ammonia in qt tank

[waterthatmakeu]

When you say the tank was cycled - were the bacteria challenged with an ammonia source, or was the tank just run empty? Some people use ammonium chloride to cycle a tank, others use some hardy animals.

the tank had invertebrates while cycling

 

[vetteguy53081]

do you suggest the badge?

I have no confidence in ammonia badge also designed for fresh water. I recommend a reliable test kit or have an LFS that does not use API test kits test water for you

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Just with regards to Prime - some recent work from the Chemistry Forum here very strongly suggests (honestly, seems about as close to proving it as possible without Seachem releasing their proprietary formula information for it) that it is not useful for binding meaningful quantities of ammonia.

taricha explains in depth why throughout the thread, but for the shortened version, posts 158 (my post, partially quoted below) and 165 (taricha's post adding to mine) are a good, abbreviated explanation:

to summarize it briefly:

-The binder theoretically works, but nowhere near effectively enough to be useful for ammonia removal in our tanks.

-The binder itself seems to be more toxic than the ammonia it's attempting to bind.

-Tests showing that the binder bound useful amounts of ammonia are explained by test kit interference caused by the chemicals involved in the binding process.

A Deep Dive on Ammonia Neutralizer Chemistry - Prime, ClorAm-X, Rongalite and friends.

@Dan_P I think your message got lost...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

the tank had invertebrates while cycling

Your tank is most likely fully cycled then.

Cupramine is copper ionically bonded with ammonia. However, unlike coppersafe, Cupramine shows little ammonia on tests, I think only about 0.15 ppm, where coppersafe shows 0.50 ammonia.