# Reply from Seachem



## Toshogu (Apr 24, 2009)

Hello Toshogu,

Thanks for the questions! What I can do is give you a
detailed answer to your questions and then you can copy
and paste the info onto your forum. The nitrogen cycle
is a very integral part of the aquarium. It begins when
fish or plants are introduced into the system. Urine,
feces, uneaten food, and decayed plant material are then
broken down into ionized ammonia and unionized ammonia.
The ionized ammonium (NH4) will be favored when the pH is
below 7.0 and is not toxic to the fish. Unionized ammonia
(NH3) will be favored when the pH is above 7.0. It has no
charge and can therefore pass freely through the gills of
the fish, making it extremely toxic. ANY unionized
ammonia can be dangerous in the confines of the aquarium
and usually rears its evil head on the third or fourth day
after introducing fish. At this second stage in the
nitrogen cycle, aerobic bacteria such as nitrosomonas (or
similar bacteria) will oxidize or consume the ammonia,
ridding it from the aquarium. The by-product of ammonia
is nitrites, which are also highly toxic to fish. Nitrites
will usually begin to rise at the end of the
first week after introducing fish. During this time,
another type of aerobic bacteria called nitrobacter (or
similar bacteria) will consume the nitrites, converting
them into nitrates. Nitrates are not nearly as toxic as
ammonia or nitrites, and can be kept in a safe range with
routine water changes and good biological filtration. This
is where the anaerobic bacteria comes into play.
Anaerobic bacteria (do not require oxygen) will convert
nitrates into nitrogen gas (N2) that will escape into the
atmosphere through the surface of the water. In summary,
with the nitrogen cycle you will see a spike in ammonia,
then that will fall and you will then get a spike in
nitrites, that will fall, and lastly you will see your
nitrates rise. Once this has happened, you can assume
that your tank has fully cycled.

Now for the fun part! Stability is our bacterial
supplement that will speed up the cycling process and
prevent "new tank syndrome". It contains the aerobic
bacteria that consumes ammonia and nitrites, the anaerobic
bacteria that consumes nitrates, and it also contains
facultative bacteria that can adapt to either aerobic
(oxygen) or anaerobic (no oxygen) conditions. What makes
Stability so unique is that we have found a way to keep
the bacteria in a dormant spore state within the bottle,
allowing them to remain inactive until they are put into
the aquarium. Once in the water, the inhibitor is diluted
and the bacteria become active to begin working
immediately. This means that unlike competing products,
Stability does not need to be refrigerated and has a 4
year shelf life! Other products need to be refrigerated
because they are trying to prevent their bacteria from
becoming active within the bottle and potentially dead by
the time they are put into the aquarium. Fish can be added the
same day as Stability and they will not suffer from
ammonia toxicity as long as dosed according to the
instructions on the label! Another great aspect is that
it is an extremely safe product and there is really no
fear of overdosing. You can even pour it directly onto
your biological media (such as Matrix) for an even quicker
jump start of colonization. Other strains of bacteria
only operate under a very narrow range of parameters (pH,
temp, organic loads, etc.) and when these parameters
crash, so do the bacteria. The bacteria in Stability will
operate under a very broad range of conditions and when
other bacteria are dying off, the bacteria in Stability
are working and growing much faster! Stability should be
used not only for cycling a tank, but as regular
maintenance when doing water changes, adding fish, or when
medicating. This will ensure that you keep the balance up
between organic load and bacteria. To read more about
Stability and Matrix please follow the link below to the
products web page:

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Stability.html
http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Matrix.html

The reason I added Matrix is because these two products
work hand in hand with one another. Matrix being the
biological support media for the bacteria in Stability. I
really hope this information is helpful and please let us
know if we can assist you further!

Thank you,

Seachem Support 100215


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

well.....that is a very interesting response..and that also explains why ron wasn't getting the readings he thought he should get....
nice job toshogu....i do think that this shouild be made a sticky.....


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Well that explains how they have it so it can be unrefridgerated and still be ok. Very intersting.


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## Toshogu (Apr 24, 2009)

They said if we got questions to just stick em in the post, and I'll email the dude, he'll get back to us.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Tosh, ask him if the age of my bottle of Stability would explain why it didn't work. Expiration date 10-09.


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## sonicboomer (Apr 5, 2010)

If I purchase just the Stability product, does that mean I don't need to purchase the master test kit?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well... not really, but yeah. It's never a good idea to not have a test kit, but when Stability is used correctly and if it's a good bottle, then things will go as they're supposed to and your fish will be safe. The catch, though, is that you'll not know for sure without testing.


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## humdedum (Feb 18, 2009)

I'm on the second day of using Stability and there's 0.25 ammonia (using API liquid test kit). There are no fish or plants at all...just empty filters running, heaters, and gravel. Is this normal for Stability, or is something mysterious decomposing in my tank?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

It's normal. Stability includes some food for the bacteria, as it were.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

when are you going to add the fish?
The bacteria need something to live on.


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## humdedum (Feb 18, 2009)

Ah, okay. 

Well, today it's now at 0.50. This time I poured the Stability directly on the three biowheels running, because I inserted the carbon in the filters and wanted the bacteria on the wheels and not on the replaceable pads!

I was planning to add the fish this afternoon or tomorrow, as directed by the bottle, but I didn't want to run the risk of harming them with all that ammonia. Should I expect this ammonia rise to fall soon? (I've never used this product before, sorry for all the questions!)

