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Shaun4BigBlocks

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Everything posted by Shaun4BigBlocks

  1. Tetra used to sell something years ago, I think it may have actually been called “Heavy Metal Neutralizer,” but I cannot remember. I remember a yellow bottle. I used it in my early days and then kind of faded it out of my routine, probably because of money back then. Personally, I do not believe it can neutralize heavy metals, but possibly it can coat them similar to what prime does with ammonia… unless if you actually want to believe that Prime neutralizes ammonia… which I guess if the word “temporary” was thrown in there may be a more correct statement. Copper is one of the bigger concerns. TMI for you- the EPA not to recently banned copper from brake pads and shoes as the dust particulates eventually make their way into aquatic water ways. They now use stainless steel. Ever noticed that the newer brake pads/shoes started saying “Now with a stronger stopping formula?” What they didn’t tell you was that the SS is not as soft as copper and that is does not loose heat as quick as copper and that your rotors and shoes will warp and wear much faster with the newer bindings. So, yeah, there are people out there who believe that certain metals are not fish friendly and even though it has been years since I had a planted tank I remember many, many, many years ago having to be mindful of what metals one would use to anchor plants. My theory is that decent quality municipal water should have the PPM low enough not to worry...
  2. To "Viol" or pick another name... sorry for the late reply- my notification got buried in my email and I stay pretty busy... My response is probably too late to help you, but it may help others… Yes, the Imagitarium Water Conditioner ended up doing the trick for me. It took about 2 days to see results, which could either have been because it just took that long OR because 48 hours is ironically about how long it takes Prime's sulfates to dissolve. You choose… As you probably know, the general rule of thumb is to always have a bottle or two of Ick-X on hand. I did, but at the time couldn’t find it. I usually go with slowly raising the water temperature to 86° to use heat to kill the ick, but I normally do that in a hospital tank: my hospital tank got converted into a home for the Dekay’s Brownsnake my son found (that I failed to replace) and raising the temps in the 55g was not an option as I had some temperature sensitive fish in the tank. I eventually found where my old unopened ICK-X bottle (from Corey) was hiding but unfortunately many days after the fact. So, my ick had got pretty out of control. By the time I had received the Ick-X from Corey, the ick had already spread pretty rampantly. In “MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE” the Ick-X coupled with Prime had absolutely no effect on the ick, and after numerous days of that I decided to give the Imagitarium a try and it worked wonders. Like I said, nothing for about the first two days of Imagitarium treatment and then once there was a noticeable improvement it like bam the ick was almost all gone in just a couple more days. I did have my water at about 80° to accelerate the Ick’s life cycle process. I lost all of my newly purchased ick infested guppies, but none of my original fish. So my recommendation for anyone reading this is to make sure you have a bottle of Ick-X on hand while also knowing where you put it 😉 and have a bottle of Imagitarium on hand if you know that your local supply shop does not stock it (or any other thiosulfate based conditioner) such as “Fritz Guard” or “Fritz Concentrated Chlorine Remover”) so that you do not possibly find yourself in my situation. Granted, I have not personally tried Fritz, but since it is thiosulfate based like the Imagitarium I would bet money that you would have similar results if not better since there is a good possibility that Fritz uses a better concentration of active ingredients. I just want to reiterate that I am not endorsing Imagitarium or Fritz nor do I have any financial gain to be had by said products- I am just trying to provide my sincere results for anyone else who finds themselves in my “icky” situation. There are general Ick rules of thumb, but it reality it all comes down to the specific strand of Ick that you have. For example, I have had success with heat for over 30 years, and even after others started saying that new strands of Ick are resilient to heat it still worked fine for me. That does not mean that I am wrong and that does not mean that they are wrong… it really just depends on your situation. Go with what appears to be the best overall treatment option based on the popular group’s consensus and if after four days you see know signs of improvement start entertaining other options. As soon as I knew the Ick cleared up and stayed clear for a few days I immediately went back to Seachem Prime as almost any other water conditioner would require me to mortgage Boardwalk and sell Park Place in effort to keep treating all of my tanks. Viol, again I am sorry I never followed up to my own problem. I feared repercussions because my personal results did not align with the status quo. As you have probably witnessed for the last few years civilization has been increasingly entertaining “cancel culture” where many times opposing ideology can get you band. We are starting to live in a world where we are not allowed to disagree. I am a member of over 50 forums, and prior to the forum infrastructure taking over (Yahoo Groups, AOL Groups, Compuserve Groups, Prodigy Groups, BBS’s and so on.) It used to be like the wild-wild west- people had democracy style freedom of speech vs republic style freedom of speech. Do not get me wrong, I think many aspects of forum administration are for the better, but I question the aspects that are more agenda structured for profit. Back in the day, groups and BBS’s were purely hobbyists. Nowadays forums are created by special interest and often their owners and administrators are “vendors” more worried about how written content affects profit vs. genuine real world results. To add injury to insult many of these forums are getting conglomerated by large organizations paying marketing professionals to steer conversations towards the most profitable sales as often as possible. When administrators with vendor based interests on another forum found that I was showing how to adapt 1.25 ton drum brakes with a proper working parking brake from junk yard parts I got banned, probably because they wanted to keep selling ½ ton disk brake conversions for 800 bucks that lacked a quality parking brake. When I posted to Dell’s forum how to make I3 processor based Inspiron’s accept I7 based processors I was warned and told that what I said was not officially supported by Dell. When I re-posted with a disclosure that what I was explaining did not align with Dell’s official supported recommendations and to “Do at Your Own Risk,” I was banned- regardless of all the pictures and temperature values (citing.) I just wanted to help people upgrade their computers to keep them relevant longer, I think Dell may prefer to sell new computers, especially since all those moderators thought nothing of telling members “You cannot do it, you have to buy a new computer” while recommending units sold by their company. So my advice for you, you a person who was told you could not use your legal first name in effort to please overly sensitive people while simultaneously not pleasing yourself, is to be very vigilant on forums, know who the “click” is and who, if anyone, benefits financially from any of the advice given… Corey is generally good people, but he is also a salesman who has to put food on the table…
  3. "Seachem Safe is a powder form of the water conditioner prime." Actually no, it is not- though it is very similar. Seachem Prime has additional additives to detoxify heavy metals and promote a healthier slime coat. In my opinion, promoting a healthy slime coat is less of a concern because your fish should be more than capable of doing that on their own seeing as though you monitor levels and keep your bio in check. Detoxifying heavy metals, on the other hand, is more of an important issue. If one chooses to switch from Prime to Safe I would highly recommend adding an additional heavy metal detoxifier to their water change cocktail. I have used Prime for so many years (back when it was pretty much the only trustworthy, simple, affordable bulk solution available) that i really have not thought about conditioners much in a while. I believe Chris exclusively uses Prime, but if Chris or any experienced long-term Safe users would chime in on their cost effective bulk heavy metal detoxifier product of choice I would appreciate it. Fast forward too today and I am on day 6 of Ick-X and I am having no success with my current Ick outbreak. This is my first time actually chemically treating for ick as I have traditionally in the past always just slowly raised my water temp and used good old heat to kill off the Ick. I currently have some fish that are heat sensitive, so I chose not to go that route. Assuming from this forum that I was good to go with a Prime/Ick-X combination (local municipal water supplier additives vary) I wasn't prepared for a plan B. As much as I hate to promote this company, Imagitarium Water Conditioner is currently my only "ASAP" off the shelf choice (I won't state the rather repulsive parent companies name) for a sodium thiosulphate alternative. I will keep my results posted and if I do not see a visual change in a few days I will order some Fritz.
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