Will Prime fix ammonia problem?

[Kannin]

My friend who actually got me into this hobby is having some serious issues...

Here's some background;

He has a 180 gallon fowler... He doesn't take very good care of it but, he is getting better and wants to do well. He uses tap water and a wet dry filter, with no skimmer. He started getting cyano about 3 weeks ago. Then two of his fish started getting ich last which he treated with RidIch.After seeing what I have done with my tank, he has been contemplating using better husbandry and thinking about going reef. He installed a phosban reator last weekend to help with the cyano.

Because of the cyano plus the recent ich outbreak... I offered to come by and see if we could figure it out. I went to his house on Friday to test his parameters. The first 3 are off the chart!

Ammonia =>.50
Nitrate =>75
Phosphate =>.5
SG =1.023
DKH 11
Calcium 500

I checked his tap water for phosphates and it was neglegible so, the phosphates are coming from food.

I think his immediate problem is stemming from this... He had two gigantic hermit crabs that were very effective cleaners. They used shells close the size of a fist. One died about 6 weeks ago and the other one died about 3 weeks ago (right when the cyano started to appear). So I'm thinking that there is food that is rotting which is causing the ammonia and phosphate problem.

So... I put a large dose of prime in the tank on Friday hoping to at least get the ammonia level down. He did a 25 gallon water change yesterday with RODI, and will do another in 3 days. He is running carbon and a filter pad designed to take the copper out of the water. And, he will get some new crabs next weekend. His flow is very low so we are installing 2 Koralia 4's next weekend.

Is there anything else we could be doing? Short term/long term?

[Hypo]

Prime will serve only to bring the toxicity of ammonia to within harmless levels. Stick with doing water changes with RO/DI water.

[DrBegalke]

Prime may help, acting like a bridge, until you can fix the underlying issue.

[Kannin]

Do you think that the crabs dying might have sent his tank over the edge?

[rkelman]

He did a 25 gallon water change on a 180 gal tank? Thats like a 7.2% water change.. Pretty much a waste of time. He needs to do a large water change to make a difference. If he has no other inverts I'd treat the ich with hypo. Keep up with the water changes and get everything under control before he even thinks of going reef. It sounds to me like overfeeding and lack of a cleanup crew is the root of the problem.

[kathainbowen]

Prime isn't a cure-all for ammonia like you would think. Prime binds ammonia up in a non-toxic state by reacting with it to produce ammonium (NH4+). Ammonium has a relatively weak bond since it is produced when a positively charged hydrogen ion bonds to NH3 making the nitrogen share four covalent bonds instead of its usual three, and creating the positively charged ammonium. The problem with this is that the reaction is reversible, and that positively charged hydrogen ion is pretty easily pulled from the ammonium, bringing you back to having ammonia.

So, what does this mean in everyday lingo?

It means that Prime does work as a temporary solution, by converting ammonia to a non-toxic state. It also means that the bond isn't permanent and is easily broken, sending you right back to having ammonium.

The best way to use Prime is as a dechlorinator for chlorine and chloramine or as a temporary solution to an ammonia problem to deal with emergency situations only. So it's awesome to use in, say, chemical acclimation. It can also be used in tanks that have experienced sudden ammonia spikes to temporarily stem the toxicity of ammonia until a better solution can be found (such as stopping overfeeding, water changing to dilute the ammonia out, locating any rotting material and removing it, lowering the stocking population to lower the amount of waste production, etc.)

[zotzer]

Originally posted by rkelman
[B]He did a 25 gallon water change on a 180 gal tank? Thats like a 7.2% water change.. Pretty much a waste of time.

Actually, it's more like 14%.

Sounds like the OP and his friend are on the right track to getting the tank back in order.

Tracy

[JJ21]

does ridich contain copper? JW

[rkelman]

Oops my math was off. Still 14% isn't even close to being enough.
No copper in Ridich. Its formalin and machelite Very toxic stuff in the wrong doses.

[Kannin]

While I think my friend has done many things wrong... He is trying to change. He did his water changes with tap, he dumped a huge amount of melt water from his thawed food in the tank, he doesn't have skimmer and he was very lax on water changes and cleanings. I do think he is turning the corner. After dosing the Prime and installing the phosban reactor, I have put him on the following program.

He is draining the melt of of his thawed food.
He has cut his feed amounts by 1/4.
He is doing weekly water changes with RODI.
He is installing a new cleaning crew.
He is running the phosphate media.
He is running filter pads to remove heavy metals.

After he has changed out about 200 gallons with RODI... in about 6 weeks... we will look at removing his crushed coral and his dead rock and replacing it with live sand and live rock.

[rkelman]

Sounds like good progress. Great idea take the crushed coral out. What is this about "dead rock" ?

[Kannin]

His rock was alive until he killed it with tap water and Rid Ich. There is no life left in his tank except for fish.

[rkelman]

If he just adds some more live rock it will seed the existing rock eventually. (I doubt its really dead there is likely lots of bacteria growing) He can just replace the crushed coral with aragonite and get a couple cups of sand from a fellow reefer to seed the sand and he'll be set.