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How does Prime work?


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31 minutes ago, CT_ said:

NH4 + is also one proton different so I find it plausible that NH2- is also not toxic to fish.  My understanding came from a best guess during a water cooler conversation from a chemist I work with filtered through my thick skull, which is why I'm skeptical of my beliefs.

agreed on the difference of one proton, I have never heard of NH2- as an ion stable in water. There is an aminyl radical which is NH2 with an unpaired electron, but that has no possible way of surviving in aqueous solution. The same would be true for NH2-

Edited by DShelton
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I suspect the reason a lot of companies are very tight lipped about exactly what is in their fancier conditioners (AKA, not just a concentrated solution of a chlorine reducing salt) is because A) they have something that works, and don't want to share it with their competitors or B) they are using a competitors patented chemical cocktail within their own, and don't want anyone to know about it.  

I'd be a much happier person if I knew exactly what was in it, so I could better know the chemistry going on.  But I use API Stress Coat as my regular dechlorinator, and it has the same mystery box of what they use for dechlorination, but now with Aloe Vera.

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1 minute ago, tonyjuliano said:

Here's an interesting factoid foe everyone...

Seachem states that the results obtained from using Prime, or their Amguard product cannot be tested using the API ammonia test kit.

They claim that the API kit raises pH in the test sample to a level that a false positive for ammonia is generated.

I'm not a chemist (but I am an engineer with a masters degree in wastewater management), but this makes little sense to me.

Willing to be "schooled", please only educated chemists reply.

I do know testing for NH-3,4 after you dose prime will give 'false positives'. Other than that, I've an undergrad in Computer Forensics and working on an M.S. for Information Security,  so that's NOT very helpful with chemistry haha. 

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1 hour ago, tonyjuliano said:

They claim that the API kit raises pH in the test sample to a level that a false positive for ammonia is generated.

This is absolutely true. On the API website for their ammonia test kit, the mention the test kit uses the salicylate method.

from nemi.gov (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiB94m8q8LwAhWYLc0KHQPtDkYQFjAFegQIBhAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nemi.gov%2Fmethods%2Fmethod_pdf%2F8908%2F&usg=AOvVaw22f-8IFzGwBzKGu6y_bxmJ😞

Ammonia reacts with salicylate and hypochlorite ions in the presence of ferricyanide ions to form the salicylic acid analog of indophenol blue (Reardon and others, 1966; Patton and Crouch, 1977; Harfmann and Crouch, 1989). The resulting color is directly proportional to the concentration of ammonia present.

 

The second solution of the API test kit is sodium hydroxide and sodium hypochlorite (their MSDS shows this). The hydroxide raises the pH enough that the ammonia/ammonium equilibrium is driven 100% free ammonia. The hypochlorite is part of the second solution as a reagent for the ferricyanide/salicylate solution 1 to react with the free ammonia in the presence of the indicator to give the color for comparison.

Edited by DShelton
added the right link to the paper instead of the one on my machine :( corrected the reagent bottle numbering rockmongler pointed out below
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34 minutes ago, RockMongler said:

I'd be a much happier person if I knew exactly what was in it, so I could better know the chemistry going on.  But I use API Stress Coat as my regular dechlorinator, and it has the same mystery box of what they use for dechlorination, but now with Aloe Vera.

I do just that. When I need to dechlorinate water, I use reagent grade sodium thiosulphate to do so.

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Just now, tonyjuliano said:

So, this raises an interesting question...

How does one then test for continued ammonia presence?

Do other test methods demonstrate the same anomaly?

If not, which one?

https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-Laboratories-Ammonia-Alert-Monitor/dp/B007R52CZ2/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1SB55IZFIQ38W&dchild=1&keywords=seachem+ammonia+alert&qid=1620757395&sprefix=seachem+ammonia%2Caps%2C317&sr=8-4

 

Is a test for free ammonia. They suction cup in your tank (I stick it in the portion of the tank behind my matten filters and have been using them for 20+ years) and continuously monitor. They do have a lifetime and have to be replaced every three or four months.

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Yeah, bottle #2 of the API ammonia test kit is sodium hydroxide (a good, strong base that will push your pH sky high, and is also used as drain cleaner) and Sodium Hypochlorite (aka, the active ingredient in bleach, that will also push your pH sky high).  It will 100% force all ammonium/ammonia into being ammonia only.  

Remember, ammonium needs to be in higher concentrations to be harmful to fish compared to ammonia, in the same way that nitrite has a much much lower lethal dose than nitrate, enough that many of us with planted tanks will specifically pump in extra nitrates as plant food.  You can have quite a bit of ammonium in the water and not have any particular adverse effect on fish, but if your pH gets high enough, it will become ammonia, which is very bad.  I know I've read horror stories of an acidic tank getting a fairly large water change with basic water pushing the pH so high, that all the not-super-deadly ammonium moved to deadly ammonia.   So, the API test kit will probably give you a worse reading than something that doesn't force all the ammonium/ammonia into just ammonia, but I think it's still probably a good metric to know.  

https://apifishcare.com/pdfs/products-us/freshwater-master-test-kit/api-ammonia-solution-2-safety-data-sheet.pdf

https://apifishcare.com/pdfs/products-us/freshwater-master-test-kit/api-ammonia-safety-data-sheet.pdf 

if you want to look at chemicals yourself.

4 minutes ago, DShelton said:

I do just that. When I need to dechlorinate water, I use reagent grade sodium thiosulphate to do so.

