Prime

[lurcher]

Can PRIME give false ammonia readings and what are the pros and cons of using PRIME for water changes?

 

[Bradders]

Hi @lurcher -are you talking about Seachem Prime? Regardless, here is what I understand about Water Conditioners - which is a little subjective.

• From my research, Water Conditioners (despite claims) do not address ammonia, nitrite or nitrate in the water—only Chlorine and Chloramine.
• There is debate about the chemicals in water conditioners. Some will say that Sodium Thiosulfate should be used. If it's not Sodium Thiosulfate, you have to take more care with dosing and also not use it with fish medication.
• There are concerns about the chemical usage of Aloe Vera in some of the Water Conditioners as it could be problematic for the fish, despite what the branding says.

As you can see, it's a bit of a minefield and causes some stress! I have settled on API Water Conditioner as it's sodium thiosulfate-based. not known to include Aloe Vera, and thus far, it has done well for six months.

Overall, all water conditioners will address Chlorine and Chloramine successfully, but you just need to act with caution and follow dosing very carefully - especially with non Sodium Thiosulfate based products.

 

[John q]

Can PRIME give false ammonia readings

Yes. Here's Seachem's explanation as to why.

A Nessler based kit will not read ammonia properly if you are using Prime®... it will look "off scale", sort of a muddy brown (incidentally a Nessler kit will not work with any other products similar to Prime®). A salicylate based kit can be used, but with caution. Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime® complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime®), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away. However, the best solution is to use our MultiTest™ Ammonia kit; it uses a gas exchange sensor system which is not affected by the presence of Prime® or other similar products. It also has the added advantage that it can detect the more dangerous free ammonia and distinguish it from total ammonia (total ammonia is both free ammonia and non-toxic ionized forms of ammonia).

And/or.

Prime® works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramine minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime® will not halt your cycling process.

I am going to assume that you were using a liquid based reagent test kit (Nessler based, silica). Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. You can avoid this by using our MultiTest™ Ammonia kit (not affected by reducing agents) or you can wait to test, Prime® dissipates from your system within 24 hours.

what are the pros and cons of using PRIME

Pros: it's economical. A little goes a long way.

 

[lurcher]

BRJP1,and John q thank you both for advice.

 

[_Maq_]

I think we should accept as the most recommendable way storing the water for at least a day in some separate vessel. Temperature, content of all gasses (O2, CO2, Cl2) on desired levels. Thiosulfate is a strong reducing agent and cannot be considered harmless as such.

 

[X3NiTH]

I think we should accept as the most recommendable way storing the water for at least a day in some separate vessel. Temperature, content of all gasses (O2, CO2, Cl2) on desired levels. Thiosulfate is a strong reducing agent and cannot be considered harmless as such.

I used to do this since forever until there were major road works in the area diverting water supplies and rebuilding the supply network, I knew nothing of Chloramination at this time, 24hr typical offgas before use and every water change became a death sentence for fish, it took a long while to figure out what was happening, in the interim I swapped to using remineralised RO/DI and the problem went away. The RO unit I use has an inline TDS meter that reads my input and output ppm and I can now tell when my supply is being chloraminated by the 10-15ppm jump from the usual 35ppm, currently with all the wet weather it’s down to 28ppm.

Chloramine will straight up ruin your day if it’s present in your water supply and you don’t treat for it before use. Always check with your water supplier to see if they Chloraminate the water supply, either persistently or in emergency.

 

[MichaelJ]

Chloramine will straight up ruin your day if it’s present in your water supply and you don’t treat for it before use. Always check with your water supplier to see if they Chloraminate the water supply, either persistently or in emergency.

Towards the end of the live cycle of my RODI cartridges - that is, when I see a spike in TDS - I will usually use a bit of Prime in my RO water, just to be safe. Otherwise I don't as my TDS usually hovers around 1 ppm before degradation is noticeable.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[AlecF]

Aloe vera killed most of my pencilfish. It's dangerous and the effect should be included on the bottle by law.

 

[Bradders]

I used to do this since forever until there were major road works in the area diverting water supplies and rebuilding the supply network, I knew nothing of Chloramination at this time, 24hr typical offgas before use and every water change became a death sentence for fish, it took a long while to figure out what was happening. Chloramine will straight up ruin your day if it’s present in your water supply and you don’t treat for it before use.

Aloe vera killed most of my pencilfish. It's dangerous and the effect should be included on the bottle by law.

I agree with all the above. In most cases, a gas-off might work, but you don't control the water supply, so that can quickly become a nightmare. And Aloe vera has had some devastating effects for some.