Cycling with Prime

[Planeden]

I think I screwed up. I usually just use regualr tap water conditioner, but i went to the store all they had was prime. so, i am using that and trying to cycle two tanks. For days now my tanks have been showing 2.0 ppm nitrites.

5 gallon QT tank example - Filled with water and a simple sponge filter. through in a few shrimp pellets and some gravel from my established tank (in a breeder net so i could pull it out and have a bare bottom. within a week (or so) i got 0 amonia and 0 nitrite. i did about an 80% water change to get out the sand that came with the rocks and the shrimp pellets. on a lark, i decided to check again (and have no fish to quarenene right now, so why not). refilled with water dripping prime directly into the tank as i go (yeah, lazy and all, but it is right by the kitchen sink with the sprayer). threw in a couple of more shrimp pellets. had a small amonia spike and a day later had 2.0 ppm nitrite. so, for over a week i have had 0 amonia, 2.0 ppm nitrite, and steady increase in nitrate (up to 160 ppm now).

i seem to remember we stopped using prime years ago because it would throw off the cycle, or at least lock up the nitrite and throw off the readings. does anyone else know about this? i am about ready to go get regular conditioner and drain them completely and start fresh.

thanks

[jestep]

The prime will remove ammonia initially, but it's not a long term ammonia solution, so you should be able to cycle a tank just fine treating tap water with it. You would want to use prime to neutralize chloramines in the tap water. These are not easily broken down by any biological means. Most likely you need to maintain the ammonia in the tank for the bacteria to establish. If it consumes all of the available ammonia, and there is none left, the bacteria populations will die back, and you can end up with another cycle. Water changes can interrupt or prolong a cycle as well, so you've likely got multiple factors going on in the tank at the same time.

[Planeden]

thanks jestep. the shirmp pellets are still in there disolving, but i will through another one in and see if i get some amonia going.

not sure why i didn't think of google before bothering you guys, but i found this answer on the seachem site. i think this was why we stopped using prime when we first started. from seachem tech support rep:

"The dosage you used is plenty to detoxify nitrite. Prime's binding
effect is about 48 hrs even for nitrite, so you don't have to dose
everyday. One cap is quite enough to take care of any issues with
nitrite. It may still show on your test since you have dosed heavily
with Prime or if you have tested after the binding effect of Prime."

and

"You are welcome for the response. Overdosing Prime can occasionally
interfere. The test will still show the levels of nitrite even though
Prime has bound it."

[Planeden]

ok, added shrimp pellets and 24 hours later 0 ammonia and still 2 ppm nitrite. do you think it is reasonable to assume that the extra prime bonded with nitirte and so the reading i am getting is stuff that can't be broken down? otherwise my ammonia or nitrate would have been higher than yesterday. i did not test nitrate because that is a lot of shaking and it was already off the charts, so i can't tell if there is more. i guess i could have diluted the sample to get it back on the charts, but i didn't think of that yesterday.

i think that the next step will be to take out the water that is there and mix up new water with regular (API brand) dechlorinater and dechloramineater and add new pellets, or use water from one of my other tanks. retest in 24 hours and see what it looks like. if it is 0/0 in 24 hours i will be confident that my filter is cycled. and my fish will have nice clean water with some predisolved shrimp pellets to eat .

there may be a free, barley used bottle of prime available soon if this works out.

[jestep]

How long ago did you start the cycle?

[Planeden]

How long ago did you start the cycle?

i don't remember exactly, but it was at least 3 and a half weeks, probably four and half. and up until a week and a half ago it had had about 4 cups of established gravel in it. so when it started reading 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites that is when i cleaned it out and got stuck with nitrites.

[Planeden]

Hey jestep,

I think it has been sorted. I changed out the water last night and all is looking good again. I think it was the possible overdosing with prime that locked in my nitrite readings. I should probably get more precise with my dosing before I start my reef, but for now I am going to go for the more idiot proof API tap water conditioner. At least while things are cycling and I don't want to detoxify anything. I have a few days yet before I will put anything in it, so I will keep checking between now and then.

Yuck, now I have to tell my g/f so she can fix her tank. Her's is still reading 2 ppm nirite (my control for the experiment).

Anyway, thanks for your help.