Can these be safely used together?

[LiveMermaid07]

Hi,
I was wondering, do you know of any reason(s) that Nitraban, Stress Zyme, and Korden's Tidy Tank can't be used together?

If not, do you think they should be added any particular time apart from each other?

(Like wait 5minutes in between dosing one and the next one or anything? I know the calcium bottle said to wait 30 minutes before adding liquid carbon, and the stress zyme, I think said to wait so long if after adding a dechlorinator before adding, so just wondering.)

Thanks!

 

[SubRosa]

Other than the waste of money involved there's no reason they can't be used together. If you took all of the money that you spend on those products and spent it on a good chlorine neutralizer, and following the mfg's directions used an equal dollar amount of the neutralizer in performing water changes your tank would be far better off.

 

[petluvr]

Why do you want to use all that stuff in your tank?

 

[fish-n-chips]

I have to wonder the same thing. A bottle of prime and good tank maintenance are all that is needed.

 

[Jspigs]

I have to wonder the same thing. A bottle of prime and good tank maintenance are all that is needed.

I agree. Stress Zyme is also believed by many to contain the wrong type of bacteria as well as being unnecessary in most cases. All you need is prime and good tank maintenance.

 

[LiveMermaid07]

One of my tanks has been having huge ammonia spikes lately. (Don't chlorine neutralizers do something completely different than these?? And I do use a water conditioner, and prime killed off my shrimp and some of my fish so I'm backing off of it.)
I've been vacuuming and bailing water like a mad women but it keeps jumping UP no matter what I do.
I guess it kinda started last spring, I was overstocked a wee bit and occasionally missed a water change. Since then even though I've reduced the number of fish (quite a while ago and also more recently) and increased maintenance, but the ammonia has been getting harder and harder to get rid of. Within the last months I was using an Aquaclear insert in each of the filters and one of the filters started smelling AWFUL! The whole house stank! I sniffed around and it was coming from one of the inserts, so I took it out and few hours later the smell was gone. Within maybe a month after that it happened again, only taking the insert out didn't help, the filter itself STANK! and then the smell quickly took over the whole tank and even the house and now the landlady is threatening to kill all fish, make me empty the tanks, and then kick me out! So I'm kinda desperate. The Nitraban before I'd moved the 10g up to a 29 I'd noticed that it did good (so to speak, lol) so I like that. The Stress Zyme, I don't think I've ever actually noticed a noticeable difference, but was hoping it was or would help. The Tidy Tank I recently found, and it claims to help clean the substrate, when I vacuum (it's not 'sludge' slime, but there's black 'dirt-ish' bits) that stuff reeks, so I thought maybe it would help.

I really don't know, I'm desperate at this point. And to make matters more fun, since the bathroom is next to (and all the water pipes) the landlady's bedroom there are only certain hours that I can use the water to do water changes, and that makes doing extra water changes very difficult.

I was wondering if maybe the Stress Zyme and Tidy were canceling each other out or something?? I know not...

Um let's see, the exact bits of the tank as of right now (to the best of my knowledge..):
29g, set up with pre-cycled material October 2009 - skipped cycling (because I used all the substrate, decor, sponges from the previous tank, I guess, so got to skip another cycle)
Has 2 (not new) AquaTech 20-40 filters with baffles and sponges on the intakes
Has had a small sponge filter (4-6 weeks?) in the 'time-out' box - made from plastic canvas (so all the water still circulates) (The time out box is for naughty or injured fish)
A medium sponge filter was added about 2 weeks ago.
Substrate is about 2/3 sand and 1/3 gravel (Started out all gravel, then last May took out all but about an inch and added 2 inches of sand, stirred, was too much gravel so occasionally I use a slotted spoon to scoop some out and add more sand - have not done so within the last 3 months, but have stirred the substrate some.)
I added mts last Oct?, but most either died, or were possibly eaten (I have seen a particular betta girl that likes to rip them apart, don't know about the khulis.)
In January I added homemade co2. I didn't get to check the ph until after it had been on for 1-3 days (don't remember..), but the test doesn't read lower than 6 (which is what this tank read at) so I don't know what the actual pH is.
I had some java ferns, one Anubis, one (sad) sag, a little java moss, 3 amazon swords (kinda small- mediumish),a dwarf lily (is now split into 2), one small crypt of some kind, and maybe some hairgrass, some plastic plants, and last month or January I added about 6 more amazon swords - I figured that plants are suppose to eat the decomposed stuff in the substrate right? And those are 'suppose' to grow fast (I started using more plant food to help them out too.)
There is - as of today- One blue gourami, 4 betta girls, 4 (as far as I know lol) black khulis, 4 otos, 6? neon tetras, possibly some mts (some are still moving lol) and maybe a few black worms - if they avoided the fish.

I have tried a number of different ammonia reducing products along with water changes and it just keeps getting worse.

The only test kits I have right now are the ammonia and pH. PH is 6 or less, as mentioned above. The ammonia, well, is bad.
I just took sample earlier and then added some Jungle ammonia clear tablets (I dropped an air stone in there on high just in case - the box says to keep aeration high for the first hour afterwards.) I'm going to check it again a little later.

What could be causing the smell and how do I get rid of it??? Ideas?

I just bought an Aquaclear 50 (and some of the ammonia absorber packs) to replace one of the Aqua-Tech's. I plan on implementing the sponge somehow so I won't lose any good bacteria while new filter cycles.

Will adding either the stress zyme or (and???) the tidy tank help a new filter cycle faster???

Help appreciated.
And if I let something out that could help figure it out let me know, I tried just typing all I could think of that could or might be relevant (embarrassing as it is but I care about my fish, so shame on me, yes I know I should have been able to avoid this somehow; now how to fix it? )

 

[LiveMermaid07]

oh and I've gone down to only feeding once every other day
and there were 2 anubis's, I forgot that I split the first one last year (for an experiment on growing them differently.) and I just added another yesterday.

 

[Jannika]

"What could be causing the smell and how do I get rid of it??? Ideas?"

Dead fishor snails would be my guess, which would also explain the elevated ammonia. All the different chemicals may be making matters worse, or at best only a band-aid solution. Since even your landlady can smell the tank, it must be atrocious. Have you thought about moving?

What I would do is temporarily move the livestock to another tank or rubbermaid container and perform a thorough tank and substrate cleaning.

 

[fish-n-chips]

With your PH so low it is possible that your bacteria has done into dormancy. Also with the PH being so low, I think that your ammonia is in a different form(ammonium). I use Prime and only Prime and have never had an issue with it effecting snails, shrimp or fish. I currently have 2 tanks with newly free swimming fry in them and my 10 has 3 fry that are only 5/16". These are from F1 P. taeniatus "Moliwe" so they haven't been tank bred for generations.
Adding anything to absorb your ammonia or nitrites would only be doing more harm since your BB( if they are still active) are being deprived of it's food source. Keep up with the water changes. Have you tested your source water for ammonia and what is the PH of it?

 

[prober]

Take the sponges off of your filter intakes and rinse them if you haven't. In fact, unless there are fry in the tank I would leave them off for now, they block alot of flow unless cleaned weekly, and low flow could be a big part of your problem.

I also agree that low PH could be your main problem. Have you tested your PH at the tap? Put some tapwater in a bowl for a few hours and then test it to get a true reading on the PH. If it is higher than the tank then you need to take some water to your LFS and ask them to test it for KH and GH. These are hardness tests and if there is not enough hardness the PH can fluctuate. I would look into getting some Seachem Neutral regulater and it will help raise the PH to a level that the bacteria can function well at without causing a rollercoaster the way PH up does.