Dosing With Esha Medicine/water Changes Without Prime

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Kaidonni

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Messages
74
I have been having issues in my tank with the White Cloud Mountain Minnows, and I have virtually completed the first course of Esha 2000 and Exit combined - but added a fourth day on to it. The female Minnow appears to have made some improvement; she is hanging at the surface much less than she was when the light is off, and she seems to have stopped doing it when the light is on. This white spot above the male Minnow's right eye is still there (it doesn't exactly match any disease or parasite I've read about), but he's as active as ever and was quite hungry last night when I fed a small amount of flake food (his actual mouth I don't know about, maybe it has improved - people advised that they believed he was exhibiting early signs of mouthrot).

I was hoping to do a 50% clean sans Prime tomorrow, running the replacement water through some carbon filter pads from my lfs, and then to keep a carbon pad in the filter for ~24 hours. On Monday, I wish to begin a second full treatment of the Esha 2000 and Exit combined, probably extending that to four days (after replacing the carbon in the filter with a normal wool pad). On Friday, 50% change sans Prime, and that's it (it's all I can do, I'll be tied up after that and won't be available to do anything with the tank). Does that regime seem sound enough?

I have to do the cleans without Prime because I contacted the Esha manufacturer about my situation, and they warned Prime lasts a long while and can bind with their medicines, and might even cause a reaction. I can't say to how long Prime actually lasts, except under normal conditions (i.e. not over-dosed), the reducing potential is mostly used up within 24 hours (tested it on a bucket of water last year, it's how I discovered that Prime can mess with Nessler-based ammonia test kits).

I actually started dosing on Wednesday, ~16 hours after a 50% clean that involved the use of Prime, as I just can't keep messing about. I'm lucky 50% is 23-25 litres, much larger and - if I don't use Prime - I'll be limited to using non-temperature matched water, and risk affecting the Minnows negatively with the temperature variation. I can't exactly fill three buckets with water and heat them; I only have one 10-litre bucket for water changes, the other three are strictly for dirty tank water. In any case, it's also not convenient to go out and purchase another heater or a larger bucket...I have to act very quickly and just get this all sorted out, and the best time to get the next change done is tomorrow, and then to begin the next course of treatment on Monday. Trust me to catch a stinking cold while all this is going on!

I suppose I could heat the first 10 litres, or increase it to 11/12 litres, and just not heat the rest...the heater in the tank isn't actually turned on, so I could get away with hijacking it for this purpose.

Temperature matching via the tap isn't going to work without Prime - if any heavy metals should get into the water, there's nothing to detoxify them, and I'm not sure how much carbon will remove of the heavy metals that Prime would otherwise take care of, or of any minerals. I also don't believe my tap water contains chloramine, but if it does, would carbon take care of that?

Any advice or tips on how to proceed? I need to do a 50% on Friday because it's then almost two weeks before I can do anything else, so I need to get the water nice and clean.

One last thing - I live in the UK, so there may be products people will recommend that I don't have access to, or don't come as cheap as they do in other parts of the world (read that as requiring additional spending on international transport).
 
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