Morph

Just wanted to make a little post on how good of a product prime is as a water conditioner. My 75 gallon tank has been running since december and everything was going well. My last water change was about 4 days ago and i went to give my puffers a late night feeding last night when i noticed something was horribly wrong. all of my puffers had almost 0 color and were almost see through. I just learnt that puffers hate ammonia even the tinyest amount. Well i triple dosed my tank with prime immeadiately and after about 1 minute my puffers came back to full color. Did a 50% water change and re-dosed with prime and now everything is back to normal.

If i did not have this product all my puffers would be dead. Nothing works like this prime stuff. It's so expensive but now i know why. it saves fishies lives.

thank you

COBettaCouple

Yea, it's the best out there. That's why we switched to it for our water conditioner.

Morph

when i saw my puffies last night i honestly thought i was gonna lose em all. prime is like the uber magic. it instantly fixed em right up. i will be way more vigilante now, but it's nice to know if something goes wrong you got something like this product to bail you out.

Evelyn1919

can somebody please tell me why this prime stuff is so so good i use the stress coat that is also used as a water conditioner but is this prime stuff way better?

and why is it so good? what does it do to the fish?

thanks for all the advice.

oh n by the way i was before using just some other kind of water conditioner but i think the stress coat is also way better. i guess because of the aloe vera?

luna

Prime - http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?pcatid=4057

As it says, on top of conditioning the water it also detoxifies the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates...so if you do have a spike, it can "lock up" (but not remove) the offending chemicals and keep your fish safe. It doesn't remove the need for water changes, but can help keep your fish safe from harmful levels.

Evelyn1919

so is it like using ammolock i've used that and it helps. but i guess prime is using ammolock and water conditioner at the same time?

i'll talke a look at that link.

thanks very much!!!

SereneReyn

my concern would be that it makes the ammonia (not sure about nitrites) unusable by bacteria (which is why you're not supposed to use it with bio-spira). other products also bind ammonia, but do so in such a way that it's still usable (i've read amquel is one of these). i'm glad it works well for you, and certainly glad it helped your fish... tho i don't intend to switch, myself. (i use novaqua+, tho i have a small bottle of amquel on hand just in case)

Evelyn1919

yeah i made a big mistake by buying biospira and adding ammolock. that was a big waste of money.

so prime does not make the ammonia useless for the bacteria therefor you can use prime with biospira?

this is driving me crazy!!! LOL.

Morph

no idea about bio-spira and prime usage together, all i know is prime stopped my fish from dying as they were all ammonia poisoned.

Blub

SereneReyn

the manufacturers of bio-spira recommend against using prime in conjunction with their product.

Evelyn1919

yeah that's the stress coat i have. and i also have the ammolock. i have it all just in case cuz i really start freakin out when the ammonia goes up.

capekate

keeping a regular water change routine will ensure that your ammonia does not go up. Using these products only put a band-aid on the problem. Maintaining your aquarium water is the best route IMO and that entails doing regular water changes for the health of your fish.

Blub

capekate

Its amazing what they try to sell out there.... ( and I dont mean the UK.. I mean.. everywhere...)

Evelyn1919

wow every 6 months?? that would be great.
but aren't you supposed to do like 25% water change every week once your tank is cycled and everything?

Morph

I don't know if you are insinuating i keep poor water or anything, I do a 50% water change weekly and i have a filter for 150 gallon tank in my 75 gallon. Sometimes things happen that are out of your control. If you were making that comment insinuating i need to be more diligent on my upkeep, i resent it...

mlinden84

They've got it here in the U.S. too. It's products like these that make people think it's ok to not do water changes....

mlinden84

One thing I've noticed since I switched to Prime - I spend the same or less on water conditioner. Since you only need a few drops per gallon (or a capfull for 50 gallons i think it is), the bottle lasts a really long time. With the cheaper water conditioners you have to use more, so you go through it more quickly. In the long run you are spending the about same amount of money.

COBettaCouple

True.. especially when you buy the big bottles of it.

capekate

Morph, I have added Evelyns post here, so that you can see that it was in fact to her post that I was responding to. My response was in reference to her freaking out when the ammonia "goes up". And was the same words I used in my response.I was not insinuating that anyone was not diligent in their upkeep and the response was not directed towards you personally. It was an observation made, expressing that IMO these products are band aids and that the best course of action is to keep up with regular water changes.
Now.. you say that sometimes things happen that are out of your control. To this I have to reply, that if you have a cycled tank.. a person really should never have any ammonia showing in their readings unless..
1) a person has added a large amount of new fish to the tank at once.
2) treated with meds and have lost some beneficial bacteria,
3) added new filter media, cleaned all the substrate and decorations, vacuumed and did a almost total water change all at the same time which can cause a mini cycle in a tank.
...
As I said, IMO products that bind ammonia are just band aids. The number one course of action when for some reason one finds ammonia during a water test is to immediately do a water change to bring down the ammonia reading, not bind it. These products can help in the short term, if you are not able at the time to do the water change.
I do not think my response was insulting anyone.. and was not directed at you, it was just a statement and Im sorry that you took it so personally.

angelfish220

Prime is used in my tank as as water conditioner with benifits. It was the only water conditioner that I could use and be sure all the hard metals from our ancient pipes (Im pretty sure it is illegal to install this system because of all the heavy metels in the pipes) are out of there. the tetra one aquasafe, like didnt take out all the metals and I had fish die because of it.

KittieKat

ive noticed that most of the ppl that have answered to this post have said they would only use one product because another failed... if u read carefully on the back of some of these said products it says to use WITH another product. easy balance (says to be used with another) is certainly a product i use tho i would never consider using ANY product alone. with each water change easy balance and its chemical capturing ball things help to keep the remaining water in the tank safe in addition to the fresh water put in. i think ive used just about all the products on the market out here except for prime (only cuz of price and difficultly to get my hands on, not stocked often).

the way i see it.. any product can work as long as it has a friend to help it. using two products doesnt hurt, it helps for in case one does happen to fail. no product should be used alone... companies do have problems with batches in production. its just being on the safe side to ensure that the fish wont be harmed for the one time the company sells a tainted product.

COBettaCouple

I found other conditioners to work fine, but switched to Prime because of the wide range of things that it does. Fish Protector is the 2nd best conditioner to me and I use both.

Evelyn1919

i think the best thing to do instead of using so many products (like ammolock) is doing the water changes. at least i can tell how much better the water is doing that way. ammolock still gives you ammonia readings and you never really know if your fish will be fine or not. also i find a lot of pleasure doing water changes. i love doing them for some crazy reasons even though after pulling my 20gal bucket up and down my apartment my back kills me for days LOL. i still like to do it and more if my fishes are going to like it better too which really seems to be helping them a lot.

Morph

Maybe you should take a few lessons on how to talk to people, because you're coming off quite condescending. my 2 cents

luna

She's not coming across that way...maybe you're too used to other forums where people speak to eachother in that way, and reacting based on that experience. I've been on other forums where that kind of behavior is (unfortunately) prevalent, and it does alter the way you read things.

I would find your accusational tone rather rude and offensive, personally, but maybe that's just me. Maybe you could try not to read so much into how you think she's wording things and focus on the advice she's giving?

SereneReyn

i don't think any offense was intended morph. i do think perhaps you've jumped the gun a bit. no big deal... lets all move on, shall we?

COBettaCouple

ck's never come off as condescending and in reading this thread over carefully, I only see you coming across as hostily defensive. This thread is closed. Check the Fishlore rules that we all agreed to - rude and abusive posts aren't acceptable.

Edit by Tom: And if she was ever rude or condescending towards other members, do you think Mike would have made her a mod?