Your thoughts on prime. Is it a myth?

Frank the Fish guy posted this in a thread I made about myths and to be honest I still believed this one. Reading what he said makes sense to me.

Frankthefishguy it does make me wonder if I was getting decieved by seachem on purpose. I will have to do math but prime is very concentrated I thought it was cheapest due to its concentration? Again I haven't done math because I believed I needed prime. Update I did math below...

What are y'alls thoughts on this?

Here is his post......

Myth: Seachem Prime detoxifies ammonia and does not increase the time to cycle a tank.

What I have come to understand: Ammonia levels at 1 ppm are not toxic to fish provided that the pH is not high (above 8.0). So when we have a fish in cycle, or ammonia spike, and dose prime, we credit Prime for making the fish survive when in fact they would have been fine without it.

The fact that Prime claims it only works up to 1 ppm ammonia, and the fact that the ammonia still registers on a chemical test means that there is no observable effect of Prime on our fish or chemistry, other than it does eliminate chlorine/chloramine like other water conditions do (that don't claim to work on ammonia).

I have recently cycled a few tanks and found that Prime increases the time to cycle the tank. All the tanks where I added nothing achieved a full cycle sooner.

I don't have chlorine in my water since I have a well. I have gotten rid of all of my Prime as it does nothing for me.

I believe Seachem is being intentionally deceptive and therefore I have gotten rid of all of my other Seachem products as well.

 

Iminium salts have a double bond between carbon and nitrogen:

Iminium - Wikipedia

Ammonium thiosulfate doesn't even have a carbon.

100% irrelevant. Again I was simplifying everything. I'll just email them and ask haha what harm could it cause? I'll post back when they respond. I've been wrong before, wouldn't be the first time. But I honestly can't see any other way that this would work.

I also think they called it an iminium salt wrongfully, which is why I keep typing it in quotations. I highly doubt that they are referring to a true iminium salt

 

I don't know about all this to be honest. What I do know is for me Prime is useless, because I don't need it. One reason is it is not readily available for me to just go out and buy locally, but Tetra AquaSafe is, I can buy it in my local wally world.

I bought a bottle years ago, and found out it done nothing for me, so I used it up as a dechlorinator and didn't buy it again.

I can see why some might need it, but here is how I believe it is not necessary. No fancy talk or math just common sense.

1. Plan ahead before you start.
2. Know the parameters of your water source. Then do your best to use live stock that can easly adjust to these water parameters
3. Don't do fish in cycles.
4. While doing a fishless cycle use real pure ammonia, not fish food etc.
5. After the first cycle is finished, test it a couple of times with pure ammonia to make sure.
6. When adding the first fish, add them slowly, watch water parameters, and wait.
7. Well there is a lot involved from this point on about not crashing a cycle while doing water changes, and cleaning HOB, and canister filters. Like cleaning the sponges, etc in tank water instead of tap water.
8. Quarantine new live stock and plants.

Just wanted to throw this last thing in here, fish are going to die. It is regrettable and sad, but happens.

 

100% irrelevant. Again I was simplifying everything. I'll just email them and ask haha what harm could it cause? I'll post back when they respond. I've been wrong before, wouldn't be the first time. But I honestly can't see any other way that this would work.

I also think they called it an iminium salt wrongfully, which is why I keep typing it in quotations. I highly doubt that they are referring to a true iminium salt

How is it irrelevant? Iminium salts have a double bond between carbon and nitrogen. Ammonium thiosulfate doesn't even have a carbon molecule in it so how it can it be an iminium? Imines by definition contain C=N.

But I honestly can't see any other way that this would work.

Maybe it doesn't work? That would be the simpler explanation rather than resorting to contortionism.

 

Not sure where you determined 1ppm was harmless at ph of 7.

Here is the reference used by fisheries (US Dept. Agriculture / Fisheries). This is used in commercial fisheries and aquaculture.

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa031

In aquaculture, you don't use total ammonia, you use free ammonia, since the free ammonia is what kills. The number used here is .05 ppm (free ammonia) is harmful to fish based on the experiments done on fish in fisheries in controlled environments. They describe how at this level, gill damage can be observed. So as fish keepers we want a safety margin below that.

If you use the standard API test that many of us use, that measures total ammonia.

This paper gives the tables for converting the total ammonia to free ammonia as a function of pH and temperature. So you have to do the procedure that it describes to convert.

