Does Prime Go Bad?

[Becca]

I'm baffled each and every time Holly has periodic nitrite spikes in her tanks, especially with the number of plants she keeps.

I live a couple of miles away and have the same water source and similarly don't have chloramines.

The presence of nitrItes means that the amount of ammonia present in the tank has overwhelmed the ability of the nitrifying bacteria to convert it to (less harmful) nitrAte....which is really unusual for a mature tank. I'm assuming that there are no dead fish rotting anywhere. Other pockets or pools of rotting stuff hidden in the substrate?

I know that Sam and others will freak out but..when is the last time you cleaned your canister filter(s)? That you can't see the crud (poop, uneaten food, etc.) accumulating in it doesn't mean that it's not there...

Matt

Matt - that's a good point. I recently cleaned mine because flow seemed a little slow and there was some yucky sludge in it. I am in the "less is more" school of thought with canister filters but sometimes you really get build-up in planted tanks with debris from plants floating around.

We've also had some power outages in MoCo recently (transformers blowing, etc.) that only lasted a few hours. If Holly was out and this happened it's entirely possible that she had a filter off for a little while and wouldn't have known it. We got hit by one this weekend. Had we left 5 minutes earlier, we wouldn't have known it.

 

[daninmd]

I don't measure the ammonia. It doesn't matter if the ntrite is purple, that's sufficient information. When I see fish acting weird, I always go right to the nitrite test. If that's negative, then I test for ammonia

ok, did you happen to test ammonia...if you are registering ammonia and nitrite, that makes a lot more sense to me and suggests there is something in your water killing your BB. just trying to help trouble shoot. ammonia and nitrite present makes sense...just nitrite along doesn't.

 

[hollyfish2000]

I am baffled by this, too. I always have two filters on all tanks and only ever open one at at time, usually once a month or so. I had opened one of the filters two cleanings ago, so two weeks ago. The flow in this tank is quite good, so there hasn't been a noticeable degradation in the flow to indicate the filters are being clogged/compromised. I actually open them mostly to check for babies!

My only thought is that I don't dechlorinate throughly enough when I dechlorinated in the buckets, so I switched to aged water in a 30 gallon trash can with bubblers. I do toss in Prime, but I don't stir it in. Is it possible for the water at the bottom of the trash can to not 'get' either the Prime or the aggitation (the bubblers pretty much stay at the top) and thus remain slightly chlorinated?

this particular tank does not have a lot of plants. It is highly stocked so I do 50 percent water changes once a week. I don't worry about temperature and the temperature of the water going in is always cooler than the tank. Maybe that's a problem?

 

[hollyfish2000]

no power outages as my security system tells me when the power goes off

 

[hollyfish2000]

and no dead fish until AFTER the nitrite spike (lost the ruby red peacock)

 

[daninmd]

if this has happened before and seems to be recurring I think it points more to something in your house than water water supply/Prime. do you have pets, kids, cleaning people, etc. somehow something is getting in your tank that is killing your BB. I have done 50% water changes before and forgot to add Prime and I was ok.

Also, I usually add Prime direct to the tank after I fill it up now. just have to dose it based on total volume, not how much water is added.

 

[Pat Kelly]

I keep a small bottle of prime in one of my boxes I take to shows. Has to be 5 years old. Still used it at Aquafest.

 

[dogofwar]

Hi Holly,

Do you use pre-filters on your canisters? Great way to keep fry (and poop, uneaten food) out.

You're not mixing the Prime wrong. I blow water into my tanks as fast as I can with a garden hose...straight from the tap...and try to add dechlor ahead of time but often add it as water's going in. Never had an issue.

Temperature shouldn't affect nitrite. 50% weekly water changes should be more than enough...unless there's some bolus of rotting stuff somewhere in the system..

