Seachem Safe in small dose?

Has anyone here used seachem safe? It is advertised as a powdered concentrated form of prime which would be useful for me as I can burn through a bottle of prime pretty quickly in my fish room between water changes and shipping.

Anyway I ordered a bottle of the stuff earlier this week and was mostly wondering how much of it you would use to properly treat a five gallon bucket of water. I know with prime even though it isn't listed on the bottle it breaks down to 2 drops/gallon.

Safe I believe is labelled for even larger "batches" of water. I'm sure I can calculate on my own how much I'd need to treat 5 gallons once I have it in hand so to speak but how easy it to work with in smaller doses? Prime is liquid so it's easy to just use an eye dropper to work with smaller doses but as a powder I'm worried that it might be a little harder to measure out the right amount.

Anyone have any experience with the product or tips for using it in smaller doses?

 

I have been using Safe for almost 2years now. They say add a quarter teaspoon per 10 gallons, so you need a one eights measuring spoon for 5 Gs.

I love it because I "never" run out, as I always did with Prime.

 

Thanks seems easy enough

 

I don't have as many or as large tanks as you, but I open my Safe container almost every other day, and sometimes every day, every time there is a strong whiff of sulfate smell emanating from it. I remember reading a post by someone who ditched his entire container because of it. (Wish he ditched in my backyard.)

Seriously speaking, I am not offended by that smell. Rightly or wrongly I interpret it as my Safe is still fresh. Can you live with that smell?

 

Well it's not like prime smells likes roses and fresh baked bread and I have that open all the time. If it gets to be an issue I'll just transfer some it to a smaller container for short term use and that should cut down any odor.

 

It is not that bad, unless you have very sensitive nose.

 

Well I was digging around on the seachem website and it's saying 1/4tsp will treat approximately 300 gallons of water

 

My container says
DIRECTIONS:.to remove
Chlorine: use 1 tsp for each 200 gallons
Chloramine: 1 tsp for each 250 gallons
Ammonia : 1 tsp for each 40 gallons

The last words in directions 1 kg treats up to 200 000 gallons.

Please let me know if I am overdoing it.

 

This is what I pulled from the seachem website

"Use 1.25 g (1/4 tsp.) for every 1,250 L (300 gallons) as needed to reduce chlorine and chloramine or use 1.25 g (1/4 tsp.) for every 300 L (75 gallons) for ammonia."

 

I guess I am overdoing it following the directions on the Safe container?

 

That same page also says

"NOTE. These directions supersede all other prior packaging."

I wonder if there was some sort of error in printing the labels or if the stuff is just stronger than they realized.

Or maybe they just reformulated it and needed to get the word out.
Jomolager you're right that stuff is pungent lol

My packaging has the same dosage rates as the seachem website. The smallest measuring spoon I could locate today was for 1/16tsp (which is still enough for 75 gallons). I'll have to see what I can come up with some of the smaller scoops I have laying around in my fish room to see if I can dial in the dosage for a 5 gallon bucket.

If that fails I'll just have to move to a bigger mixing container. I use a large water pump to move water from the buckets into the tanks anyway so no big deal if I need to start making larger batches. Might be time to finally pick up a 50 gallon barrel lol.

Edit: Well my rough math skills would indicate I need approximately 1/160th of a tsp to handle 7.5 gallons of water (or 5 gallons at 1.5x the normal dose which I'm comfortable with). The smallest scoop I have is ~1/32tsp. So about 1/5 of that should do the trick. It's a tiny tiny dose for sure.

 

Welcome to the world of SAFE! Enjoy! I really like the fact that I don't need to worry about running out.

 

Lol yeah it'll take me quite a while to work through 60000 gallons of water lol

 

What about ammonia? My directions say to use 1 tsp or 5 gr for each 40 gallons of tap water.

I use 1/4 tsp for 10 gallons,
1/8 tsp for 5 gallons.

I would use 1/8 + 1/16 =3/16 for 7.5 gallons

No?

 

My instructions are saying use 1.25g (1/4tsp) for every 75 gallons for ammonia.

Which even at a 1.5x dose is still 1/40 tsp for 5 gallons.

Edit: I just emailed seachem to ask them about the discrepancy in our respective dosing instructions.

 

Thank you for doing it. Could it be that your SAFE is anewer and stronger version?

 

That would be my guess, that they simply reformulated it into a stronger version.

On the plus side that's means the new version will last even longer than equivalent amount of the old version, but on the negative it's even harder to correctly dose small volumes lol

 

Almost two years ago mine was a few bucks under $30 for one kg on Amazon. Now I kg cost a tiny bit more on Amazon.

 

I've read that the "proper" way to dose Safe is to dose it by the actual chlorine/chloramine content of the water, rather than the volume of the water. That might be the discrepancy in the instructions.

I can't speak from experience, as I haven't (yet) gotten into the kind of water volume that makes Safe worthwhile. I think I've heard that you can buy Prime in gallon jugs? That'll be as far as I'm ever likely to get.

 

This is the response I received from seachem this morning.

"Hello Eric,

Thank you for your email. Safe has gone through slight reformulations, but primarily the instructions on the bottle changed to accommodate changes in the average chlorine and chloramine concentration of tap water. We would recommend that you follow the instructions that are printed on the bottle, as the instructions on the website reflect the most current formulation.

Thank you,
Seachem Support 10256"