Does Prime affect water parameters?

Hello. I had some questions about prime. I have a 3-gallon tank with a betta, 2 Anubias, and 1 java fern. My tank is fully cycled (has been since August/sept of 2017). I’m considering the next time my water conditioner runs low, switching from using betta safe or betta bowl plus to prime since everyone seems to recommend it. My questions are: 1) if I switch, should I expect to see any changes in my water parameters (like reading ammonia? Currently my ammonia always reads zero). 2) with these other water conditioners I use, they say they help the fish to develop/keep their slime coat. My understanding is prime only does this a little bit. If I use prime, would I also need to dose the water regularly with something like stress guard to help with the slime coat? 3) I’m used to “prepping” the new water several days ahead of time, and adding the water conditioner then, from when I actually do a water change. Would it be the same for prime and stress guard? and 4) I want to make sure prime, in my case, isn’t overkill. In addition to treating my water with a water conditioner (although I have well water so chlorine is not an issue for me), I’m dosing my tank with sea chem flourish and vitachem on a regular basis. Obviously if I switched to prime, I would stop using whatever water conditioner i’m using currently.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Prime is a great product, I've been using it for almost a year now. I haven't tried anything else really so I can't give a fair comparison between brands. I side seachem flourish once a week, and when I do my water changes. My plants have root tabs under them to help give then that little extra they may be missing. I'm on city water and I go from the tap, right to the tank, and just need a little in the 5 gallon pail. Proteome is great in my opinion. One of the pic shows just how much I put in a 5 gallon pail.

 

1) if I switch, should I expect to see any changes in my water parameters (like reading ammonia? Currently my ammonia always reads zero).

No, it will not alter pH or anything else like that. Seachem Prime dechlorinates water and detoxifies ammonia, nitrites, etc, and heavy metals.

) with these other water conditioners I use, they say they help the fish to develop/keep their slime coat. My understanding is prime only does this a little bit. If I use prime, would I also need to dose the water regularly with something like stress guard to help with the slime coat?

In my opinion, if the fish are healthy and the water conditions are good, and the tank is cycled the fish should have no trouble maintaining its own slime coat.

3) I’m used to “prepping” the new water several days ahead of time, and adding the water conditioner then, from when I actually do a water change. Would it be the same for prime and stress guard?

Why? What are you doing to "prep the water?" I just put prime in and then add the water during water changes.

4) I want to make sure prime, in my case, isn’t overkill.

I highly recommend all Seachem products.

 

Agree with all above. Prime is a very safe product, and it works just like any other dechlorinator, except it detoxifies ammonia as well. It's not really "overkill" because it won't do any harm. If anything, it's better quality and more effective than other types of dechlorinator.

You don't need to "prep" the water, you just add Prime, wait a few minutes, and then do your water changes. It works pretty quickly.

 

In reading all the (excellent) advice above, note that some writers 'prime' their water in buckets before adding that to the tank, while others (mostly those who use a python and refill tank directly from tap) 'prime' their tank first then add the tap water.
And you'll see lots of discussion here about whether u should prime the replacement water only, or the entire tank volume. I have no idea which is 'correct'.

 

Okay. Thank you everyone for the info. I’ll definitely switch to using prime. So what I mean by prepping my water is that when my water comes out of the tap, it’s about 67 or 65 degrees Fahrenheit. I leave it in a bucket with a heater for a day or two so it warms up to the same water as my tank water. Also, my parameters from the well water are not terrible, but definitely, not ideal (water is very hard, ph is high, high alkalinity) so I actually do half and half with tap water and distilled water which does the magic trick of bringing all my water parameters in line

 

It detoxifies ammonia and nitrates when both are added and below 1ppm with a regular dose. Some have doubled the dose with numbers greater than 1 but I have never done that so I cannot first hand tell you if it is safe to do that.

 

U can cut out the pre-heating step. Temp match the RO+tap water to the tank*, prime it, swirl so prime has a chance to do its thing, and add it to tank right away.

* I half fill bucket w room temp RO, add prime for the amount of tap water I'm going to add, and top up bucket straight from tap, manipulating hot/cold amounts to get the right final temp.