Kordons AmQuel plus: Deadly!!

[discusdaves]

I just recently purchased a 5 gallon box of Kordons AmQuel plus. After a couple of days of use, i noticed my discus were showing signs of burns, skin pealing back fins having wholes burned through them, ect. I have used AmQuel plus for several years and never have had this problem. At first I could not figure it out but after i discovered that the AmQuel plus was bleaching my cloths i knew there was a problem. i have over 30 tanks in my hatchery and all of my fish are reacting the exact same. has anyone else ever had this problem?

[William Palumbo]

I used to use AMQUEL exclusively. Since day 1. A few years back I tried the "new and improved" AMQUEL PLUS. My first time using it, I came home to over $1200 worth of dead Discus. The first and last time I ever used it. I won't spend a dime on Kordon...Bill

[j_li8]

I personally havent had a problem with using Kordon's Amquel Plus with any of my fish. I've been using it with my discus for 2 years now without a problem. How do you prep your water with the conditioner when doing WC's? My WC's are done with 5 gallon bucket, a pain i know. But I will fill it about 20%, add the Amquel Plus, then fill it to the top. walk over to the tank and pour it in.

[azpunisher24]

wow, im sorry to hear that.
i will no longer use this product with my discus.
i do hope your fish get better.

[Discus-Hans]

This is scary, did anybody contact Kordon about this????

Kordon LLC
2242 Davis Court, Hayward, CA 94545-1114, U.S.A.
Tel. (510) 782-4058 • Fax (510)784-0945 • Toll-Free: (800) 877-7387 • E-mail: info@novalek.com

Hans

[brewmaster15]

I just recently purchased a 5 gallon box of Kordons AmQuel plus. After a couple of days of use, i noticed my discus were showing signs of burns, skin pealing back fins having wholes burned through them, ect. I have used AmQuel plus for several years and never have had this problem. At first I could not figure it out but after i discovered that the AmQuel plus was bleaching my cloths i knew there was a problem. i have over 30 tanks in my hatchery and all of my fish are reacting the exact same. has anyone else ever had this problem?

Hi Dave,
Thats sounds real bad...the obvious first step here is to stop using it and try another conditioner. Next contact your water supplier....and see if they have been adding anything new....This time of year in many parts of the country they add various chemicals to balence pH, destroy algae , sanitize water etc....Could be a chemical reaction there.

Lastly...any chance you are seeing a disease outbreak...bring in anything new to the hatchery in the last couple of weeks?

Hope the fish recover quickly for you!

-al

[April]

hi there..i had ph crashes with the product but our water is very soft..and no stability. on the bottom of the bottle..it had fine printing..says not to be used with alkaline unstable water. to use the power form instead. that was years ago..but ive never used it since. our hardness is about 0 in vancouver. stick to prime. ive had issues also from not measuring with a few other products. ie. chloramx and a local one. tailored aquatics.
so..if you have the bottle still look at the bottom on the back..with a magnifying glass and see if they still say that. it said note. do not use with alkaline unstable conditions.
id be curious

[snowflake311]

I found this on the kordon web site about it effectingthe O2 levels. With this lowering O2 in a tank that's at high temps. Might be the problem.

CAUTION REGARDING THE USE OF AMQUEL+ IN AQUARIUMS

While AmQuel+ provides remarkably unique functions in rapidly and permanently removing/detoxifying the toxic nitrogen compounds in the water, including ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, there are two factors in the use of AmQuel+ that some may find a detraction unless forewarned and alerted as to how to handle and overcome them.*

1.* AmQuel+ has an acerbic nontoxic odor that does not affect fishes and other aquatic life during the first minutes or hours of use until its odor is dissipated by its reactions in the water.* To some the odor is not noticed or of no consequence.* To others this odor is annoying.* The odor usually disappears quickly during use.* Whatever, considering that AmQuel+ easily and quickly eliminates irreversibly the toxic nitrogen compounds in the water that otherwise are difficult to deal with, this short-time distraction should be reasonable to accept.* Kordon is working on eliminating or at least reducing this odor as much as possible, without in any way interfering with the beneficial actions of the product in aquarium keeping.*
***
2.* AmQuel+ per dose uses, in the first seconds and minutes of application to the water, 0.3-0.4 ppm of oxygen out of the water.* This is a low amount of oxygen removal and under normal circumstances in aquarium and pond keeping is of no concern to fishes and other aquatic organisms.* However, if the water is way overcrowded so that the oxygen level is perilously close to being inadequate for fishes and other aquatic organisms, then adequate aeration of the water needs to be provided in the first minutes and occasionally in the first hours after the introduction of AmQuel+.

The only times that there have been concerns about this situation have been in aquariums that have been far too overcrowded with fishes and/or other aquatic life, while at the same time the aquarium are using an outside filter that spills the filtered water onto the surface of the water in the aquarium.* These "waterfall" type filters do not provide enough water circulation in crowded aquariums, even in normal water conditions.* Enough aeration can be simply supplied by the use of an airstone or a water pump to provide adequate oxygen in the water.* Just using the aquarium water filter as the sole means of aeration of the water in aquariums may not be enough, even for normal water conditions.* This is particularly true for those filters that are placed outside the aquarium and spill the water like a water fall onto the surface water of an aquarium.* While there will be enough oxygen in the surface water, the lower regions of the aquarium may be without sufficient water circulation and thereby have too little oxygen.* (For further information on the use of Kordon AmQuel+ in ponds, see the description for Kordon Pond AmQuel+ for further information.)

