Ammo chips experiment, and a rant about arrogant fish experts on Yahoo answers
April 21, 2009 9:47 am THINK before you speak, fishOne of the fun things about having an empty aquarium is you can do tests with ammonia and chemicals that would be cruel with fish. I was curious to see if Ammo-Chips work.
I have them on hand for hastily set up hospital tanks where I don’t have a cycled filter or need to use meds that would harm biological filtration. I got them after an experience of having a goldfish in a hospital tank and she blew off so much ammonia while being sick that I couldn’t keep up without regularly shocking my already stressed fish with huge water changes, hoping to avoid a similar situation in the future.
So today I added enough clear ammonia to register an API test reading of 1.0 – incidentally at the same time my seachem alert was only registering .05, important information if I plan on using that meter as a warning for ammonia spikes. Note to self: react to ANY seachem reading because it’s higher than the meter shows.
I then added ¼ cup of Ammo chips to a nylon sock and hung it in the output stream on my biowheel filter. I’m curious to know if this alone will bring my ammonia readings down.
Yes, I know I am messing with my cycle, starving beneficial bacteria, blah blah blah. It’s an empty tank. And it’s an experiment, not a plan for fish keeping. So all you superior fish nazis that like to shame beginners out of the hobby on answers.yahoo.com with your snotty replies can back off. Did I mention I think you guys are mean and not helping the poor newbie? Be nice. You were new too, once. Did you make no mistakes? And did anyone attack you or did you have a kind person who taught you the ropes with grace?
Post Script: since I could not resist moving a betta from one of those little cups to a new roomy home today, I cut the experiment short with a 95% water change before adding my new pet. I plan on taking this experiment up again using an empty 3 gallon tank. It’s all so very fun, this water chemistry thing.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:43 am
[...] Remember my test way back in the day that was to see if Ammo chips would work? I cut the experiment short by converting that tank to a home for Takeyo. [...]