hey how's it going.
so far things are okay. i'm purposely keeping the pH between 6.0-6.4 to keep most of the total ammonia in the form of ammonium.
my bigger issue is a sick female golden killie. the poor thing might have dropsy. while she's not really swollen, her scales have started to pine-cone from the mouth to the pectoral fins. i put her in a quarantine tank, and started treating with Jungle's "Fungus Clear." unfortunately, no one's responded to my post about treating her, so i'm really playing it based on what i've read online. i was thinking about treating with Epsom Salt, to reduce the swelling, but then she's not really that swollen, and i dunno how to treat with Epson Salt.
anyways, with your case, other than the pH, you need to consider the temperature to find out how much of the total ammonia (you probably already know this - ammonia+ammonium) is free ammonia/toxic ammonia/NH3.
some test kits have the scale. unfortunately, the API test kit doesnt. use this calculator to figure it out:
http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~piwc/w3-research/free-ammonia/nh3.html
for example, with your factors, a pH of 8 and a total ammonia concentration of 1ppm, and say off the top of my head, a temp of 78F, the toxic ammonia concentration comes out to ~0.58mg/L. since 1mg/L = 1ppm that's, 0.58ppm?
as for the stress coat. according to purrbox's earlier post, stress coat causes irritation, which produces the extra slime coat - the reason i stopped using it. i figured the fish were already stressed as it is, and having itching all over the place isn't helping them too much.
i think the current stuff is "reforumlated" or something; therefore,
if API says it deals with ammonia issues, i guess it's safe to believe them? what do you think?