Ok, I haven't added Prime for about 36 hours, and the bottle says it's dissipated by that time. Last night, my readings were this: ammonia: 0.5, ph 7.4, nitrites 5.0 , nitrates 80-100. I added 1ml of ammonia to feed the colonies.
This morning, here are my readings: ammonia 1.5-2.0, ph 7.6,
nitrites 5.0 and nitrates 160 . It seems that my bacteria is ok for now. I'll lay off the Prime for now, but I don't think it killed anything off. The thing is that my ammonia is not going back to zero for the last three weeks. This started after I added additional decorations to get the tank ready for fish. Before that, the ammonia was zeroing out within 12-18 hours. I can understand that I disrupted the tank with the new additions, but I washed them beforehand as directed and you would think any problems with that would have resolved by now. I was reading that sometimes it takes a month for nitrites to go down, so maybe I just need to keep waiting. Also, is it bad to put your hands in the tank? I've done that a few times to adjust decorations and I read somewhere that the water chemistry can change as a result.
You're the best with all your great advice!

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