I'm having trouble with ammonia in my QT. This tank has been running about 2 1/2 years. my problem is that I went about 6 months with no fish in there. i ghost fed a little but apparently not enough. I thought everything was cool so I added some fish about 4 weeks ago. Everything was fine for a week. Fish looked good and eating. So I dosed prazi 4 days apart, did my water change and started copper. That was about 2 1/2 weeks ago. Then i noticed the water looked cloudy and tested ammonia. Sure enough it was present. So I've been doing water changes and adding amquel. I thought by now that the filter would have completed a mini cycle and things would start settling down. I'm wondering if the elevated copper is preventing the bacteria growth i need to squash the ammonia. Any ideas?
Question about quarantine.
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Crabs McJones
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What test kit have you been using to test ammonia? From my experience all test kits give a false positive reading of ammonia in the presents of copper. The only one that has been proven to be accurate is the ammonia alert badge.
Brew12
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QT's, or more accurately Hospital Tanks, seem to have a hard time maintaining nitrifying bacteria over a long period of time.
I've seen systems that were set up and processing ammonia just fine and then not used for 2 months. By then, they were no longer able to process ammonia. Not sure exactly what the reason for this is but it has been observed multiple times by different people.
Jay Hemdal
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What are you using as a substrate for your beneficial bacteria in your hospital tank? As Brew12 said, QTs often have issues with nitrifying bacteria. I feel this is based at least in part with there not being much surface area for bacteria to grow in a hospital tank. I've always relied on good sponge filters.
Jay
I use marine pure ceramic balls. I also added some sponge that had been kept in the sump of my big tank, after I noticed the ammonia spike. But after reading Crab's post maybe I don,t even have ammonia. Still, I lost one out of 3 anthias and she looked like having trouble breathing. Maybe she didn't like the amquel, but the other 2 seem fine.
JasonK84
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That depends on which copper product is being used. If chelated copper then prime and amquel are fine. If using ionic copper then they wouldn’t have fish right now. I’m gonna say chelated copper is being used here since the fish are still kicking.
Jay Hemdal
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So: all copper products are chelated (even ionic copper is kept in solution using citric acid). The trouble with Prime and Amquel is when they are added to tanks containing copper that is complexed (chelated) with an amine. They react with the amine, releasing the copper. Since amine complexed coppers run at much higher copper concentrations, all that free copper kills the fish. Trouble is, I don't have a definitive list of amine-based copper meds. Obviously Cupramine is, hence its name. I suspect that Coppersafe is also.
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AcanthurusRex
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The OP did not speicify.
OK so no more amquel. Think I'll do another 50% water change today. I hate doing wc with copper! I have to use a special bucket and measure exactly how much water and copper before I poour it in. Ugh!
Here's the real bummer part/. I bought 4 anthias hoping to get 3 females into my tank. I knew one would start transitioning in the QT. One didn't make the trip. I got a credit for her. Now Iv'e lost a second ont. That leaves one female to go in the display. I planned on donating the male after I was finished. Now, I will keep him in the qt and try another batch of females after I get the tank straightened out. I may have to place him in the sump and sterilize and er-cycle my qt. That'll take another month.
AcanthurusRex
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I have used AquaForest Life Bio Fil in a new QT setup and introduced fish the next day. I have had to add bacteria to supplement it before as well. @4FordFamily posted that he had better results using BioSpira and that seemed to work better for me as well, it did cloud the tank after I added it. I think the refrigerated Fritz product is better if you can find it.
I usually keep a bag of the Life Bio Fil in the sump since it does sometimes need some time to get going.
I usually keep a bag of the Life Bio Fil in the sump since it does sometimes need some time to get going.
Crabs McJones
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JasonK84
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PSA: PRIME safe to use with COPPER POWER
7/13/2023 Note: There is still some question in my mind about using any of the three copper products (Cupramine, Copper Power and Coppersafe) with an EXCESS of any reducing agents. These can include formalin, sodium thiosulfate, Prime or possibly even Amquel. Anything that can break the...
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