So, if I take an aquarium that right now has a pH of 7.0, and a temperature of 75 degrees F, the tables indicate that the conversion factor is .0052.

So that means that if in this hypothetical tank, we measure 1 ppm on the API test, that we have only .0052 free ammonia, which is 10x below the level where harm occurs to fish.

If on the other hand, the pH in our tank is 8.0, then the conversion factor is .05. That means if in that hypothetical tank, with the higher pH, we also read a 1 ppm ammonia on the API test, then we are at a level that causes gill damage to the fish.

Therefore 1 ppm ammonia as measured on the API test is safe at a pH of 7.0. Other values for your particular aquarium can be calculated similarly.

In all cases, where I thought I was adding prime to save my fish from ammonia during cycling, it turns out that by these calculations, the ammonia was not a problem. Therefore I was inadvertently giving credit to prime.

These are my own personal conclusions and I am showing you why I arrived at them.

 

Here is another reference from people who raise fish for a living showing that total ammonia of 1 ppm at 7.0 pH is harmless. The table makes for a good visual of the data to understand the space we are working within.

pH and Ammonia - What You Might Not Know | Blue Ridge Fish Hatchery

We can create similar tables at other temperatures too so we can visualize the space over pH and temperature using the factors in the table. Basically, as you go from 68 degrees F to 86 degrees F, the factor doubles.

So roughly, the free ammonia may be 2x higher at 86 F vs 68 F.

 

What about the people who’s pH is over 8? Is there any benefits with prime being used where 1ppm can be dangerous?

No
Prime has no measurable effect on free ammonia OR on total ammonia. It is neutral with regards to ammonia per chemical testing.

 

You know what doesn't get into my head?
WHY does anyone with a correctly cycled tank need something that binds ammonia in the first place?

Sometimes I would get ammonia spikes. For example, a two-year old dumped a whole bottle of food in a tank!
Also, power outages or filter failures caused ammonia spikes. Stuff like that happens to me. So I would does Prime as a 'tonic' to help the fish with ammonia. I was mistaken to do so I know understand.

 

Sometimes I would get ammonia spikes. For example, a two-year old dumped a whole bottle of food in a tank!
Also, power outages or filter failures caused ammonia spikes. Stuff like that happens to me. So I would does Prime as a 'tonic' to help the fish with ammonia. I was mistaken to do so I know understand.

Ok, that at least makes sense. Though, wow, a lot of unlikely coincidences and bad luck. I'm so sorry you had to endure this. (Sincerely, not meant ironic.)

 

Any hobbyist grade test will still register ammonia. Prime doesn't convert ammonia into "not-ammonia." It converts ammonia, which is bad for your fish, into ammonium, which is far less toxic, but still registers with your kits. That is also why Ph matters. At higher Ph, ammonium will convert back into ammonia.

Your bacterial colony will process both just fine.

I have tested Prime with the two kinds of tests at the same time. One test for free ammonia, the other total ammonia. Prime has no affect on the reading of either free or total ammonia.

What DOES happen is that at lower pH and temperature, the ratio of free ammonia to total ammonia is lower per the tables. This is independent of Prime.

For this reason I conclude that Prime has no affect on ammonia in either of its forms, and is therefore not providing any tonic to the fish to help them deal with ammonia spikes.

In fact, the reality is that fish are more tolerant of ammonia than I understood. So I was crediting Prime when it wasn't actually doing anything. The fish would have been fine without it. I just never tested that.



I mean most of us don't want to run tests that kill our fish, so we try to listen to other folks.

Disagreement between well-intentioned people is new knowledge in the making.

This is the healthy part of the internet.

 

Ugh man. I'll just type out the whole darned process :/ it'll settle things faster and i can just screenshot it when I verify with Seachem. Here is the FULL process.

Step 1: sodium dithionite reduction of water

S2O42- + 2 H2O → 2 HSO3− + 2 e− + 2 H+

Then

Na2S2O4 + O2 + H2O → NaHSO4 + NaHSO3

Sodium dithionite is the main ingredient in Prime. It reduces H2O to form sulphite, then consumes oxygen to form sodium bisulphate and sodium bisulphite.

Step 2: reduction of ammonium hydroxide to form ammonium bisulphate

Most of the sodium bisulphite consumes oxygen further to produce sodium bisulphate:

2 NaHSO3 + O2 → 2 NaHSO4

Prime consumes a LOT of oxygen.

