Need to lower ammonia.

[Hadoken Kitty]

Debated between habitat section and emergency section. Figured this one was the best.

I have heard that Prime is a good way to lower ammonia. Is this true? My tap water runs at 1.0 ppm on it's own. With conditioner, it is magically lowered to 0.5ppm, but it still concerns me. I need to lower it ASAP. I plan on going out and buying prime between my classes tomorrow. At the moment I have Ammo-carb in a filtration bag running through my filter.

Could this cause my fish to quit moving randomly? He acts fine otherwise. He eats, swims normally, flares at everything, etc. Sometimes he'll just stop everything and bob/flow with the filter sway; even tilt sideways. He does it in the weirdest of places, too! While swimming, on a plant, against the glass, on the filter intake, and even in the middle of flaring.

His temp is 80*F and everything else is in check (PH, nitrite, and nitrate wise), except that the ammonia won't lower from 0.5ppm. 5.5G divided tank.

I'm really trying my best, but I can't really do much when my tap water is running ammonia higher than my tank. If the Prime won't work, then I'll just buy water from the local water store. T.T

Sorry for the glass reflection, but this is what he looks like doing it. He always moves when he sees my camera's red focus dot....I grabbed my camera when I was testing the water parameters so I could get him doing it before he moved. That was twenty attempts later at catching it on camera (more or less, but it's been a high number of tries). Everything else seems to be fine, though! He eats like a champ and flares like a macho man.

Best case scenario: Is he just trying to take a nap...? He's a lot bigger than my pet store bettas, so it looks a LOT scarier to see this one doing it!!!

[callistra]

Most conditioners don't remove ammonia. Even with PRime you may still register the higher ammonia because it's converted to ammonium and a lot of test will register it just like ammonia, even though it's less toxic.

The thing with Prime is you will have to redose every 48 hours. Live stem plants like Elodea will help with the absorption of ammonia, as will actually cycling out your tank.

His position is concerning..

[Hadoken Kitty]

Yea, he just laid there for a minute. I wouldn't mind re-dosing if it means that my fish isn't going to die on me.

The tank is a NPT, but I keep forgetting the names of the plants in there.

He isn't always in that weird position. Normally he just floats there. I finally got one of him just floating there. He staring at a corner (how creepy!).

I drip acclimated him to this tank water and everything. I spent three hours drip acclimating him. Then I cup acclimated him, too!

Did I rush his acclimation (again)?

I know he's new to this tank, but my other bettas don't/didn't act like this, which is why it's worrying me.

[callistra]

Sounds like you acclimated fine. Maybe he's just more sensitive or maybe he was already sick when you brought him home.

[registereduser]

I think the signs that he is suffering from ammonia would be severely clamped and breathing heavily.

I love his fluffy fins :)

[Hadoken Kitty]

Thanks! I love his rosetailing as well. (:

He isn't clamping. He's flared quite a bit actually. No breathing heavily here.

He was having trouble breathing when I opened his bag (from the mail), but he hasn't since about an hour after I put him in his QT. He'd quit breathing off and on that day and night, but Saturday was much better. So he's been getting progressively better since I received him.

[Azurelove]

Hopefully all it is is shock that he's recovering from. I can't imagine being sent through the mail does any good for anyone xD But that's expected when you order them.

It's concerning, especially your tap water's high ammonia content. As Callistra said, cycling is best if it isn't cycled already. The bacteria will remove the ammonia on their own.

I wouldn't go buy water from the store; most filtered/distilled water has nutrients and minerals stripped from it that are vital to your betta's health. Some bottled types are probably ok to use, but I don't know any off the top of my head, maybe someone else has that answer.

[Hadoken Kitty]

Lol, yea. Or maybe he's just a weird fish.

I used to have a goldfish (when I was younger) that would sleep upside down. It scared me all the time.

Still, the ammonia worries me too. It sounds like Prime is going to be my option for right now...I hope it isn't very expensive. :/

[Azurelove]

Originally Posted by Hadoken Kitty

It sounds like Prime is going to be my option for right now...I hope it isn't very expensive. :/

It's a bit expensive, I won't lie, but it's worth it for how many uses you get out of each bottle.

The smallest bottle will be best for your divided tank as it has a little dropper. 2 drops per gallon will be the proper dosage. It sucks that only that one has a dropper since it's the worst value for dollar/amount ratio (as usual :\). I like buying in bulk, so I got a big bottle of it to save money and didn't know it didn't have a dropper. Now I'm having to measure it out.

When treating the new water to put in his tank, wait about 10 minutes after treating to add it to make sure the Prime worked.

If you're planning on cycling, you can either wait a few weeks for it to happen on its own (if you use a good dropper test kit you can watch it happen. The ammonia will spike, followed by nitrite, then the nitrate will slowly begin to rise, meaning cycling is complete), or you can speed up the process by buying a small bottle of Tetra SafeStart bacteria (I think the smallest bottle is $7 and works for tanks up to 15g).

You'll need to keep up water changes to keep the ammonia down while this is happening. You can treat the new water with Prime, but ammonia will still build up in the tank while it's cycling.