Amquel Warning

Just thought I would let everyone know that even if a bottle of amquel tank de-chlorinator does not have ammonia detoxifier obviously labeled on the bottle, it will still have it. I ran out of de-chlorinator 2 weeks ago, and the only de-chlorinator one pet-store had was amquel. Even though I have read that amquel has ammonia detoxifiers in their de-chlorinators I assumed that if it wasn't obviously labeled on the bottle it wouldn't have the detoxifiers. A couple of days ago I noticed my 40 breeder had a large amount of planaria in my tank, which was strange because I hand feed my axolotl, and the only "mulm" in the tank is from plant matter(a common cause for planaria is overfeeding your fish). Yesterday my water in my ten gallon had a bacteria bloom, so I decided to test for ammonia. All of my tanks are now completely uncycled, because of the ammonia detoxifier in the Amquel. I think this is a good example of why you shouldn't use ammonia removers in your tanks for a quick fix if you're planning on keeping the tank cycled in the long run. I've now done 2 50% water changes on both tanks(which is so annoying on a 40 breeder) and the ammonia is still ridiculously high, and I can't tell how much of that is the detoxified ammonia, and how much is the harmful ammonia. I did take a closer look at the amquel bottle, and it does say there is an ammonia detoxifier in the fine print, but I had to search.

Good to know, thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for the info, Carson!

Thats why I use Prime. It detoxifies ammonia and nitrite but leaves it available for the biofilter.

I'm not sure I understand this. I dwelled on it all night (I'm a nerd, it's ok).

Amquel is sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate. When you add this to your tank, and free ammonia (NH4+ below pH of 8.5) is available, they will bond to form aminomethansolfonate. This is still an ammonia compound, but it's more stable and less easily absorbed into the blood stream (so it's less toxic than free ammonia, NH4+ or NH3). It's still easily absorbed by your Nitrosomas bacteria and plants, so it shouldn't have any effect whatsoever on your cycle.

Prime works in the exact same manner.

AmmoLock, however, has a different mechanism and will damage your bacterial colonies. This uses alkyl ammonium chloride, which provides a source of chloride to bind to ammonia and chlorine in the tank to form alkyl ammonia and ammonium chloride, which aren't as damaging to gills, but is not available bacteria either.

hmm, you might be right. I have absolutely no nitrate/nitrite however, and my ammonia was off the charts high. I just assumed my cycle was off because of the high ammonia, and no nitrite/nitrate, not to mention I've heard ammonia detoxifiers mess with your bio cycle. It could just be my plants are taking in all the nitrate. Could the ammonia detoxifier be registering as ammonia in my test kit? I mean the results were 8 ppm's of ammonia, and I know that isn't right because 1 my bio load is relatively low in both tanks, and 2 my axolotls would be dead

Or it could be your test is off.

Plants do absorb nitrates, but they will readily use ammonia and nitrite first. The sudden appearance of planaria suggest there's some dead meat somewhere in the tank (earthworm, sloughed skin, etc). They don't show up because of ammonia.

I have two test kits, and I've tested it with both, so I don't think the test kit is off. I know planaria doens't show up because of ammonia, but a common cause for planaria is overfeeding. I don't think theres dead meat present, but I guess some of the axolotl poo leftover somewhere may be the source. I was thinking more along the lines of the decayed plant matter would be the source of food for the planaria

Could be.

My guess would be the mulm is breaking down more quickly than you anticipated, increasing your ammonia levels. Maybe it's breaking down faster because of the planaria, and they're increasing in numbers because they have more to eat.

Side note: did you know if you train a planaria to go through a maze, and you split it in half, both halves retain the 'memory' of how to do the maze?

lol I did not, I'm still not convinced that amquel allows the beneficial bacteria to use the ammonia, because I've had bacteria blooms in both tanks, but after finally getting whatever was shooting my ammonia test kits off the charts I havn't had any readings of any toxin, so I really don't know if my tank is still cycled, or if the plants are just using everything.

Kaysie said:

I'm not sure I understand this. I dwelled on it all night (I'm a nerd, it's ok).

Amquel is sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate. When you add this to your tank, and free ammonia (NH4+ below pH of 8.5) is available, they will bond to form aminomethansolfonate. This is still an ammonia compound, but it's more stable and less easily absorbed into the blood stream (so it's less toxic than free ammonia, NH4+ or NH3). It's still easily absorbed by your Nitrosomas bacteria and plants, so it shouldn't have any effect whatsoever on your cycle.