Then, sodium bisulphate reacts with ammonium hydroxide (a natural byproduct of the equilibrium reaction of ammonia in water) to form ammonium bisulphate:

2 NaHSO4 + 2 NH4OH → (NH4)2SO4 + Na2SO4 + 2 H2O

Ammonium bisulphate is incredibly stable and cannot be decomposed unless heated to hundreds of degrees. This is the first mechanism by which NH4+ is removed from the following equilibrium reaction:

NH3 + H2O -- NH4+ + OH-

Step 3: equilibrium of sodium sulphate

Sodium sulphate is formed along with ammonium bisulphate, which reacts with water in the following reaction:

Na2SO4 + 2H2O -- 2NaOH + H2SO4

Step 4: sulphuric acid and sodium thiosulfate

Sodium thiosulfate, another ingredient in Prime and also a biproduct of sodium dithionite decay, is reduced by the sulphuric acid produced in step 3:

Na2S2O3 + H2SO4 → Na2SO4 + SO2 + S↓ + H2O

These products, sulphur dioxide and sulfur, are the main drivers for the end of the reaction process below.

Step 5: formation of ammonium sulphite

ammonium sulphite is formed in the presence of sulphur dioxide:

2NH3 + SO2 + H2O → (NH4)2SO3

NH3 is directly consumed here.

Step 6: formation of ammonia thiosulfate

ammonia thiosulfate is formed from ammonia sulfite and sulfur.

(NH4)2SO3 + S → (NH4)2S2O3.

SO, Overall, yes, it would seem that ammonia thiosulfate is indeed the salt in question AvalancheDave

 

My experience with prime is that it smells really bad. Besides that, not knowing better I ended up doing a fish in cycle. A couple days in I learned that I shouldn’t have put fish in yet, started testing, doing water changes, etc. I picked up a bottle of prime early on and started using it. The fish still died. I’m not convinced that it really helped the fish any. But now I have a few years worth of an awful smelling dechlorinator, that I most likely don’t need since I use a mix of RO and carbon filtered water. Oh well, live and learn.

 

The overall balance of the above equations is the formation of ammonium thiosulfate from sodium dithionite and sodium thiosulfate, which are the ingredients found in Prime. I've also explained why Prime consumes oxygen and I've also explained why it smells like sulphur

 

Awesome thread, love the detailed discussion and analysis, learning a lot just from reading through!

 

Ok, that at least makes sense. Though, wow, a lot of unlikely coincidences and bad luck. I'm so sorry you had to endure this. (Sincerely, not meant ironic.)

I have just been doing this for a long time (40 years)! So everything that can happen, eventually does happen!

Also when cycling a new tank with fish, or helping others, I used to use Prime thinking it would help the fish. Unfortunately, I now know that advice was wrong.

Worse, I have recently seen that when cycling new tanks, Prime extends the time it takes to achieve a cycle if you dose it as a tonic during that process. But no need to get lost in that. We shouldn't be using it as anything other than a decholorinator.

 

I was wrong about one thing, after typing the whole process out it seems that converting NH3 is more of a direct process and not a result of the equilibrium of ammonia in water but the result of many different equilibrium relationships

Seems to be a combination of pushing the reaction process to the NH4+ side but also converting the NH3 directly through several other reactions. A dual process I guess

Also my brain hurts from actually using it so feel free to correct any mistakes you see

 

You can use these two tests to test for both total ammonia and free ammonia.

Seachem - Ammonia Alert (for free ammonia: NH3)

API® | AMMONIA TEST KIT (for total ammonia MH3 + NH4+)


Prime causes no change to either reading.

 

How big of an impact is TEMP in the equation? Also as i said frys have very low tolerance to ammonia; i wonder if tropical fishes are in general more sensitive than what a hatchery breeds ?

Here is the reference used by fisheries (US Dept. Agriculture / Fisheries). This is used in commercial fisheries and aquaculture.

FA16/FA031: Ammonia in Aquatic Systems

In aquaculture, you don't use total ammonia, you use free ammonia, since the free ammonia is what kills. The number used here is .05 ppm (free ammonia) is harmful to fish based on the experiments done on fish in fisheries in controlled environments. They describe how at this level, gill damage can be observed. So as fish keepers we want a safety margin below that.

If you use the standard API test that many of us use, that measures total ammonia.

