Yes you can use fish food. Botia are from rivers with a good bit of current & higher oxygen levels, that's why I thought it may be part of the problem. How much longer until he gets to move to your bigger tank?
Cerianthus, you can also use dechlorinated water to cycle, it's called fish in cycling. (Trust me. Ive done so many many set ups, rows and rows of tanks, individually filtered/centralized, etc, etc.
Ive even done with chlorinated water with and without fish.
Did you know when tank is filled and left opened/alone, it can cycle (become bio active) by itself w/o any inducements although time involved and/or its capacity of nitrifiers may differ/limited per tank?)
I've done it your way too, I think a little "used water" is nice but there are much better sources of beneficial bacteria.
All I am saying is water from old tank is enough to properly cycle new tank if one know how to apply simple logic. Perhaps option for someone.
If worried, Take bit of detritus/water (dirty black/brownish water) residues from vacuumed water of well established tank and gently pour behind the filter media on HOB, leave unplugged for couple of days, for an example...
as for the Prime, my husband is a chemist & said once that the "complexed hydrosulphite salts" is a kind of a BS chemistry term (Got that right:grinyes:)to protect their product (my words), basically it takes NH3 (ammonia) & sticks on another hydrogen making NH4+ (ammonium), again my words. There are other similar products. We used to use sodium thiosulphate with chlorinated tap but that only breaks the chloramine bond. You're right, at 7 or less pH, ammonia formed is not harmful but many have higher pH & I like the peace of mind & lack of frequent testing using Prime
Good enough as you should do what makes you feel better but I just wanted emphasize that one may not have to depend on such all the time. I dont even have NH3/No2/NO3 test kits anymore as I can usually detect problems, if any, by observing fish/smelling odors from water, sometimes both + actions applied to tank just prior to any fish's behavioral changes .
I did get a Seachem Ammonia Alert when I had ammonia showing in my discus tank using API test just to be sure it was really ammonium.
I just want to bring this to someone's attention as its use may be too exploited in this forum. There are time and place for products and its uses shouldnt be abused unnecessarily. That is all!
Seriously, I somehow get the feeling that someone may be promoting this product, not that anyone actually is trying . I just get the feeling from reading so many postings but one should realize that there are other more natural ways to control/maintain one's tank if one wants to.
Again, never fix your thoughts/ideas on one perspective foreever when dealing with livestocks, especially on our hobby level. Stay flexible as no one knows all regardless of their "titles".
