How come you didn't do a water change when the nitrites were .25? That would have solved it right there. I understand you have some ammonia from the tap but I think if doing small water changes it would not affect your current set up. I'm pretty certain my tap has some nitrates or something but it's never affected my tanks. The prime should neutralize the ammonia and make it none toxic.
Anyway I wouldn't blame the Prime in this case. The instructions most likely did not consider shrimp which are much more sensitive than fish. Prime is a good product, I've always used it with my inverts without a problem though I'm never tried dosing 5x the amount.
Well, if the tap water had .5ppm ammonia and 0ppm nitrite, a 50% change would be required to bring nitrite down from .25ppm to .125ppm, but it would bring ammonia up by .25ppm.
My understanding is that shrimp are unstable at virtually any non-zero level of NO2, so that 50% change might have helped, but not solved the problem. Smaller changes would have helped less. Oh, but since the tank is going through a little cycle, more nitrite would have formed as I added more ammonia, even ammonia neutralized by Prime. So I thought I'd use Prime as suggested on its label to detoxify nitrite and spare the shrimp yet another water change - it's been suggested to me by many experienced shrimp keepers that shrimp do better with fewer water changes.
Nitrates are not nearly the problem nitrites are, so it's not surprising your tap water doesn't affect your tanks.
Prime purports to neutralize nitrite and make it non-toxic as well as ammonia, and suggests 5x dosing in order to do so.
I don't really blame Prime. As you point out, the INSTRUCTIONS do not consider shrimp. Seachem, a major, mainstream company in the aquarium hobby industry (which hobby includes shrimp as well as fish commonly) is responsible for the instructions printed on their effective and powerfully concentrated product, Prime; instructions which don't take into account a growingly important section of the freshwater aquarium hobby - freshwater shrimp. Instructions which make no mention of any possible issues with any delicate and sensitive creatures. Nope, I don't blame Prime. Prime is a very convenient water conditioner, especially for someone like me who is on a tight budget and has tap water with plenty of ammonia in it. Prime is great at that job.
I blame Seachem, who sell Prime as a conditioner and then, as almost an afterthought, suggest its use as a nitrite detoxifier on the label. On their own site, they say they don't know how it possibly accomplishes this but they've accumulated enough anecdotal evidence to, well, here is what they say: "A: The detoxification of nitrite and nitrate by Prime (when used at elevated levels) is not well understood from a mechanistic standpoint. The most likely explanation is that the nitrite and nitrate is removed in a manner similar to the way ammonia is removed; i.e. it is bound and held in a inert state until such time that bacteria in the biological filter are able to take a hold of it, break it apart and use it. Two other possible scenarios are reduction to nitrogen (N2) gas or conversion into a benign organic nitrogen compound.
I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that when they overdosed with Prime they were able to reduce or eliminate the high death rates they experienced when their nitrite and nitrate levels were high. We have received enough reports to date to ensure that this is no fluke and is in fact a verifiable function of the product."
You can find that quote on this page:
http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime.html
On the label of my Prime, there is no mention of their complete ignorance of how their product detoxifies nitrites or lack of scientific evidence that it really even does so.
I'll still use Prime for its PRIME-ary purpose, to condition my water out of the tap. I will NEVER use it for anything which calls for more than 1xdose. I really like just having to use two drops per gallon of water.
I think Seachem owes me an apology, plus they should update their labeling to mention the issue of sensitive creatures like shrimp and they should stop claiming their product can do something which they only know about by 3rd party anecdotal evidence. They should study their flagship product a little closer and discover exactly what it does with nitrites and nitrates AND they should establish how much Prime it is safe to use per gallon when crustaceans are involved. As well as an apology, I think I deserve a coupon for a nice bottle of Prime or maybe jar of Neutral Regulator (another excellent but occasionally deadly-to-shrimp-and-plants product of Seachem's). My shrimp were worth that much to me at least.
As a matter of fact, I am going to write to Seachem and ask for a coupon. I actually like their products. After a brief disenchantment, I've returned to using Neutral Regulator, Discus Buffer, and Equilibrium because they allow me to pick and choose my PH and gH. I really do like their products. I like Prime. I just think Seachem is careless with their claims and their labelling. The products are
good and they'd be even better if their claims were restricted to known facts rather than anecdotes and if their instructions took into account such common things as shrimp, perhaps mentioning the product should not be used above certain concentrations with shrimp or other delicate critters. Like with Neutral Regulator/Discus Buffer, you can use them with plants and shrimp; use a little too much and your cabomba and watersprite will grow stunted and die while your shrimp cloud up one by one and move on too that great "Red Lobster" in the sky. Now that I'm over my snit, I'm using them with shrimp and plants again. I just know to be careful. It would just be nice if Seachem would acknowledge their phosphate buffers potential to hurt plants and shrimp at relatively low levels of overdose.
mg: Hooray! Another excuse to screw around with equipment and maybe even buy some more!!!! Oh, except I'm really poor. :cry:
I figure keep it under 4wpg... I run 2.6 on my 29g and 2.7 on my 20g. I tend to opt for cheap shoplight + cfl setups which aren't as efficient as a good PC or T5HO setup. In any case, algae becomes serious problem without CO2 at that level...
