Add prime or water change?

[wayne1]

I'm in the midst of a fish in cycle and using prime to help detoxify the water for my fish. My question is at 0.5 ammonia should I dose with prime or water change? If I need to change the water, how much should I replace?

 

[Brookster123]

I'm in the midst of a fish in cycle and using prime to help detoxify the water for my fish. My question is at 0.5 ammonia should I dose with prime or water change? If I need to change the water, how much should I replace?

whenever your nitrites or amm get above .25ppm it's wc time, could be once or twice a day, prime is a water conditioner first and for most, it does just happen to detox the bad stuff but that does not mean it should be a substitute for a good ol fashion water change, as far as amount? Say your at .5 ppm amm, a 50% wc will bring you down to .25ppm, another 50% will bring you down to .125 ppm. 50% is about as much as you'd want to change at once!

 

[wayne1]

Ok, thanks for the info. I'm determined to keep my little guys as healthy as possible through this. Gonna test water and act accordingly. By the way what's your take on the bottled bacteria stuff? They can't all be useless can they?

 

[Caliban07]

Yeh prime used primarily as an ammonia detoxifier is generally for emergency use or when tap water contains higher than average levels of amm, trites and trates.

I agree that a water change is better.

 

[tnfinfan]

Ok, thanks for the info. I'm determined to keep my little guys as healthy as possible through this. Gonna test water and act accordingly. By the way what's your take on the bottled bacteria stuff? They can't all be useless can they?

Bottled bacteria are generally frowned upon around here. Apparently, they are the wrong kind of bacteria so a tank bottled into cycling can crash when those bacteria expire and the new (correct) ones haven't populated sufficiently. I dont know, read that here. I just know that seeding with bacteria from an established tank works GREAT so beg fish keepers near you for their dirty filter fiber. There will be some bb living on it and that jump starts the process.