Matt

I am baffled by this, too. I always have two filters on all tanks and only ever open one at at time, usually once a month or so. I had opened one of the filters two cleanings ago, so two weeks ago. The flow in this tank is quite good, so there hasn't been a noticeable degradation in the flow to indicate the filters are being clogged/compromised. I actually open them mostly to check for babies!

My only thought is that I don't dechlorinate throughly enough when I dechlorinated in the buckets, so I switched to aged water in a 30 gallon trash can with bubblers. I do toss in Prime, but I don't stir it in. Is it possible for the water at the bottom of the trash can to not 'get' either the Prime or the aggitation (the bubblers pretty much stay at the top) and thus remain slightly chlorinated?

this particular tank does not have a lot of plants. It is highly stocked so I do 50 percent water changes once a week. I don't worry about temperature and the temperature of the water going in is always cooler than the tank. Maybe that's a problem?

 

[mchambers]

I dunno

Matt - that's a good point. I recently cleaned mine because flow seemed a little slow and there was some yucky sludge in it. I am in the "less is more" school of thought with canister filters but sometimes you really get build-up in planted tanks with debris from plants floating around.

We've also had some power outages in MoCo recently (transformers blowing, etc.) that only lasted a few hours. If Holly was out and this happened it's entirely possible that she had a filter off for a little while and wouldn't have known it. We got hit by one this weekend. Had we left 5 minutes earlier, we wouldn't have known it.

I'm in the less is more school, too, and find that when a canister needs to be cleaned, the flow is reduced substantially, meaning that the oxygen levels drop. I don't think that results in a nitrite spike, but I guess I've never tested it. I just clean the filter, like I did with a 2215 last night, and everything is fine.

I don't think a short-term power resulting in losing the biological filtration. The beneficial microbes can survive for a while without oxygen or food.

Having said that, I don't know how to explain Holly's problem.

 

[daninmd]

my bet is on something in the house making its way into the tank and killing the BB. cleaning supplies, or something airborne. is there mechanical equipment nearby

 

[Avatar]

I'm baffled by Holly in general.

I'm baffled each and every time Holly has periodic nitrite spikes in her tanks, especially with the number of plants she keeps.

I live a couple of miles away and have the same water source and similarly don't have chloramines.

The presence of nitrItes means that the amount of ammonia present in the tank has overwhelmed the ability of the nitrifying bacteria to convert it to (less harmful) nitrAte....which is really unusual for a mature tank. I'm assuming that there are no dead fish rotting anywhere. Other pockets or pools of rotting stuff hidden in the substrate?

I know that Sam and others will freak out but..when is the last time you cleaned your canister filter(s)? That you can't see the crud (poop, uneaten food, etc.) accumulating in it doesn't mean that it's not there...

Matt

The presence of nitrites does not indicate an "overwhelming" of bacterial processing capacity if they have not yet had a chance to perform said processing, i.e., in the event of a large water change or one that inexplicably kills/compromises them because of inhospitable parameters of newly introduced water.

Not freaking out about anything, but all the waste products of denitrification are water soluble meaning they don't/cannot physically stay in the filter (provided it has water flowing through it), and must be dissolved/released into the water column consistent with the laws of physics and principles of chemical/fluid equilibria. If I turn off one of my canister filters and pull a water sample from it, it will test for and display identical water parameters to those evidenced from water taken and so tested from within the tank. Whatever may accumulate inside a filter, nitrogen compounds aren't part of it. The filter is not the boogeyman in this instance and is no more responsible for your nitrite spike any more than I am. Honest - it wasn't me Memsahib Holly - I only sabotage tanks belonging to corporate polluters and members of the military industrial complex (but would happily free any captive cetaceans given the opportunity that had a 50% chance of making it in the wild).

 

[chriscoli]

+1 about Sam's filter sludge comment. Nitrogen is a hot-commodity in the bacterial world (not as hot as phosphorus compounds, mind you) so it doesn't sit around very long in its readily-useable states. Mulm is pretty inert and actually harbors some great colonization potential for bacteria. Balance is your friend here....you don't want too much of it so that it clogs things up, but it's nothing to be OCD about removing.