This paper gives the tables for converting the total ammonia to free ammonia as a function of pH and temperature. So you have to do the procedure that it describes to convert.

So, if I take an aquarium that right now has a pH of 7.0, and a temperature of 75 degrees F, the tables indicate that the conversion factor is .0052.

So that means that if in this hypothetical tank, we measure 1 ppm on the API test, that we have only .0052 free ammonia, which is 10x below the level where harm occurs to fish.

If on the other hand, the pH in our tank is 8.0, then the conversion factor is .05. That means if in that hypothetical tank, with the higher pH, we also read a 1 ppm ammonia on the API test, then we are at a level that causes gill damage to the fish.

Therefore 1 ppm ammonia as measured on the API test is safe at a pH of 7.0. Other values for your particular aquarium can be calculated similarly.

In all cases, where I thought I was adding prime to save my fish from ammonia during cycling, it turns out that by these calculations, the ammonia was not a problem. Therefore I was inadvertently giving credit to prime.

These are my own personal conclusions and I am showing you why I arrived at them.

 

How big of an impact is TEMP in the equation? Also as i said frys have very low tolerance to ammonia; i wonder if tropical fishes are in general more sensitive than what a hatchery breeds ?

Temperature is a parameter in the tables. Roughly, going from 68 to 88 F doubles the concentration of free ammonia, making the high temp 2x more deadly than the low for the same pH and total ammonia reading.

 

Most of the sodium bisulphite consumes oxygen further to produce sodium bisulphate:

2 NaHSO3 + O2 → 2 NaHSO4

Prime consumes a LOT of oxygen.

Perhaps that is the mechanism responsible for why I observe that it slows the cycle process? Free oxygen is a very valuable and scare commodity in the aquarium.

Thank you for that analysis.

From your analysis, this consumption of oxygen would be happening, even if there is no Chlorine to remove. The oxygen consuming reaction happens even after all of the Chlorine has left the tank. Correct?

That means that adding Prime unnecessarily is consuming free oxygen for no purpose.

 

Perhaps that is the mechanism responsible for why I observe that it slows the cycle process? Free oxygen is a very valuable and scare commodity in the aquarium.

Thank you for that analysis.

From your analysis, this consumption of oxygen would be happening, even if there is no Chlorine to remove. The oxygen consuming reaction happens even after all of the Chlorine has left the tank. Correct?

That means that adding Prime unnecessarily is consuming free oxygen for no purpose.

Yup. I still gotta verify with Seachem that this mechanism is accurate but yea oxygen will be consumed by the ingredients in Prime just be interacting with water no matter what

 

Yup. I still gotta verify with Seachem that this mechanism is accurate but yea oxygen will be consumed by the ingredients in Prime just be interacting with water no matter what

This could potentially be a big effect on a tank correct losing oxygen? Especially if dosing the 5x normal it says to detoxify bad tank or to cycle.

 

This could potentially be a big effect on a tank correct? Especially if dosing the 5x normal it says to detoxify bad tank or to cycle.

Ive overdosed and was fine with the aeration I have but yea it does consume a lot of oxygen for sure. I think most people are aware of that though, I've seen that said pretty commonly on Fishlore

 

Frank the Fish guy posted this in a thread I made about myths and to be honest I still believed this one. Reading what he said makes sense to me.

Frankthefishguy it does make me wonder if I was getting decieved by seachem on purpose. I will have to do math but prime is very concentrated I thought it was cheapest due to its concentration? Again I haven't done math because I believed I needed prime. Update I did math below...

What are y'alls thoughts on this?

Here is his post......

Myth: Seachem Prime detoxifies ammonia and does not increase the time to cycle a tank.

What I have come to understand: Ammonia levels at 1 ppm are not toxic to fish provided that the pH is not high (above 8.0). So when we have a fish in cycle, or ammonia spike, and dose prime, we credit Prime for making the fish survive when in fact they would have been fine without it.

The fact that Prime claims it only works up to 1 ppm ammonia, and the fact that the ammonia still registers on a chemical test means that there is no observable effect of Prime on our fish or chemistry, other than it does eliminate chlorine/chloramine like other water conditions do (that don't claim to work on ammonia).

I have recently cycled a few tanks and found that Prime increases the time to cycle the tank. All the tanks where I added nothing achieved a full cycle sooner.

