Swollen Gills

[100fuegos]

There is no free ammonia in chlorinated water (to a point obviuosly) it will be combined with chlorine and create chloramines. If I were you I will take a sample water from your tank just after a water change and test for ammonia. If present you may need to increase your water conditioner. You may also check your local water company website or contact them for a water report, it should indicate the cpncentration of chloramines in tap water that way you can dose your conditioner accurately.

[Demosthenes]

There is no free ammonia in chlorinated water (to a point obviuosly) it will be combined with chlorine and create chloramines. If I were you I will take a sample water from your tank just after a water change and test for ammonia. If present you may need to increase your water conditioner. You may also check your local water company website or contact them for a water report, it should indicate the cpncentration of chloramines in tap water that way you can dose your conditioner accurately.

Ammonia in my drinking water is pretty alarming to me, so I'm glad that might not necessarily be the case. I don't have an accurate ammonia test, so I just ordered one. I'm going to double dose prime just to be safe until I get the test kit. I googled local water reports and this is what I've found: https://www.aquaamerica.com/WaterQua.../PA1460073.pdf . It lists chloramines at 2.0ppm. So how much should I be dosing? I'm having a really hard time finding info about about Prime or API Tap Water Conditioner beyond the standard dose listed on the bottle.

[Demosthenes]

Here's another water report for my same zip code, not sure which one applies: https://www.aquaamerica.com/WaterQua.../PA1090001.pdf . This one shows average Chloramine at 2.5, with a range of 0.7-3.2. I'm also reading that water companies tend to dump in extra chloramine when it's hot out (like...now) to combat bacterial blooms in the warmer water. So it's probably closer to the peak of 3.2ppm right now. Again... I'm not finding any posted info about how to dose for specific concentrations. Help?

[100fuegos]

All they say in their "directions for use" it to double the standard dose for exceptional high levels of chloramines. In some other thread in their support forums they mention a standard dose of chloramines of 1.2 ppm... sooo it would be pretty safe to assume you may almost triple the standard dose if indeed your chloramines concentration is of 3.2 ppm.

see here and here.

[Demosthenes]

All they say in their "directions for use" it to double the standard dose for exceptional high levels of chloramines. In some other thread in their support forums they mention a standard dose of chloramines of 1.2 ppm... sooo it would be pretty safe to assume you may almost triple the standard dose if indeed your chloramines concentration is of 3.2 ppm.

see here and here.

Thank you!! All I was finding was that statement about doubling the dose for "high" concentrations, but without actual numbers it's a total crap shoot. Thanks so much for your help, this is all totally new information to me.

[JamesW]

Have you considered using a BB additive? With all the cleaning and large WC with water you now know contains chloramines the 10+ years of BB could be drastically damaged.

I've used both Tetra SafeStart Plus and API Quick Start when doing an ammonia dosing startup in a completely unseeded/virgin tank and get to 0ppm NH3 and 0ppm NO2 after 7 days instead of a month. So they at least do something beneficial. Maybe they don't contain exactly what your bacteria population ends up looking like but they certainly could help with this tough period.

FYI API offers 'pond concentration' of both melafix and quick start which is far more economical than the aquarium version and is the same thing just more concentrated according to the SDS.

[Demosthenes]

Have you considered using a BB additive? With all the cleaning and large WC with water you now know contains chloramines the 10+ years of BB could be drastically damaged.

I've used both Tetra SafeStart Plus and API Quick Start when doing an ammonia dosing startup in a completely unseeded/virgin tank and get to 0ppm NH3 and 0ppm NO2 after 7 days instead of a month. So they at least do something beneficial. Maybe they don't contain exactly what your bacteria population ends up looking like but they certainly could help with this tough period.

FYI API offers 'pond concentration' of both melafix and quick start which is far more economical than the aquarium version and is the same thing just more concentrated according to the SDS.

Great point James! Both of the sponge filters that are currently in the tank have been "seeded" during this chloramine situation, so they probably aren't very seeded at all. I just used SafeStart to cycle my 110 a few months ago and it works great. I'll grab another bottle tomorrow. Luckily there really shouldn't be much of anything toxic in the tank while I'm double or triple dosing Prime.

