Forgot the Prime....

[MrPillow]

Today I was doing PWC in all my tanks and amongst the monotony and being pre-occupied with other things, I believe I may have forgotten to dose Prime when I did the 50% change in my 26g. I remembered about 12 hours later, and dosed accordingly, but by this time is it likely my bio-filter is toast?

 

[KittyKat]

It depends on what your tap water contains. The best thing you can do is 12 hour testing for the next few days for ammonia and nitrite, then drop to 24 hour testing for the next couple of weeks.

It is also possible that the filter has just stalled instead of being killed off.

If you do have another tank, it would be good to transfer swap filter media, just in case, as long as the other tank is disease free, of course.

 

[NoMoreGoldFish]

Your filter will be fine. People make it sound as if chlorine and chloramine would zap all your beneficial bacteria instantly, but that's just not true. You probably lost about 5-10% of your bacteria, not even enough to cause a mini cycle.

 

[KittyKat]

Your filter will be fine. People make it sound as if chlorine and chloramine would zap all your beneficial bacteria instantly, but that's just not true. You probably lost about 5-10% of your bacteria, not even enough to cause a mini cycle.

A 5-10% top up with chloraminated water consistently stalled a fully cycled filter for 2-3 days for me when I was experimenting with it (no fish were involved, only household ammonia). When I say stalled, I mean that when normally 2 ppm of ammonia was completely processed into nitrate within 12 hours, I was getting 1-2 ppm readings for ammonia and some nitrite at the 24 hour point after the top up and still clear readings for both at 48 and sometimes even at the 72 hour points after top up.

I consider it worth the 15 minutes it takes for tests per day to make sure my fish are not exposed to anything that may harm them.

 

[Ardynas]

I often wonder how quick the Prime works in a tank. When I do PWC's (on 150gal) I treat the tank w/Prime and then add tap directly to the tank. I generally turn my filter off (and keep it off for an hour) so not to take any chance of any Chlorine/mine killing my bio. The fish never act any differently.

 

[KittyKat]

If completely mixed with water, instantly, but in practice, it apparently takes 2-3 minutes if the water is mixed by hand.

Small quantities of chlorine and chloramine should not be harmful to fish… did you know that chloramine is sometimes used commertially to treat against gill parasites?