I don't have chlorine in my water since I have a well. I have gotten rid of all of my Prime as it does nothing for me.

I believe Seachem is being intentionally deceptive and therefore I have gotten rid of all of my other Seachem products as well.

I only use prime on wc for the chlorine in my tap because like u stated it may only work on small amounts of ammonia and from my understanding it does not remove or detoxify it but it binds it for a small amount of time so I never really understood why so many ppl on this forum preach the use of prime for anything other than chlorine or chloramine removal

 

I think AvalancheDave ran some test to test whether or not Prime lowers the oxygen level and if I am remembering correctly he experienced negligible drops in oxygen even when adding massive amounts of it.

This is a subject that comes up often. I don't think we will ever get all the way to the bottom of if it works as advertised. I am not sure but I think it was angelcraze that contacted Seachem for clarification. The message she got back from them was posted in the previous thread discussing this same subject.

I do know that I will continue recommending it to folks that are doing a fish in cycle. I never recommend using it instead of doing a water change to keep the ammonia down to safer levels though. Fresh clean water will always be the first defense against ammonia poisoning and then Prime to detox the little bit that is left AFTER the water change.

It is not a miracle product. It will do nothing to help cycle a tank. It is simply a concentrated water conditioner designed to remove chlorine/chloramines and some heavy metals. In that it is just like most of the other water conditioners. The reason I recommend Prime over other conditioners is because it is designed to change the ammonia to something that is safer for the fish. I don't know what that something is. At one point I decided to trust that this product does what it is designed to do.

There are very few products I feel comfortable recommending. Prime is one, nitra-zorb is another and it never hurts to have a carton of aquarium salt on hand for emergencies.

 

I think AvalancheDave ran some test to test whether or not Prime lowers the oxygen level and if I am remembering correctly he experienced negligible drops in oxygen even when adding massive amounts of it.

This is a subject that comes up often. I don't think we will ever get all the way to the bottom of if it works as advertised. I am not sure but I think it was angelcraze that contacted Seachem for clarification. The message she got back from them was posted in the previous thread discussing this same subject.

I do know that I will continue recommending it to folks that are doing a fish in cycle. I never recommend using it instead of doing a water change to keep the ammonia down to safer levels though. Fresh clean water will always be the first defense against ammonia poisoning and then Prime to detox the little bit that is left AFTER the water change.

It is not a miracle product. It will do nothing to help cycle a tank. It is simply a concentrated water conditioner designed to remove chlorine/chloramines and some heavy metals. In that it is just like most of the other water conditioners. The reason I recommend Prime over other conditioners is because it is designed to change the ammonia to something that is safer for the fish. I don't know what that something is. At one point I decided to trust that this product does what it is designed to do.

There are very few products I feel comfortable recommending. Prime is one, nitra-zorb is another and it never hurts to have a carton of aquarium salt on hand for emergencies.

I'm fairly new so I had not read about this yet. But I am glad I got all the information even if you old timers had to repeat yourselves.

Thanks.

 

Prime changes ammonia into ammonium which isn’t toxic to fish. The API ammonia kit detects ammonia and ammonium, so there is no observable difference because the non-toxic form still shows on test. This is correct, right?

According to SeaChem.com "Prime® does not remove ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate from the system. It simply binds with those compounds making them harmless to the inhabitants and still bioavailable to the beneficial bacteria. "

 

According to SeaChem.com "Prime® does not remove ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate from the system. It simply binds with those compounds making them harmless to the inhabitants and still bio available to the beneficial bacteria. "

... but, the ammonia in both its forms will still register at the same level using chemical tests, and the ammonia level at which Prime works is only at low levels where the fish are fine anyway, and it consumes some of the free oxygen in the water, and the more you add, the more oxygen is consumed.

 

WHY does anyone with a correctly cycled tank need something that binds ammonia in the first place?

I'm not 100%, but wanted to answer this while i'm reading the thread for now. I believe that chloramines (which most municipalities use) is a bond of chlorine and ammonia. This bond allows chlorine to be effective for much longer (in the pipes) instead of evaporating in 24hrs.

When a dechlorinator that doesn't neutralize ammonia (or make it safe for the fish) is used, only the chlorine is treated and ammonia is set free. Still not enough to cause any harm in a pH under 7.8 and a regular tropical temperature.

