# Cant Get Ammonia Down



## soitsbig (Jul 30, 2005)

I have a 75gal tank with one AC110 and a Rena XP3. It has been set up for at least 8 weeks now, went threw cycle but ammonia levels alway read 2.0ppm. Right now i have between 1 to 2 ppm ammonia 0-nitrites and about 10ppm nitrates and ph is 7.2. My tap water has 1ppm ammonia so i use prime in my w/c's. Even though I add prime to tank it still dont come down. I also have one of those seachem ammonia alert thinks that you hang in tank but it is on safe so I dont know what to think. I am testing my water with the API master test kit.I have been doing a 10 to 20 percent w/c every coup days with a good gravel vac, I also have a very thin layer of gravel so there is definitly nothing rotting in tank. I also recently rinsed the mech elements in both filters and never messed with biological media..OH sorry I have 4 2" RBP,s..should I heavly dose the tank with prime to bring down ammonia or not..Thank you for any help..

I forgot something this may help..I only have 3 plastic plants and nothing else in tank..The gravel is aquarium small pebbles..


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Id start by testing the tap water and possibly some distilled water to make sure the tests are accurate and not old


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## soitsbig (Jul 30, 2005)

CLUSTER ONE said:


> Id start by testing the tap water and possibly some distilled water to make sure the tests are accurate and not old


my tap water tests 1ppm ammonia and I tested bottled drinking water and it tested 0ppm

do you think it would hurt anything if I dose the heck out of my tanks water with prime to bring ammonia to zero? Last time I added one cap per 50 gal as per label it didnt change anything.In fact it takes about a cap full just to lower a 5gal bucket of tap water to zero ammonia.


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

Prime doesn't remove ammonia from the water. Instead it binds with the ammonia in a magical chemical way. That magic new nearly harmless chemical will still be picked up on your API test kit.

I think the magic nearly harmless chemical is just ammonium NH4+. Not possitive.

You need a test kit that isn't nessler based to read the level of free harmful ammonia.

My vote is quit dumping crap in your tank and let it burn up all the ammonia and ammonium. Or, whip out your google fu/bingkwondo to find a test kit that isn't nessler based to figure out for sure what your toxic ammonia level is.

I didn't mean to sound like a wise ass. It just happenes when a guy is forced to use terms like magic chemical because hes not sure of the real name.


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

One more thing, This is one of the few circumstances where you absolutely do not want to add salt to a tank with high ammo. Salt will cause most products like prime to release the ammonia back into the water in it's harmful form rather quickly.


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## soitsbig (Jul 30, 2005)

oh boy thank you for advice but I just added salt because my P's started flashing like way to ofen..


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## soitsbig (Jul 30, 2005)

i tought this ammoina test in the api master kit was sylaline not nessler based


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## Soul Assassin (Nov 21, 2006)

try to get ammo free tap water from somewhere, you can do 20 gallons w/c a week and be good to go


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

On the front of my ammonia test bottle (From their master kit) is says it tests for NH3/NH4+. So either way it won't work with prime. I don't have the info sheet that came with my kit anymore though to check the reagents type.

Here's what mine looks like.









I whipped out some of my yahoo jitsu and I can't find a straight answer on what type it is. Not even from API's website.

I found this quote from seachem's website. Here It looks like not just nessler is effected by prime though.



> Q:I tested my tap water after using Prime and came up with an ammonia reading. Is this because of chloramine? Could you explain how this works in removing chloramine?
> 
> A: Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramine minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime will not halt your cycling process.
> I am going to assume that you were using a liquid based reagent test kit (Nessler based, silica). Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. You can avoid this by using our Multitest Ammonia kit (not affected by reducing agents) or you can wait to test, Prime dissipates from your system within 24 hours.


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## FEEFA (Nov 19, 2007)

What media are you using in your filters, just pads biomedia aswell?


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## soitsbig (Jul 30, 2005)

I have pads and biomax only in both filters.Becides the factory pads all additional areas are loaded with biomax.


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