kerberos

Seachem has a two products that I was looking at, the one is Prime and the other is Stability. What is the difference between these? and is Prime safe to use with fish in?

griffin

not sure about the difference between the two, but prime is safe to use with fish in.

Jim

Prime detoxes amonia and nitrites. Stability is supposed to help the cycling process. According to the website that makes them you can use them together.
One thing, Prime converts ammonia to a non toxic form, but most test kits will give you a false reading... I'm not sure which kit you need to get an accurate reading. If you buy some and read the label, it lists their website. that will give you alll the info you need.

COBettaCouple

I've not heard much about Stability and it's effectiveness. BioSpira seems to be the best cycle advance product and I'm going to find out how a new product (to me anyways ) called Zymbac works. When we got started, we used the Cycle stuff and that only put our tank into mini-cycles so we stopped using it.

The Prime is great stuff and seems to be the most popular water conditioner on here. You pretty much need an eyedropper to treat a gallon with it since 1 capful (5 ml) does 50 gallons.

Luniyn

Big fan of the Seachem stuff myself and using both products right now in my currently cycling tank with fish. Prime is great and I has kept my fish perfectly happy, healthy during the entire cycle process so far. I recommend it highly. Just get to your local pharmacy and buy a sterile medicine dropper that measures in ml. Then you can dose the correct amount for smaller tanks, though I'm just using the cap and guessing myself without any ill effects.

As for Stability, I'm using it but not sure of it's effectiveness. It isn't an instant cycle product and I didn't do an effective test as when I received it in the mail I also received my new filter with an extra sponge for bio-filtration in it. So I don't know if my recent improvement in moving through my cycle was due to Stability or due to the new filter. In any event I'm moving through the cycle still, so it doesn't seem to be hurting anything. Could I have lived without it... probably and I'm not sure I will buy another bottle when I through with this one. But yes in answer to your question, both are perfectly save to use in a tank with fish.

Oh and as to the false readings of ammonia. It's not actually a false reading that you are getting (provided you are using a salicylate based kit like the one from API). It's just that you don't have to worry about the reading you are getting as much. It will be non-toxic and all that matters is that you either have it or you don't. When you see that you no longer have it, then you are done with the ammonia part of your cycle.

vin

I use API Stress Coat....No false readings, no chemical conversions, never a problem....

Luniyn

That's because it only gets rid of chlorine and breaks up chloramines, but doesn't do anything to stop the addition of ammonia to your tank from your tap water. Those of us that have chloramines in our tap water need to detoxify it and it doesn't hurt to detoxify the nitrite as well (which stress coat doesn't do either).

vin

I'm just telling you what I use....My tap water doesn't have ammonia in it...I've tested it...and it doesn't have nitrites or nitrates in it either and the pH is 7.0 straight from the tap. Since I regularly change my water my parameters are never out of whack...Other than the sick fish I got from the LFS a couple of weeks ago, I haven't lost a fish......Not one....I'm not telling anyone what to use, just what I use.

Luniyn

Wasn't saying you were. I was just trying to be sure that anyone reading this understand that what works for some people might not work for others. Always a good idea to test your tap water before choosing what treatment you will need. In your case as well as many, many other people that might be fine. However, in a lot of other cases it won't be enough.

vin

Apologies...It just read differently I guess.