And here's a question
What about if your municipality uses something to raise pH (like phosphates?) but hardness is still low like a kh/gh of 2 degrees and 40-80 TDS? Does total ammonia still have the same concentration of free ammonia?

 

This could potentially be a big effect on a tank correct losing oxygen? Especially if dosing the 5x normal it says to detoxify bad tank or to cycle.

And this get into another myth.

Myth: There is plenty of oxygen in the aquarium and we don't need to test for it.

What I have come to understand: Free oxygen at a level of 2 ppm kills fish, at 4 ppm they can survive but are stressed and sluggish, at 6 ppm they are good. In nature, highly oxygenated streams have 8-9 ppm and this is hard to do in an aquarium. Surface motion is the key here. So this is a pretty small range over which the levels go from stressed but surviving (4 ppm) to good (6ppm). So in a 10 gallon aquarium, that 2 ppm of oxygen that means the difference between stressed and normal is 2 milligrams of oxygen per litre, and 10 gallons is 38 litres, so that means 76 milligrams of 02 makes the difference in a 10 gallon aquarium.



Source: https://cdn.sera.de/fileadmin/user_upload/manuals/sourcefiles/04914_sera_O2-Test_2015-06_INT.pdf


How many drops of prime do we have to add to a 10 gallon aquarium to use up 76 milligrams of 02?

 

Ok I've read the whole thread. I do know that free ammonia poisoning is negligible to nothing in a pH under 8 and regular tropical temps. But I use municipal water and do large water changes, so I feel I have to do something about chlorine. (Even though now i'm thinking I could aerate for 24hrs and it will be fine). So anyway, with all my tanks and the amount of water I change, i'm using Seachem Safe now (powder). I don't think I can get a cheaper dechlorinator.

jake37 This drove me crazy trying to figure out what to do for fry. I tried water changing with the parent's tank water for the 1st week or so, but idk if that helped any. I would rather not use anything at all in the water, so maybe allowing chlorine to evaporate is the best, but again, not sure what level of ammonia fry can tolerate safely. I thought it was the same for fry and adult fish?

But also I have the fry tank warmer than the adult's tank, so maybe that's why they are more sensitive. Also it's so easy to overfeed the little fry and if i'm not doing 2 x water changes a day, it can get really messy really quickly.

 

So for the lucky ones like me who have tap water at 8.2 after it off-gases. Am I reading correctly that both sides of this argument agree that prime is actually doing something for me if I happened to have a spike? I have fully cycled tanks so I'm not really concerned about ammonia spikes unless I do something dumb, but I hand out prime pretty freely when someone local asks me for help and they have ammonia in their tank.

I'll second that this is a great thread and I learned a lot. Thank you for reiterating an earlier thread so I could see it.

 

So for the lucky ones like me who have tap water at 8.2 after it off-gases. Am I reading correctly that both sides of this argument agree that prime is actually doing something for me if I happened to have a spike?

No. Prime has no measurable effect on ammonia levels at 8.2 pH (or any level). This can be tested using simple tests. The same amount of free ammonia AND total ammonia are present before and after adding Prime.

The issue regarding the toxicity of ammonia comes up because that is why I was crediting Prime for doing something. Basically we would add Prime because we saw an ammonia spike. The fish survive and we credit prime. In fact it did nothing.


It's like this: I have a tree that grows in the front yard and scares away all the Lions. But wait, there are no Lions here. See, it works!

At 8.0 pH, total ammonia levels begin to harm fish at 1 ppm. So we all know what to do right? Change the water to dilute the ammonia. Dosing with Prime, thinking that it will save your fish will not work and your fish will be harmed. Please don't allow that to be a take away from this thread!

 

When a dechlorinator that doesn't neutralize ammonia (or make it safe for the fish) is used, only the chlorine is treated and ammonia is set free.

API's dechlorinator doesn't make any ammonia neutralization claims, and there are instructions on the bottle for treating chloramines.

 

It's like this: I have a tree that grows in the front yard and scares away all the Lions. But wait, there are no Lions here. See, it works!

Alright I get it. At 8.2, I start to have some lions in my front yard. Whether the tree works or not is still to be argued.

 

API's dechlorinator doesn't make any ammonia neutralization claims, and there are instructions on the bottle for treating chloramines.

Ok for a dechlorinator that doesn't make any claims at all for ammonia then. Whatever Seachem claims...if not neutralize (make safe for fish).