Prime works in the exact same manner.

AmmoLock, however, has a different mechanism and will damage your bacterial colonies. This uses alkyl ammonium chloride, which provides a source of chloride to bind to ammonia and chlorine in the tank to form alkyl ammonia and ammonium chloride, which aren't as damaging to gills, but is not available bacteria either.

Click to expand...

This is what I have heard as well. I use Aqueon's Ammonia Neutralizer (as its also a water conditioner). My tank is fully cycled now. When I read up on its use, its effect ends within 24-48 hours, so further ammonia isn't converted until more neutralizer is added and the cycle can still continue just with a much lower load of ammonia and thus less toxic to the tank's inhabitants in the meantime.

Seems strange though. Maybe your ammonia test is reading the amquel as ammonia. Try testing it in a bit of tap water and see if you get a reading.

yea I think that's the case, there is no way there was that much ammonia in my tank water. My tap water reads 0, and now that I've done a ton of water changes it's almost down to 0.

Add some amquel to a sample of tap water and test that (without anything from the tank) and see if your ammonia test reads positive with that sample. Then you'll know that the ammonia test is registering the amquel as ammonia. Now the scientific part of me is really curious!

ok so I literally had a cup of water, and the test kit out, and it wasn't until I went to go grab the dechlorinator that I realized I ran out of the amquel. I might pick some up next time I'm at the store just so I can see if it was the amquel, but I can't imagine anything else that would cause for a high ammonia test reading.

I can't either. 8ppm is a HUGE reading. There's no way that much ammonia went undetected, as you seem like a diligent keeper.

I too am a baffled nerd when it comes to ammonia detoxifiers. Ammo-lock seems to be a buffer which drags the water pH to just above 7. This renders most of the ammonia into the ammonium form which is non-toxic and available to filter bacteria. I do not know if AmQuel does totally remove ammonia or not. I cannot see how filter compatibility and chemical removal go together.

The danger is you are setting yourself up for a massive fatal nitrite spike (17 mg ammonia morphs into 46mg nitrite) if you do not get the level down by water changes.

I've decided that I will only add chemicals I understand.

Dechlorinator recipe

Sodium thiosulphate heptahydrate 200g Place in container and top up to 1 litre.

Use between one and four drops per litre. 2 drops per litre approximates to the quantities you will get from a commercial dechlorinator. If your utility very heavily chlorinates you may need 4 drops per litre but with my supplier 1 drop per litre is enough.

This does nothing to the pH and leaves you to deal with the ammonia by very cheap water changes.

I still do not understand how AmQuel works but I found this in the small print. Do your ammonia test kits produce a yellow colour? If so it is probably a false reading.
"AmQuel is compatible to use with all water quality test kits except for the ammonia test kit that uses Nessler reagents that read in shades of amber or yellow, and the oxygen kit that uses Winkler reagents. Residual AmQuel and its reaction products are incompatible with the Nessler and Winkler-type test reagents, resulting in false, high ammonia and low oxygen concentration readings."

I get a dark green reading to signify ammonia in my test kits. I've managed to get rid of whatever is throwing off my test kit in my ten gallon, and almost all of it out of the 40. The 40 is just more water volume, and I havn't had time to do as many water changes compared to the few I can do with the ten. I havn't found any ammonia/nitrate since I got all the amquel out of the tank, so I'm still not sure if my tank is cycled or not. Either way I guess I"m not too worried because it looks like the plants can handle the ammonia if it is the case that it is no longer cycled.

ok, so I just wanted to add I got my first ammonia reading today in my ten gallon tank. It wasn't very much, but I havn't had any readings of ammonia, so I didn't do a water change yesterday. I still have a bacteria bloom going on in my tank, and i'm going to assume my ten gallon is no longer cycled. Alternatively after doing large water changes in my 40 the planaria has disappeared and there is no bacteria blooms going on. There still may be something throwing off my test kit in my 40 breeder because I havn't had a 0 reading yet, but my axolotl isn't showing any signs of stress, and I'm doing 20% water changes daily. I won't know for certain if my 40 breeder is still cycled until I finally get the ammonia down to 0 to see if it increases once whatever is throwing off the test is completely gone.