HELP NEEDED : PRIME and AMMONIA

[cichlid2006]

why would you even medicate a tank?

Medication kills more than it fixes. Good water quailty, feeding habbits, and proper maintence should never lead to having to medicate. If these things are not taken care of properly the answer is water changes. Not medication, the outbreak is what you see, not what is actually causing the problem. Which would be bad husbandry of a tank.

fish tanks are hard work, you have to come to terms with that.

You need to water change and keep up with water changes. Everyone can fall behind but when your fish get sick its a sign. Though there will be some cases of random deaths, only you can judge if you have been up keeping.

great posts, the guy came for help about an ammonia spike possibly caused by medication then you start preaching about how proper tank husbandry stops all ailments appearing.
every fishkeeper gets a bout of sickness at some point in their tank no matter how good you care for it or quarantine new fish and meds have to be used. if you havent had one appear without apparent reasons then give it time, it always happens.
its a fact disease is in even if you think it isnt and its only a matter of time before a fish happens to get weak enough through injury or stress for it to get a grip on that fish. Oh, and that sucks about your BB i know you were hoping for a save on that guy.

to the OP, do 25-50% waterchanges every couple of days adding a double/triple dose of prime each time. the bottle says to add up to 5 times the dose for nitrite and ammonia so staying under that should give you a safety margin so you dont overdose. you should be good to go after a week. your ammonia readings are going to be all screwed up like OscarRobinson stated so your really going to have to trust that prime works like it says.

 

[TheCanuck]

great posts, the guy came for help about an ammonia spike possibly caused by medication then you start preaching about how proper tank husbandry stops all ailments appearing.
every fishkeeper gets a bout of sickness at some point in their tank no matter how good you care for it or quarantine new fish and meds have to be used. if you havent had one appear without apparent reasons then give it time, it always happens.
its a fact disease is in even if you think it isnt and its only a matter of time before a fish happens to get weak enough through injury or stress for it to get a grip on that fish. Oh, and that sucks about your BB i know you were hoping for a save on that guy.

to the OP, do 25-50% waterchanges every couple of days adding a double/triple dose of prime each time. the bottle says to add up to 5 times the dose for nitrite and ammonia so staying under that should give you a safety margin so you dont overdose. you should be good to go after a week. your ammonia readings are going to be all screwed up like OscarRobinson stated so your really going to have to trust that prime works like it says.

I was in no way being rude or mean. Also from what my lfs tells me and others on here is prime gives a false reading. Its still in the tank and still needs to be removed.... water changes.....

I would say keeping up with a tank properly would eliminate 99% of problems if we where to take a world wide vote. I guess i am just really against medicating fish. If they have to be then sure medicate them, but people buy meds like a little kid in a candy shop

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

Anti-biotics are used to kill off bacteria. They do not only kill off the bacteria that infect your fish they also kill off the bacteria that makes up your tanks biological filtration system.

Once used you can guarantee that all of your beneficial bacteria are know dead. And until you do enough water changes to remove all of the antibiotic the bacteria you will not begin to regrow.

The best fix for a situation like this is to do 2-3 50% water changes a day for a couple of days. And then seed the bacteria with old media or a bio booster such as Tetra safe start. And check you ammonia and nitrite levels daily and do a 50% water change at any time you see a reading over .ppm of etheir.

If you use the safe start this situation can be rectified in about a week and a half max. Or with seeding from a cycled tank it should be worked out in 3-4 weeks. Etheir way plan to do many many daily water changes until this is fixed.

 

[TheCanuck]

Anti-biotics are used to kill off bacteria. They do not only kill off the bacteria that infect your fish they also kill off the bacteria that makes up your tanks biological filtration system.

Once used you can guarantee that all of your beneficial bacteria are know dead. And until you do enough water changes to remove all of the antibiotic the bacteria you will not begin to regrow.

The best fix for a situation like this is to do 2-3 50% water changes a day for a couple of days. And then seed the bacteria with old media or a bio booster such as Tetra safe start. And check you ammonia and nitrite levels daily and do a 50% water change at any time you see a reading over .ppm of etheir.

If you use the safe start this situation can be rectified in about a week and a half max. Or with seeding from a cycled tank it should be worked out in 3-4 weeks. Etheir way plan to do many many daily water changes until this is fixed.

Yes sir

 

[Hasi]

I just did some tests and discover that prime is totally falsing ammonia testing, at least when using nutrafin nh3/nh4 tests. It seems to explain why my ammonia level rose significantly after adding prime. When adding one drop of prime in a bucket of tap water containing no amonnia, the tests indicates a high level of amonnia. I do not know how to explain it ? Maybe that prime produces non toxic amonnia when neutralizing chlorine ? Maybe prime contains in itself a form of non toxic ammonia ?

Prime will usually give a false ammonia reading for the first 24hrs after use.

I was in no way being rude or mean. Also from what my lfs tells me and others on here is prime gives a false reading. Its still in the tank and still needs to be removed.... water changes.....

FYI - Prime gives false readings of the NH4 form of ammonia.
Get a test kit to test only NH3 ammonia

NH4 - non toxic
NH3 - toxic

 

[OscarRobinson]

Anti-biotics are used to kill off bacteria. They do not only kill off the bacteria that infect your fish they also kill off the bacteria that makes up your tanks biological filtration system.

Once used you can guarantee that all of your beneficial bacteria are know dead. And until you do enough water changes to remove all of the antibiotic the bacteria you will not begin to regrow.

The best fix for a situation like this is to do 2-3 50% water changes a day for a couple of days. And then seed the bacteria with old media or a bio booster such as Tetra safe start. And check you ammonia and nitrite levels daily and do a 50% water change at any time you see a reading over .ppm of etheir.

If you use the safe start this situation can be rectified in about a week and a half max. Or with seeding from a cycled tank it should be worked out in 3-4 weeks. Etheir way plan to do many many daily water changes until this is fixed.

Good topic. I have heard this many times. Some would agree with you and others say its not so. I have no scientific data to support either way. I do know that when we take antibiotics to kill a bacterial infefection in our bodies the antibiotics do not totally kill off our good bacteria but it is suggested by most physicians to eat yogurt with good bacteria in addition to meds(antibiotics). I wonder if anyone here has read anything on this.

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

Well when we get sick from bacteria it is only because any beneficial bacteria that are in our bodies have failed to perform there job.

Then we take the antibiotics to kill off the bacteria that is harming us.

And as we get well we can regenerate the beneficial bacteria.

Basically the same thing you do if you have a tank full of sick fish. And not just 1-2. Because if you have just a couple of sick fish then its there individual immune system and a hospital tank is the way to go.


This is what I allways heard anyway.