When a dechlorinator that doesn't neutralize ammonia (or make it safe for the fish) is used, only the chlorine is treated and ammonia is set free.

 

What makes this difficult, is that there is intentional deception going on here. It's not simply tricky chemistry that may be hard to understand. There is a mind at work here. That mind is selling high profit margin products that the buyer does not need. This is an unregulated industry. We are the regulation actually.

Everyone who has used Prime thinking that they are making water safe for fish while their chemical tests say that the ammonia is still present, is harming their fish. It does nothing, and in fact is reducing the oxygen which is harming your fish.

You are being lied to to get you to buy some liquid for very very high profit margin that harms your fish.

I have come to understand this now. I apologize to anyone who read one of my threads where I suggested using Prime to treat ammonia spikes. Or worse yet, use it during a fish-in cycle. This may have killed your fish to do so. I claim however that I believed what Seachem said, but now I realize I should not have.

If Prime works as your good value dechlorinator that is fine. But realize you are buying from some folks who are actively deceiving people in an unregulated industry. There are other brands available. Something to consider, since we are the regulators ourselves.

 

In older buildings copper and lead piping can cause contamination. And a number of others which should not be in your water.

Shouldn't be a problem if your water treatment plant has an anti-corrosion plan.

In fact, the reality is that fish are more tolerant of ammonia than I understood. So I was crediting Prime when it wasn't actually doing anything. The fish would have been fine without it. I just never tested that.

I mean most of us don't want to run tests that kill our fish, so we try to listen to other folks.

Yes, that's why I advocate experiments with controls. People think any level of nitrite is toxic and credit Prime with preventing nitrite toxicity when in fact studies have found some species can survive over 200 mg/L. It's also highly dependent on chloride levels.

I'm in favor of using daphnia for testing. I don't think I'd be comfortable killing fish.

SO, Overall, yes, it would seem that ammonia thiosulfate is indeed the salt in question

But still not an iminium salt?

Why do products that contain sodium thiosulfate not claim they detoxify ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate? Seems like they'd be even better at it than Prime.

I think AvalancheDave ran some test to test whether or not Prime lowers the oxygen level and if I am remembering correctly he experienced negligible drops in oxygen even when adding massive amounts of it.

Yes, 40 mL of Prime into a 10 gal tank at ~80 F:




And I'm at nearly 6,000' elevation.

This is a subject that comes up often. I don't think we will ever get all the way to the bottom of if it works as advertised.

Well, I've said before that online discussions aren't likely to reach any sort of resolution. To quote HYDRA scientist Daniel Whitehall, "Discovery requires experimentation."

There's an ion chromatography lab nearby. I could prepare an ammonia solution and divide it into two samples. One receives Prime and the other doesn't. Any change in ammonia levels due to binding or other mechanisms should be apparent. This is an option for nitrite as well.

Another option is to use Daphnia.

What I have come to understand: Free oxygen at a level of 2 ppm kills fish, at 4 ppm they can survive but are stressed and sluggish, at 6 ppm they are good. In nature, highly oxygenated streams have 8-9 ppm and this is hard to do in an aquarium. Surface motion is the key here. So this is a pretty small range over which the levels go from stressed but surviving (4 ppm) to good (6ppm). So in a 10 gallon aquarium, that 2 ppm of oxygen that means the difference between stressed and normal is 2 milligrams of oxygen per litre, and 10 gallons is 38 litres, so that means 76 milligrams of 02 makes the difference in a 10 gallon aquarium.

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Source: https://cdn.sera.de/fileadmin/user_upload/manuals/sourcefiles/04914_sera_O2-Test_2015-06_INT.pdf

How many drops of prime do we have to add to a 10 gallon aquarium to use up 76 milligrams of 02?

Streams can achieve 8-9 mg/L since most are cold. If I can maintain 6.2 mg/L at 77 F at 6,000' elevation I think 8 mg/L in a cold water tank at sea level would be no problem.

 

Shouldn't be a problem if your water treatment plant has an anti-corrosion plan.

I'm talking so old piping that it corroded for decades before those plans where set in motion.

 

I'm talking so old piping that it corroded for decades before those plans where set in motion.

The anti-corrosion plans are intended for old lead pipes installed underground and iron pipes in homes decades ago but also copper pipes in more modern homes.

 

So prime doesn't work when it comes to detoxifying the 3 forms of nitrogen? And stability isn't a real bacterial supplement? Darn...