[Discus master]

I just recently purchased a 5 gallon box of Kordons AmQuel plus. After a couple of days of use, i noticed my discus were showing signs of burns, skin pealing back fins having wholes burned through them, ect. I have used AmQuel plus for several years and never have had this problem. At first I could not figure it out but after i discovered that the AmQuel plus was bleaching my cloths i knew there was a problem. i have over 30 tanks in my hatchery and all of my fish are reacting the exact same. has anyone else ever had this problem?

WOW I have been thinking about buying a big jug my self thank God I read this you may have very well just saved my and some other fish with this info!! I mean that man I was just looking at that jug today thinking it would save me coin in th elong run. I am so sad to hear this happend to you though thank god they did not die you may wanna add some salt though huh? I have been using Aqueon conditoner and they do fine with it, I have some Prime as well, oh and I have used that Tetra stuff with the BIO Booster in it and I have not had issues with any of them. I usually stick with the Aqueon becuase it treats chlorine, chlorimines, and detoxifies amonia and heavy meatels kind of like the Prime I like a conditoner to handle everyhting possible in the tap water and thus far I have been ok. never tried amquel and thanks to you never will. follow the sugestions by the other memebrs and see what they say about this and see what your water authority says about this I am curious to know eactly what caused this seems to be to big of a coincidence for it not to be the AmQuel though and not something new added to the water but I still would like to know if you find anything out oh and I hope you get your money back for sure.

Is Prime a conditoner though I thought Prime was used for if you had like a spike in nitiretes or amonia or something like that.

[flyman767]

I've used AmQuel+ for quite some time. I never had an issue. However, I've rarely used the product directly in my tanks. But rather..in my aged holding tank as a dechlorinator.

When I have used it directly in my tanks as a detox..I always added a significant amount of O2 in conjunction..once again..never had an issue.

[discusdaves]

I have been trying multiple things to isolate this problem. Luckily i sell a lot of my products, so i buy a bunch of fish, Kenny is my supplier, and then i sell them. I buy a bunch of aquariums and i sell them. I bought 5 gallons of Kordons AmQuel plus and i sold it to two people. Within 3 days of my clients using this product their fish showed similar signs. Further more i used the it when cleaning an aquarium in a law firm...... same problem. Absolutely no possible way of disease being transferred unless you can carry a fish disease within the air you breath in and out. I have tried to be very open minded about this whole incident. I have called every mentor i have and i have looked into any possible other explanation. But for one, 4 separate locations, all on separate sides of El Paso (east, west, and downtown) exact same problem, and my location is the only one of the 4 with new fish, and i have had them over 2 weeks. Further more the people at Kordons have avoided my calls, not returned my calls and so far have not been helpful in saving my fish. Today's count is 8 fry, over 35 fish and 3 proven pairs dead. All of them were beautiful quality talk about a huge loss. but i have switched decloronators and added activated carbon plus the use of stress coat. i have stepped up my water exchanges from 40-50% to 60-75%. I'm trying to balance not shocking them to death and not letting them soak in this chemical anymore.............

[discusdaves]

i do not ever put anyting directly into my tank, i have a 100 gallon and a 300 gallon water vats for aging my water.

[Discus master]

i do not ever put anyting directly into my tank, i have a 100 gallon and a 300 gallon water vats for aging my water.

Oh man well it sounds like you know your stuff I mean it almost sounds like you should contact an lawyer over a loss like that I do not know if you could recover anything and if it would be wortht he cost for legl council and or if some kind of disclaimer from who ever make Amquil but it may be worth looking inoit I get up set when I loose one fish but by my count your talking like 49 fish!! man that has to hurt your bussiness and even if its not a bussiness and just for pleasure this is crazy either way makes me very nervous about what to use and not to use I am sure the stuff in all these dechlors are pretty much the same throughout but it makes me wonder if for some reason when they mixed uo this particular batch if the strengths of whatever is sued was messed up during the mixing process?? or if somethings were left out all together I winder if you have the lot code from the bottle and if you have the bottle and any left I would hang on to it maybe a chemist or lab could look at it to see if there is something out of whack with it you know?? I think there is a chemist on here I have seen posting sometimes maybe some one from SD is knowledgale and would not mind anlyzing a sample if you sent one? theres gotta be soemthing in this and you can not be alone theres got to be other people out there who bought from this same batch and with so many affect it and not being an isolated incident you are correct this is looking more like a problem with this particular product or particular batch of product I would be courious to know. there has to e others calling them with the same issue and problem the same lot coees on there bottels as well there should be a re call f this is the case.

Man thuis kind of thing really is up setting and I feel so bad for you I hope you get some sort of soemthing out of this even if it is just the knowledge of actualy what went wrong other than the fact there is something robably wrong with this dechlor sorry to rant but man thats a loose it awfull I really do feel sorry. please keep us posting on this event

[discusdaves]

i appriciate that, it is very hard on my i have spent a long time building up my buisness and this has destroyed in a matter of days, and i am so tired, i have just been working night after night and it kills me to see my fish dropping like flys

[nc0gnet0]

Little known fact is that almost all dechlor's can really whallup your Orp. This chemical reaction can pull quite a bit of the dissolved oxygen out of the water. The more chlorine it has to neutralize, the more oxygen it removes in the process. Most tanks can replentish this O2 loss rather quickly, but for tanks that have O2 problems to begin with, it can be a concern.

As to what happened with the Amquell, ounds like a bad batch. I stopped using amquel right after they switched to amquel+, which was a completely different formula. Personally, I don't know why anyone would use the stuff as prime is much more economical.