Amquel, ammonia testing

[Claus84]

Hi all,

I have just added Amquel to my QT to detoxify a slight ammonia spike. Prior to this I have been testing the water with a Red Sea ammonia kit which I belive is salyciate based and should still work in the presence of Amquel.
My question is if the ammonia is detoxified would it still show up as present on the test kit or seachem alert badge? Or once detoxified does it not register at all, ie if the test is still reading ammonia do I need to add more Amquel?

Thanks

Nick

 

[code4]

It will not show up on the badge. It does take several hours to show the change though. Not sure on the tests. And the badge works best with a light shining from behind. I rely on the badges mostly. And add amquel starting after 24 hours. Though others start at 48 hours. I then add it at the same time each day in QT. If you have a lot of fish in QT a water change could be used along with amquel.

Shelley

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I believe a salicylate test kit (not a Nessler type kit) can be used when using Amquel, and it detects ammonia, not the reaction product formed. That is, it is not detected when bound. That said, the reaction products are not well understood.
I discuss ammonia and testing and binding here:

Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-02/rhf/index.php

 

[Claus84]

It will not show up on the badge. It does take several hours to show the change though. Not sure on the tests. And the badge works best with a light shining from behind. I rely on the badges mostly. And add amquel starting after 24 hours. Though others start at 48 hours. I then add it at the same time each day in QT. If you have a lot of fish in QT a water change could be used along with amquel.

Shelley

Thanks I'm struggling to tell a bit with the badge but will maybe give it a few more hours then see if there is any difference, will also try the illuminting from behind trick, I have another ammonia free QT so I try to compare the 2 but its difficult to judge.

I believe a salicylate test kit (not a Nessler type kit) can be used when using Amquel, and it detects ammonia, not the reaction product formed. That is, it is not detected when bound. That said, the reaction products are not well understood.
I discuss ammonia and testing and binding here:

Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-02/rhf/index.php

Thanks I had read your article (and many of your others!) and found it very useful,just wanted to clarify. Frustratingly I am still getting an ammonia reading on my test kit.

As a bit of background I added 4 fish from my DT to a 22 gallon tank to treat for flukes on friday, at the same time I also added an internal filter which had been running in my sump for 2-3 weeks, in addition I also bought a big lump of seeded foam out of the LFS sump. I fed lightly until admittedly getting a bit overconfident in the filtration ability and overfed slightly on tuesday, yesterday I was getting an ammonia reading, hard to tell but less than 0.2ppm I would say. Since then I have performed two 80% water changes, added polyfilter AND a bottle of ATM Colony and even after dosing Amquel this morning am still getting a slight tinge to the Red Sea test kit, it's fairly frustrating as I'm not sure what else I can do/could have done to prepare this tank for fish in such a short timeframe. I find the test kit colours fairly hard to read accurately as I am colour blind so to counter this I always do two tests, one with QT water and one with DT water so I can compare.

I'm curious as to whether the polyfilter may be removing the Amquel?

Thanks

Nick

 

[code4]

Filtration does not remove amquel in my experience. I always add it to quarantine tanks. Make sure you have good water surface movement for gas exchange. I only say this as this was my biggest mistake in QT. I usually would add amquel before bed and by morning the badge would be reading correctly. So 8 hours possible? And yes, hard to read at times. Put a small flashlight behind it or overhead lighting. Add more only if needed. Then every 24 hours as necessary. I do just to be safe.

Shelley

 

[Claus84]

Hmm I placed a second new badge in half an hour ago and its reading clear, I wonder if the existing badge (1 week old) needs resetting, according to seachem they can be left air dry and reset, might try this. Hoping the tank gets through this blip so I dont need to keep adding Amquel, one thing I have noticed with this dose and previous daily doses in my othher QT is that with each dose the pH drops by approx 0.1, which I guess by itself isn't a huge problem but I'm trying to avoid waterchanges whilst the Colony settles.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm curious as to whether the polyfilter may be removing the Amquel?

I don't think a polyfilter will remove it. The active ingredient in Amquel is negatively charged and I expect a polyfilter is as well, so there's no ionic binding, and I don't see a reason for any specific reaction to take place.

 

[Brew12]

Hmm I placed a second new badge in half an hour ago and its reading clear, I wonder if the existing badge (1 week old) needs resetting, according to seachem they can be left air dry and reset, might try this. Hoping the tank gets through this blip so I dont need to keep adding Amquel, one thing I have noticed with this dose and previous daily doses in my othher QT is that with each dose the pH drops by approx 0.1, which I guess by itself isn't a huge problem but I'm trying to avoid waterchanges whilst the Colony settles.

I keep 2 badges on my QT when in use. I'm lucky in that they have both tracked with each other but some people have reported both false positives and false negatives.

 

[Claus84]

Thanks all, I'll keep the polyfilter in and stick with the 2 badge approach. Once I left it to dry the badge did turn yellow again and stayed that way when I placed it back in the tank

 

[Brew12]

Thanks all, I'll keep the polyfilter in and stick with the 2 badge approach. Once I left it to dry the badge did turn yellow again and stayed that way when I placed it back in the tank

Just remember to never use an ammonia detoxifier in a tank with copper in it. The reaction between the two makes the copper much more toxic.

 

[Claus84]

Thanks, I'm not running copper, and did wc and polyfilter to remove wormer meds just in case it was incompatible, looks like it's processed the ammonia now so hopefully I can start to medicate again tomorrow