Dosage question (Water Conditioners)

[Pratzie]

I’ve been using API Water Conditioner for months now as my tap water has high amounts of chloramines. After a water change, I refill a 3gal jug that I have, add the water conditioner and then turn the jug upside down 3-4 times to mix it all. The jug then gets placed on the floor in the same room as the tank to temp acclimate to the room and in turn, the water in the tank for the next anticipated water change or top off.

I’ve recently started to use Seachem Prime to deal with some ammonia spikes after increasing my total fish number as well as adding some Red Cherry Shrimp. I’ve been adding Seachem to the water after 15-25% water changes to keep that ammonia spike at a minimum. Now i’m wondering; am I overdosing by using the water conditioner on the stored water from the night before and then adding the Prime after the actual water change?

It’s a 7 gallon tank (roughly 6.6 volume) so I know any small spike can stress my tankmates hence why I’m trying to keep that water with as low of an ammonia reading as possible. Just don’t wanna overdue it with the two but also don’t want to add Prime to the storage water and have it not be as effective at detoxifying any remaining ammonia/nitrites.

 

[Azedenkae]

Prime is safe to dose up to 5x dosage, so likely you won't accidentally overdose on Prime, unless your ammonia/nitrite is super high and you are trying to counter them with Prime.


What is your actual ammonia reading?

 

[Pratzie]

Using the API liquid test kit, it falls somewhere between .5 and 1.0 but I’d say the colors shower it closer to the .5 range. Nothing as far as nitrate-trite that it’s detected just yet.

 

[Azedenkae]

Ah, so not too bad at all. How frequent have been your water changes?


Oh and what's your pH by the way?

 

[Pratzie]

Testing daily at this point. Changing every or every other depending on the level.

Also pH is going back and forth between 6.8-7.0. So fairly steady around there

 

[Aiken Drum]

At your pH, ammonia can get up way higher than 1ppm before it becomes toxic to fish.

Good job on controlling ammonia via water changes. Using prime to detoxify ammonia should only be a backstop. It doesnt remove ammonia, it only detoxifies an amount for a day or so. Also dont rely on prime to detoxify nitrite or nitrate at all. They have no evidence whatsoever that it does what they say. They can provide no mechanism by which their product detoxifies nitrite or nitrate. Their own product FAQ page admits the product wasnt developed to detoxify nitrite or nitrate, they have no idea how it does this, and they are relying 100% on anecdotal feedback for their claims. Their claims on ammonia detoxification are only slightly more believable. At least there are known mechanisms that ammonia can be detoxified and at least seachem do claim to know how it does this (even though they have never revealed precisely what their mechanism is).

Always control ammonia, nitrite and nitrate through water changes and use prime as an extra safety measure. Beyond removing chlorine/ chloramine assume it may not do what it claims. The only surefire way to remove ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in an uncycled tank is changing water for cleaner water.

 

[Pratzie]

Yeah that’s the plan at this point. Water changes and hope the bacteria and plants do their thing and eat/absorb the Nitrite/ates. I’ve been adding more and more plants for that exact reason so hopefully it levels off soon.

Thanks for the feedback tho, it’s appreciated!

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ive just noticed you have chloramine as a water treatment. Are you aware that your water conditioner breaks down the chloramine into ammonia and chlorine? If you do an ammonia test after water changes you will detect the ammonia and even in a well cycled tank this ammonia will linger for a few hours until your cycle has chance to do its thing.

 

[Pratzie]

Ya so as far as the API Water Conditioner to break down the Chloramines, I’m adding that to the designated water jug after I refill it from the previous water change. That way the water is as detoxified as it can be for the following water change whether it be the next day or the day after that or further out. I refill this jug immediately afterwards and add the conditioner so it can work on that water, and also so the temp of that water can acclimate to the room and bring it closer to that if the water in the tank for the next change. It’s never used on the water that’s about to go directly into the tank.

The only additive/conditioner that goes into the water directly before or during the water change is the Prime. But that circles back around to my original question… how long after adding the Conditioner has everything dissipated? I’m just concerned that the conditioner in the water, along with the addition of Prime the following day would be too much. I’m assuming it’s ok but wanted to make sure from more educated/experienced aquarists.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Water conditioners work immediately.

Personally i think you are over complicating things. Mix hot and cold water to approx temperature of your tank, pour it into the tank, add conditioner at the same time.

 

[Pratzie]

How long after the addition of conditioner does that chlorine/ammonia linger?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Water conditioner breaks the chemical bond in the chloramine and you get chlorine and ammonia. The water conditioner will also remove the resultant chlorine. This all happens in seconds.

The only way to remove ammonia is through your cycle. How long depends on how much ammonia there is and how strong your cycle is. It could take 15 minutes, it could take a day.

Using prime as your water conditioner has the added benefit when your water is treated with chloramine in that it detoxifies some ammonia for a day or so. If their claim is true then again it will do this in seconds, if its a false claim, ammonia simply isnt as toxic as you might have been lead to believe. At your pH ammonia isnt toxic until it gets much higher than you are reporting. You are still in the safe zone at 4ppm for instance.