I do have the pond version of melafix, it's so much cheaper by volume.

[ssevasta]

Great point James! Both of the sponge filters that are currently in the tank have been "seeded" during this chloramine situation, so they probably aren't very seeded at all. I just used SafeStart to cycle my 110 a few months ago and it works great. I'll grab another bottle tomorrow. Luckily there really shouldn't be much of anything toxic in the tank while I'm double or triple dosing Prime.

I do have the pond version of melafix, it's so much cheaper by volume.

You should order yourself a kilo of Seachem Safe from Jehmco.com Its the powdered form of Prime and it's a lot more economical especially when your dosing for higher levels of chloramines.

[Ryan925]

You should order yourself a kilo of Seachem Safe from Jehmco.com Its the powdered form of Prime and it's a lot more economical especially when your dosing for higher levels of chloramines.

I agree that it would most likely be more economical for you to use safe rather than prime. I am a prime used but having to triple the dose will turn out to be costly. I think a kilo of safe on Amazon is like $35.

Safe is very concentrated so it takes very little to neutralize the levels you have. I don't use safe but if I understand it correctly you need to know your chloramone level and dose accordingly.

[jmf3460]

OP I have a bottle of Seachem Safe id gladly send you. I bought it about a year ago and have never used it, I prefer the liquid forms over the powder so it just sits on my fish product graveyard shelf untouched. Its a large jar, but its about a year old, does this product expire?

[Demosthenes]

OP I have a bottle of Seachem Safe id gladly send you. I bought it about a year ago and have never used it, I prefer the liquid forms over the powder so it just sits on my fish product graveyard shelf untouched. Its a large jar, but its about a year old, does this product expire?

Jacklyn, that is so kind! I just looked it up and Safe does not expire. I'll pm you.

I have a liquid API test kit on its way from Amazon, so I should be able to test the tap for Ammonia to get an accurate reading of Chloramines for my dosage. I think I went a little overboard last night. The fish were NOT happy after a water change with a triple dose of prime, so I pulled out about 5 gallons and added some fresh water to the tank for the prime to react with. They looked better this morning. Hopefully their gills start improving...

[Demosthenes]

I got my test kit, and it was not the clear-cut answers that I was hoping for.

Ammonia is testing at only about 0.5ppm, which I'm taking as my Chloramine reading. That small amount of chloramine would have been handled by what I was dosing all along, so unless it spiked for the last month and a half and just dropped back to .5 yesterday, Chloramine is NOT the culprit.

I also learned that my pH test strips were total garbage. I was getting readings around 6.7 aged and 7 tap. With my new liquid test kit I'm showing much higher pH. I tested a little bit of everything, and here's what I have so far:
Straight from the tap: The regular pH test is all the way at the top with 7.6, the high range pH test is all the way at the bottom with 7.4.... what's up with that?
12 hrs in the discus tank: reading about 7.4 according to regular test
A separate non-discus tank with no water changes in 2 weeks: about 7.2
Will update with a 24hr pH test on the discus tank tonight.

So my pH only seems to be fluctuating by a maximum of .2 - .4 depending on which test you believe. That should not be a problem, right? I did set up a an empty 20gal tank to age some water just in case, but that only gets me a 50% wc, and it's in a very inconvenient spot on my kitchen counter.

Now I'm back to thinking it may be time for antibiotics...

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Kelsey, all test strips are garbage IMHO. Are the fish rubbing themselves on anything? I would suggest PMing Al and pointing him to this thread and see what he thinks before trying any new meds. If the gills are burnt no med will help except time and fresh water.
Pat

[JamesW]

The 0.2 discrepancy is not unusual for a chemical test read out. It is probably 7.5. Put an airstone in your aging water to see if that changes the ph at all. I think that the ammonia test might be based off a phosphomolydate reaction (just a guess) and I don't think it would detect chloramines. You could add a couple grains of powdered vitamin c into your test tube shake it then try the ammonia test again. Vitamin c should reduce the chloramine to chloride and ammonia allowing the ammonia to be detected

[jmf3460]

this thread is getting deep. I'm very intrigued by all the chemistry going on here.