose. This cold be disastrous for shrimp or other more sensitive inverts, as they are sensitive to copper. I'm not sure about zinc or the other ions I listed. Third, centrum is missing several micronutrients (Mo, Co, B) that are needed in very small amounts. This might not be an issue, but is worth noting. Fourth, is is notably lacking potassium, which is a fairly high demand nutrient for plants.


A lot of my apprehension comes from the other things included in Centrum, eg, all the vitamins and binding agents. Their interaction in the tank is a big unknown factor in a tank as far as bacteria, algae, etc, are concerned.

So really, there are some notable drawbacks and uncertainties that come with this, but its not an entirely unreasonable thing to do. It's better than nothing, but I would recommend that you get good root tabs (or use osmocote) that are balanced such that the nutrient contents are more in line with what plants need rather than humans (huge difference metabolically) .


This is all scratch math, so there might be errors.
 
Your math is not wrong. I just suggested the use of it since she did not have anything in hand. I used the before when I did not have any ferts ( flourish comprehensive) and I would use then again if i run out. Also I only use 1 pill in a 100 gallon tank which by weight is much less than the average human body.
Vitamins can't be bad, it's added to fish food anyways. Also garlic etc. anyhow I just bought Dynamite plant food for flowers and vegetables, the red bottle, so I'll be making some tabs with empty gel caps today.
 
Well you all have been a good help! My crypts are very pitiful looking lol but I am going to leave them be and see if they come back.
 
On a maybe unrelated note I lost a young female molly after using that water conditioner. Could be totally unrelated but I will not be using this stuff ever again no matter what lol
 
Just a thought, did you check the water temperature? My tap water comes out at over 84 degrees. Very High temps are not good for plants or some fish.
 
Yes I always match the temp (as well as I can) and tested the water and everything was normal as usual. Like I said the only thing that changed was the water conditioner. The crypts were in my 40 gallon that died and nothing else died. But in a qt tank I have the young molly was the only thing to die. So she could have just been a fluke and been sick or something from when I got her. But so far I have a few new leaves sprouting on a few of the crypts. So I am relatively happy. Thank you guys again. I am hoping this doesnt happen again. From now on I will stick with prime. But now I am worried when I start using prime again its going to throw the plants back off and melt the crypts. Do you think this will happen?
 
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