Help, think I created an ammonia problem.

[we4wieners]

Nah..

 

[Chrisplosion]

I want Norm babies

 

[we4wieners]

checked parameters since adding stuff....Ph-7.2, it increased from 6.0 after adding the regulator. Ammonia has dropped a little as well. Things are looking a little better.

 

[Chrisplosion]

Keep checking the pH because too much fluctuation is not good on the fish.

 

[we4wieners]

seems like they are breathing easier already. What happened... I'll never really know.

 

[Johnnybravo60025]

I would suggest adding a liquid ammonia remover before doing anything. Aqueon makes one that work pretty good. It works best in conjunction with an air diffuser running high temporarily. When you raise you PH the ammonia become deadly in your tank. At least that is what the koi experts told me at the koi shows. If you use a buffer to maintain your PH, PH will never be a question. The cheap way to do it is to add about 1 to 2 pounds of crush coral in your tank. The PH will stay at about 6.9 to 7.0. The crush coral will eventually dissolve and more will be needed maybe in a couple of years. Also, when I vacuum my gravel I do not clean the filter until a few days later. The bacterial in the filter needs to continue to work to balance the new water. Good Luck.

I don't know if I'm thinking of the same product as you but, it's not an ammonia REMOVER, it just keeps the levels down temporarily. It's made so you can take care of the Ammonia before it gets too out of control. I wouldn't depend on it to eliminate Ammonia.

 

[aclockworkorange]

PRIME binds ammonia into ammonium, a less toxic form your bacteria can still eat. Honestly, you're just going through a mini cycle and it's not something to get too worried over. If you're using prime, you have no ammonia in the tank... any test you're using is a false positive reading the ammonium. Bumping the ph up from 6 to 7 is a huge jump for sensitive fish, and also makes your ammonia more toxic (ammonia in ph below 7 begins to be converted to ammonium as well, the lower the ph the higher the ratio converted to ammonium will be... flip side is it takes longer to cycle your tank, and nitrites are toxic at any ph, so watch for them... an old school trick is to add a bit of salt to treat nitrite toxicity, but you don't need to do this if you do the folllowing..), be careful of ph shock when screwing with your ph.
I would just do daily 50% water changes with a normal dose of prime. Also, prime will kill your safestart... you can try to cycle with safestart but you can't use prime at all and are pretty much banking on the safestart working, which it doesn't 100% of the time.