If I test my tanks a short while after I feed them, I can detect nitrite, but the fish don't appear stressed. The post-feeding spike passes quickly, but if I'm unlucky enough to accidentally capture it while testing, it has occasionally freaked me out. If I test again later, the nitrites will be at 0.

Not that I'm saying your necessarily catching this spike, Holly. I know you've done enough testing of your tanks to be familiar with it.

 

[hollyfish2000]

Sigh. Yes, I know very baffling. This has been happening on and off to me for years. Nitrite killed an entire show peacock hap tank several years ago and almost put me out of the hobby.

It's happened in different tanks over many years
It always happens after a water change, so much of a connection that I never do water changes the day before I leave for holiday so if I get a spike I"m there to fix it.
It does not appear to be directly related to opening or not opening filters.
It has not happened since I started aging the water BUT I may not have aged it for 24 hours over the three-day weekend, trying to get in all the water changes I wanted to do.
I have no kids or cleaning ladies doing anything related to my tanks
As far as I know my dogs are not messing with my tanks even if they somewhat resent the time I spend on them.


I think I'm going to just have to own the fact that I'm baffling and in more ways than this . . .

 

[dogofwar]

The stuff that mechanical filtration catches (i.e. the stuff sucked into a canister filter) doesn't break down instantly...nor is complete nitrification immediate.

Every time you feed (especially without a pre-filter) some food goes into the filter. And (of course) fish constantly poop, another source of ammonia to fuel nitrification.

Mechanical filtration collects this stuff. Frequently removing waste from a tank before it breaks down and nitrifies is a great way to reduce the amount of nitrate (ammonia, nitrite) in the system. This is why I frequently rinse or replace the fluff in my box filters, pre-filters, sumps and HOBs.

Infrequently removing waste captured in mechanical filtration results in more nitrification and ultimately more nitrates in the system. And perhaps more nitrItes if, for whatever reason, the balance of nitrifying bacteria or amount of waste is out of whack.

Without pre-filters, canister filters make it a PITA to frequently remove waste captured in mechanical filtration (it's all stuck together inside the canister). That's why I don't use them (I'm going to switch out my last one...an FX5 with a pump soon)...

It's really no different than regularly vacuuming the substrate or regualrly cleaning other filters (seemingly non-controversial topics)...other than that canisters hide the waste. I also clean up excess food or waste when I see it (siphon it out) but that's just me!

Having lots of plants will counteract some of the excess nitrogenous waste produced by infrequent filter cleaning...but frequent cleaning of mechanical filtration could mean that much less...

Matt

+1 about Sam's filter sludge comment. Nitrogen is a hot-commodity in the bacterial world (not as hot as phosphorus compounds, mind you) so it doesn't sit around very long in its readily-useable states. Mulm is pretty inert and actually harbors some great colonization potential for bacteria. Balance is your friend here....you don't want too much of it so that it clogs things up, but it's nothing to be OCD about removing.

If I test my tanks a short while after I feed them, I can detect nitrite, but the fish don't appear stressed. The post-feeding spike passes quickly, but if I'm unlucky enough to accidentally capture it while testing, it has occasionally freaked me out. If I test again later, the nitrites will be at 0.

Not that I'm saying your necessarily catching this spike, Holly. I know you've done enough testing of your tanks to be familiar with it.

 

[hollyfish2000]

Frequently opening the filters and washing and/or replacing media seems to be disruptive of the bacterial colony -- at least to me -- and my concern about this disruption is why I have double filters on all tanks (assuming a disruption in one filter won't be enough to throw the whole thing out of whack) and why opening them more freiquently seems counterproduction to me . . .

 

[daninmd]

if it happens after a water change then you need to determine what in that process is killing your BB. I would try to figure out all the elements of the water change and try and determine what might be the source of the contamination. to remove one of the variables, get a different dechlor if you haven't already. I use and like the Safe, which is a powder version of Prime. something in your water changing procedure has a contaminate that is killing off your bacteria. this is definitely not normal

 

[dogofwar]

If in doubt, hide a sponge filter in the plants.