 

[Aiken Drum]

If you are happy with your water change routine there is nothing wrong with it, its just more steps than you really need to go through and expense of 2 lots of water conditioner that are really doing the same thing.

You only have a 7g tank so its not a massive inconvenience or expense though. If it works for you no need to change.

 

[ColdKoi]

It’s definitely doing things on the safe side but like mentioned is a little excessive. But you do what you’re comfortable with

Those of us with a python water changer or similar just get the water temperature roughly room temp and it goes straight to the tank through the hose! Water conditioner is dropped in the tank while it’s filling and no issues at all with doing it this way. Sure beats packing a billion pails of water too lol

Of course, this method does have higher risk the larger the water change percent you’re doing too. You can be pretty crude with a 25% water change in a 75gal tank and it’ll work out fine, but if you do a 75% water change in a 10gal tank and your water temp is way off, you’re going to have issues

Overdosing water conditioner is a thing, but like stated it’s usually not an issue unless we’re talking many times more than the recommended dose. I’d try to keep it to a double dose at the most in a 24h period

 

[Azedenkae]

Yeah I agree with the others. What we often refer to and test as 'ammonia' is better called 'total ammonia', which comprises a balance of 'free ammonia' and 'ammonium'. However, it is evidence that the free ammonia is what is toxic to fish, while ammonium does not seem to be. So when you read up on info of fishkeeping and an article says 'keep ammonia below 0.25ppm', that actually refers to free ammonia.


Now free ammonia and ammonium always exists in a balance, and is affected by some factors including pH. The lower the pH, the more ammonium there actually is, versus free ammonia.


At your pH so far it is not too bad what you are measuring in (total) ammonia.


So just keep up with water changes.


By the way, plants don't absorb nitrite.

 

[Aiken Drum]

So when you read up on info of fishkeeping and an article says 'keep ammonia below 0.25ppm', that actually refers to free ammonia.

Not quite right.

0.025ppm free ammonia is what is considered safe for fish. 0.05ppm free ammonia is where you start to run into long term issues and 0.5ppm free ammonia is immediate death territory.

0.25ppm ammonia/ TAN is commonly cited as what is toxic to fish to keep things simple, especially for beginners. Its a level that is safe no matter what, easier to say "keep below 0.25ppm ammonia" than "keep below ???ppm if your pH is?? and your temperature is ??"

0.25ppm being the safe level is also a bit of a throw back to before the knowledge we have now about ammonia toxicity was available. A lot of out of date info gets recirculated (including by me im sure).

A more in depth thread on the subject should anyone have missed it.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/your-guide-to-ammonia-toxicity-159994.html

 

[Azedenkae]

Not quite right.

0.025ppm free ammonia is what is considered safe for fish. 0.05ppm free ammonia is where you start to run into long term issues and 0.5ppm free ammonia is immediate death territory.

0.25ppm ammonia/ TAN is commonly cited as what is toxic to fish to keep things simple, especially for beginners. Its a level that is safe no matter what, easier to say "keep below 0.25ppm ammonia" than "keep below ???ppm if your pH is?? and your temperature is ??"

0.25ppm being the safe level is also a bit of a throw back to before the knowledge we have now about ammonia toxicity was available. A lot of out of date info gets recirculated (including by me im sure).

A more in depth thread on the subject should anyone have missed it.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/your-guide-to-ammonia-toxicity-159994.html

Looks like I got this very wrong, thanks for correcting me! This is something I had read up on before, but there has been a lot of confounding information, boiling down to some studies not specifying whether 'ammonia' they are describing is free or total ammonia, while also there are plenty of studies that found some species of freshwater fish can handle much higher concentrations of free ammonia itself (not total ammonia), but of course they are often described to be out of the ordinary, and ordinarily the concentration of free ammonia needed to be toxic is less for freshwater fish in general... though never specified what levels and what fish...

 

[Aiken Drum]

Different fish have different tolerences to ammonia, so everything is a generalisation. Im sure ive seen something somewhere that has tolerences for a selection of commonly kept fish. Maybe aquariumscience

Ive seen a few websites etc with similar articles to the one on our forum. Where they cite sources they generally are the same studies as our thread cites.

A good guide with regards to "free ammonia" toxicity is the seachem alert patch. It is one of the few tests that is actually for free ammonia and if ammonia is an issue then its a good idea to drop one these in the tank as a great visual alert to problems.

 

[Pratzie]

Ya so I guess I should have explained better. I’ve been using the API conditioner on my water since I got started the tank cycle. I’ve only started using Prime since this ammonia spike when I added the additional tank mates. I wasn’t anticipating the spike rising to the level that occurred so I grabbed some Prime from the store quickly once I found it helps detoxify the ammonia.

As soon as the level drops again I plan on using just the API product until the bottle is gone and then restock or consider another product. I won’t be using both forever, just adding in the Prime until this spike subsides. I do appreciate all the feedback, especially this most recent article on the Ammonia toxicity levels.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Aiken Drum]

My point is though that as your water is treated with chloramine your ammonia spike will never go away. Every time you do a water change, forever (or at least as long as your water company continues to use chloramine), you will get an ammonia spike because your water contains ammonia.