Gel Food Vitamins?

[spencervirt]

Let me make a scene here- Its your first time making gel food and you have a list with items to buy. Your walking down isle 4- red peppers! Isle 6- you find wheat germ- Isle 9- you find spinach! You keep going until you get to "Powdered Vitamins" and you say to yourself "Im at VONS!" Where will you ever find fish vitamins at vons? You decide your stressed and pre menstrual and take the dog vitamins off the counter and buy them. Here is where you made your mistake. I did this, and my levels went WACKO in my tank. My tank cycle halted completely and I suddenly got chlorine in my tank. It was a mystery until I found PHOSPHOROUS in the dog vitamins. Not a little, but a lot. This is known to stop a cycle in its tracks. (The minimal amount in pellets does nothing) The bad part is, I was at the worst part of my cycle and my fish had to endure those levels for weeks until water changes removed the phosphorous.

SO dont make the same mistake I did and go to the fish store to buy REAL fish vitamins.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Mustloveoranda

[thoughtsofjoy]

I'm sorry, but where are you getting your information from? I have never heard of phosphorus interfering in the nitrogen cycle. Phosphorus is an essential nutrient; it occurs naturally in water ecosystems and has a parallel cycle to nitrogen.

Chlorine and phosphorus are also elements, so there is no way that introducing phosphorus into the environment could produce chlorine.

I suspect the problems in your tank did not come from the dog vitamins in your gel food, but rather from your tap water.

[Erinaceus]

Joy has a big point there. Phosphorous as such is unlikely to interfere with a filter's cycle. At most I'd expect high phosphorous could stimulate algae growth (aside from potassium and nitrates it's one of the main plant fertiliser components). That might explain how, after rather a while, you could, potentially, crash your filter cycle (algae die-off etc), that would in no way explain an increase in chlorine, as Joy stated.