There's plenty of beneficial bacteria in just about any established tank...without the filters. Remember that most of mine are filtered by a sponge and a box...so two canisters should be much, much more than adequate.

Matt

Frequently opening the filters and washing and/or replacing media seems to be disruptive of the bacterial colony -- at least to me -- and my concern about this disruption is why I have double filters on all tanks (assuming a disruption in one filter won't be enough to throw the whole thing out of whack) and why opening them more freiquently seems counterproduction to me . . .

 

[mchambers]

Holly, I think the consensus of the club is that you are baffling in a nice way! Or nice in a baffling way. . .

 

[Avatar]

West Point cadet vs. renegade biologist - place your bets

The stuff that mechanical filtration catches (i.e. the stuff sucked into a canister filter) doesn't break down instantly...nor is complete nitrification immediate.

Every time you feed (especially without a pre-filter) some food goes into the filter. And (of course) fish constantly poop, another source of ammonia to fuel nitrification.

Mechanical filtration collects this stuff. Frequently removing waste from a tank before it breaks down and nitrifies is a great way to reduce the amount of nitrate (ammonia, nitrite) in the system. This is why I frequently rinse or replace the fluff in my box filters, pre-filters, sumps and HOBs.

Infrequently removing waste captured in mechanical filtration results in more nitrification and ultimately more nitrates in the system. And perhaps more nitrItes if, for whatever reason, the balance of nitrifying bacteria or amount of waste is out of whack.

Without pre-filters, canister filters make it a PITA to frequently remove waste captured in mechanical filtration (it's all stuck together inside the canister). That's why I don't use them (I'm going to switch out my last one...an FX5 with a pump soon)...

It's really no different than regularly vacuuming the substrate or regualrly cleaning other filters (seemingly non-controversial topics)...other than that canisters hide the waste. I also clean up excess food or waste when I see it (siphon it out) but that's just me!

Having lots of plants will counteract some of the excess nitrogenous waste produced by infrequent filter cleaning...but frequent cleaning of mechanical filtration could mean that much less...

Matt

After 3 billion years of natural selection and rigorous evolutionary field trials, bacteria are very good at what they do, which is primarily metabolizing whatever it is they digest. You're not giving them near enough credit for the speed and efficiency of their activity - waste breakdown in a tank may not be "instant" nor "complete immediately", but it's pretty close, and enough so that any nitrogenous waste one is able to remove physically is only going to offset a few hours of unprocessed waste accumulation at best. Unless one vacuums every time fish feed or "evacuate" this seems pretty much a waste of time, and anything that is so removed is negligible in terms of improving water quality. The speed at which a nitrite spike appears and then disappears following a feeding attests to this. I use pre-filters on everything and almost never vacuum anything. I also rinse filter media periodically but that is primarily to maintain even water flow as opposed to concern over the impact of "spent" particulates that have been rendered effectively inert by bacteria.

I have an Eheim 2028 hooked up to a 55 containing discus, monster Acarichthys heckelii and juvenile buffaloheads. The filter hasn't been opened in probably a year+, the filter pads are doubtless black as coal, and there is probably at least an inch or so of mulm in the bottom of the canister. I'll bet $100 I can shut it down, dump the entire contents less the media back into the tank (which will make it difficult to impossible to even see the fish), reconnect it and have it restore water clarity without losing or harming a single fish because whatever is in the filter is already effectively inside the larger system that comprises the tank, filters and connecting tubes. All I'd be doing is dispersing something that is presently concentrated in one place throughout the system, but doing so isn't going to change anything with respect to nitrogen compounds because they're already in and evenly dissolved/distributed within the water column.

Any takers? For $200 I might even take video...

 

[mchambers]

+1

My money is on the renegade biologist.