As first fish, I was thinking of a small group of danios, like six. Is that small enough?

Then I'll slowly build up the school to about ten or twelve. When everything is steady, I'm planning on making my way up to nine platys (3 male, 6 female)...I've found that my platys are actually very sensitive to questionable waters, while danios have been very hardy. :fish:


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

I find it odd that you have any ammonia readings. I never did when i used Stability with fish in the tank.. maybe you can add some media from one of your other tanks and really kick start it.
The only time I had ammonia readings was when the bottle of bacteria had gone off. When I opened the bottle it had a nasty smell. Good Satability has virtually no odor.


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## humdedum (Feb 18, 2009)

Could I use the carbon pads from my established filters and pop those in, then? They've been in there since the 19th of last April. 

Seachem's support forums say that my test kit could be measuring the non-toxic ionized ammonia, and not the harmful free ammonia. I'm really hoping my kit if picking up the non-toxic ammonia. Oh dear, another factor has entered, hasn't it? :chair: Is it worth the investment to buy one of those Ammonia Alerts (I had one last year and it worked pretty well)?

The light housing part of the hood smells pretty nasty. I thoroughly washed all the equipment before setting it up, but obviously I didn't want to ruin the electric parts of the light parts. I wonder if the fact that this tank is secondhand has something to do with my cycling troubles. I hope not, goodness.

So here's a plan that I made up just now: add some old filter media, and see if the ammonia goes down. If it does, add the fish, keep the old media. Theeeen, after several weeks of no ammonia and doses of Stability, start to remove the old media and leave the cycling (the normal, happens-every-day kind of nitrogen cycle) to the "new" media (which by then would be sort of "old" in its own right. Sounds like a plan? 

I'm just really paranoid about ruining this setup and want to run everything by you peoples...twice. 

Thanks for all your help, mousey and TOS.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

High ammonia in a tank with no fish in it is usually caused by the tapwater having ammonia in it, or using chloramine instead of chlorine. The stability product itself seems to have ammonia in it, as far as I've been able to tell, but only just enough to kickstart the bacterial growth.

Your plan sounds okay. I think you can go ahead and add some fish now, actually.

Ammonia alerts are cool if you pay attention to them.


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## humdedum (Feb 18, 2009)

The Plan failed. It's still maintaining itself at .50 ammonia. 

So today I went and moved a whole darn biowheel 100 filter from my 20 long (the 20 already has an old 150, so the 100 is a bit 'extra'). Also added the daily dose of Stability today...dripped it right onto the wheels of the new filters. Let's see if the while filter move can knock out the ammonia. I feel really hesitant about plunging new fish into water that I know has ammonia, but 0.50 isn't ridiculously toxic, right? ....right?

Darnit, I'm getting a cold today. Water changes are that much more miserable with a sore throat. I should really look into those python things. XD

EDIT: Okay, a little more web searching leads me to conclude that my de-chlorinator, Stress Coat+ could be causing some sort of false reading of ammonia. The bottle says "Removes/Detoxifies chlorines, chloramines, and _ammonia". _ Or, I'm just really looking for a way to explain my ammo levels, and it's not the case at all.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

When I change my fish water I get a reading of .25 of ammonia right after I use the dechlorinator. Our town uses chloramine in the water to purify it. In my fully cycled tanks the ammonia is gone within 24 hours or less.


Occasionally the automatic chloramine injector that the town uses on its water tanks misfires and so instead of getting the correct amount of ammonia and chlorine injected they add the wrong proportions and all hell breaks loose in peoples tanks if they have the misfortune to clean the tanks on those days.
I tend to use seachem Prime as a water conditioner and usually double dose it especially in the spring and fall when the water company seems to mess around with its chloramine . You will get a false positive reading for ammonia at that time in the sense that yes there is ammonium ( not ammon ia) in the water but it is in a non toxic form because of the effect of the PRIME.
The biofilter then can eat up the ammonium.

If you have soft water the ammonia is in a less toxic form( ammonium) and will not be as harmful to your fish. 
I hope you can understand this.
Ask your water company what the ph is as well as hardness and if they are using chloramine.
Some towns are irradiating the water and not using chemicals. 
There is plenty to learn but your idea about the carbon and filters is good but honestly I can't think why you have that ammonia level and why it isn't disappearing. 
Are you constantly adding clean water? cleaning the tank every couple of days?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Is there anything that could be decaying in the tank? sludge on gravel, dead algae on the glass? If not, its likely its coming in your water. StressCoat+ sounds like Prime in that it should have "detoxified" the ammonia whether or not you can see it on the test. Hopefully soon you will see it vanish as the ammonia gets eaten up. 

Is there anything adding color to your water that could fool the test? Rust, driftwood, peat? Verify your test kit by testing something with no ammonia (maybe bottled water). Test the tap water right after dechlor to see if that is where the ammonia is coming from. 0.5 will cause stress if it isn't 'detoxified' but isn't immediately fatal.


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## humdedum (Feb 18, 2009)

The old Penguin 100 and a 10% water change got it down to 0.25 yesterday...I'm really thinking the established filter started knocking out the ammonia. I added three small platys on Tuesday, since I figured they were about, if a little less than, the bioload of a messy, 2-inch convict (which is what the filter was handling).

Today's my last day of Stablity...have yet to do my fish chores today (PWC, tests, feeding, etc). Hopefully the ammonia will be even less. 

I'll definitely test all the water sources I've been using (with and without dechlorinator) later today and get back to ya'll.


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