Bio-Media and water conditioner that also treats ammonia and nitrogen.

[ThomasLC]

I was watching the Pond Guru, creator of BioHome Bio Media , on YouTube going over a canister media setup.  In the video he mentioned something that I had questioned to myself but never raised the question to others.  

Does using water conditioner that also treats for ammonia and nitrogen effect live bacteria.  

Why , yes it does!  

WHAT?

Every time I change my water I use a de-chlorinator / heavy metal removal product that ALSO detoxifies ammonia and nitrogen.  As I do 3 - 4 water changes a week of close to 50% each change I was using this product each time.   So much so I bought it by 2 liter bottles!

But as this is altering the free ammonia for you the beneficial bacteria basically starve to death.  This causes you to HAVE to use a second product that contains the beneficial bacteria you starved to death with the first product.

So I have switched to a de-chlorinator that does NOT mess with the ammonia and nitrogen.  This will help the bacteria colony survive and grow strong allowing for better reaction to changes.  I will still help the colony with the bacteria booster as needed and / or add a ammonia removal product such as Ammonia Remover Inserts  at the END of the filter cycle allowing the ammonia to pass over and feed your bio-media before chemically removing it.  Once the colony is built up you can remove the extra product.  

 

[Tihshho]

This is a very good topic to bring up, though most people will not fall in your situation based on the amount of water changes and dosing. The key thing here is to does the bare minimum requirement to detoxify chlorine and chloramines in the water. I'm going to come out an say it, Seachem Prime is a flagship product that is something that is highly debatable. Lots of people 'eye ball' the amount of the product and if you're changing 20 gallons of water in a 55 weekly, but dosing 100+ gallons of Prime, then you're going to run into an issue. 

For those that are running one or two tanks, doing their 30% weekly water changes and spending the time to dose for the amount of water changed, the impact would be drastically less.

For someone in your case where big and often water changes happen, I would have to say that the dechlor method isn't something ideal for what you're doing. If you have a python and you're changing this much water regularly, you might want to look into a carbon 'blaster' that's basically a carbon block inline with your source water to filter out the chlorines and chloramines. If I were in your shoes, going this route and having a mixing valve feeding into a prefilter and dual carbon blocks would be more efficient and less products needing to be purchased in the long run. Yes you'd have to do some plumbing, yeah you'd have to mount a piece of hardware, and yeah you'd have a dedicated fill line, but your overall cost in the long run and the benefits from it would be cheaper and your workflow would be easier. 

[ThomasLC]

That is what I was getting at.  A LOT of fish stores recommend products like Seachem Prime and Fritz complete but state nothing about the effect it is going to have on your bio-media.  Both of these take the Beneficial Bacteria's food away.  I was never warned of this by anyone, I had the feeling it was slowing the development but I did not realize to what extent.  There are plenty of products that simple remove the chlorine and chloramine with out the added benefit of ammonia and nitrate detoxification.   I'm not knocking these products, they do what they say they do and do it well.  My only statement is no one discloses the negative impact of using these.  I have switched to API Stress+ , this does ONLY chlorine and chloramine, well plus a little aloe for good measure.

[Tihshho]

Even with the drawbacks I still used Prime and I'm not sure that I've ever crashed a tank due to it. I bet if you put it in during a cycle, that would hose up the works, but as for normal post cycle maintenance you should be OK in moderation.

\If you look at Nitrites and Ammonia at a chemical level, nothing can ever be 'taken away' just broken down and reformed. I can't remember exactly what the Seachem rep told us when Prime first came out, I think it had something to do with it binding the soluble organics in the water column and making it so that they were easily 'physically' able to be taken out with a filter. Knowing what I know now, I'm not sure how that is possible? But this was probably around 17-18 years ago, so my memory isn't that clear on the conversation.