I live in East Texas, and I'd rather have something that chellates the metals out of solution as well (I know some of the rocks that come into contact with the aquifers/lakes my water is supplied from have plenty of heavy metals, especially arsenic), and I'm a bit lazy, so I just go with a well regarded, pre-mixed solution, rather than making my own sodium thiosulfate/EDTA solution (I have Tetra Aquasafe and API Stress Coat that I alternate using between changes).

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3 minutes ago, RockMongler said:

Yeah, bottle #2 of the API ammonia test kit is sodium hydroxide

right on, i got my bottles backwards. I looked at those msds also, just fipped them around. The salicylate/ferricyanide/indicator is in the first one.  cheers!

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5 hours ago, Solidus1833 said:

While I've not taken a chemistry class in almost 20 years, I suspect it is to exchange ions maybe? 

If this test is valid, which it very well may be, wouldn't Seachem legally 'have' to rebrand or change the label for PRime? I wonder if @Dean or @Cory could give this subject a good lookover for a livestream. Its all very interesting. 

There is no governing body that regulates the fish industry, at least not chemicals. Companies can claim anything they want without fear of legal issues.

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5 hours ago, CT_ said:

I'd be careful with this source.  This guy clearly has a beef with sea chem and their prime product specifically.  There's lots of interesting stuff there that's food for thought but this guy is vague in a lot of places that make me skeptical too.

You and a few other people I come a cross believe Dave has a beef with Seachem but I don't completely understand why. Yes he does pick on some Seachem products but he also picks on other companies products as well.

I'll mention Prime since that is what this thread is about. He clearly states that he believes that Prime works great detoxifying Chlorine and Chloramine but doesn't agree that is possible to do anything to Ammonia, Nitrites or Nitrates. He actually states that people should "not" stop using this product.

He also clearly uses readings from Seachems dot test products so he must agree that they work as advertised. 

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5 hours ago, DShelton said:

I am familiar with the website, and while I do agree with a lot of his science, I wish he was not quite so antagonistic, and would provide the citations for what he is referencing. I have asked him for some of it. Hopefully he will share it.

I don't see why he wouldn't. To me it doesn't seem he trying to hide anything.

He even states that he kept all of his expirements very easy to replicate at home if someone was skeptical of his conclusions. 

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4 hours ago, DShelton said:

Is a test for free ammonia. They suction cup in your tank (I stick it in the portion of the tank behind my matten filters and have been using them for 20+ years) and continuously monitor. They do have a lifetime and have to be replaced every three or four months

So, if one uses the Seachem products to manage ammonia, you have to rely on another of their products to confirm?

Thanks for the info, but for me this is just confirmation of my reluctance to use chemical water conditioners of any kind.

I’ll keep in using my preferred “natural” methods.  Water changes, RODI water when necessary, zeolite, etc. 

I’m also fortunate that I don’t even have to de-chlorinate my tap water, no chlorine or chloramines in my public supply. (I live in central New Jersey and our public utility draws its water from deep well aquifers).

That said, our water is on the alkaline side (usually 7.8 pH), but I’ve found that almost all the freshwater fish that I keep can acclimate, so I don’t play the pH alteration game.

I’ve been keeping fish for many years, and only had to deal with a serious ammonia spike one time (a result of my own neglect, a long time ago) and water changes and zeolite took care of it.

I have a some Walstadt method tanks that run without a filter or heater, require a water change like one or two times a year, and just keep on going perfectly. 

Lately, I’ve been considering setting up a “high-tech” affair, with fancy “soil”, lighting and CO2, but just because I’m curious.

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15 minutes ago, Medkow74 said:

I don't see why he wouldn't. To me it doesn't seem he trying to hide anything.

He even states that he kept all of his expirements very easy to replicate at home if someone was skeptical of his conclusions. 

Yup, I am not critical of his experimental methods, or suggesting he is hiding anything, and I agree one should be able to reproduce most of his results at home with a minimal amount of effort and cost. My only 'criticism', if you want to see it that way, is in some places his writing style comes across as antagonistic. It is not that way to me, but I understand how it could seem that way to someone new to the hobby or with less understanding of the chemistry. I posted a note to him (the only contact method I saw) asking if he had copies of the Raman spectroscopy that I could look at since I do not have access to a spectrometer, and that would definitively put to bed the argument of what is and is not in the product since the SDS (I am old, and the MSDS format is better) is not very forthcoming. I would also like to read some of the published papers that he references, but doea not cite.

All good my friend.

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20 minutes ago, Medkow74 said:

Oh and sorry if I'm nitpicking but MSDS were all changed to SDS back in 2015. Lol sorry. 

😇

Calling them MSDS is how you know you are dealing with someone with real life experience! 😉 I am old, I call them MSDS all the time, and my students sometimes look at me like "what?!" 2015 is like yesterday.

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Not to go totally off-topic, but Poly-Filter has been around for decades and supposedly removes ammonia from the water. Many wholesalers include chunks of it in the fish they ship to protect the fish from ammonia in the shipping process. I'm assuming there's simply a sprayed on coating of some sort on a foam matrix that then gets released in the water. Perhaps whatever they use as a coating is also what Prime uses? It's fairly expensive stuff and wholesalers aren't noted for wasting money on stuff that doesn't work. You see quite a few fish shipped with chunks of Poly-Filter though. 

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Thank you @DShelton, this has been educational.

I originally was a person who figured you could explain the ammonia question away by some catalyst that I was not aware of which would cause the NH3 to become NH4, and remain stable regardless of pH/temp. I was first picturing something like how EDTA works... but then reasoned that possibly a reaction increased the acidity of the water? Lol, I actually tried to struggle through the probable mechanism in an old post on here where we were talking about how a reduction reaction could potentially temporarily reduce available O2 for fish respiration (still pretty sure that part is true). I could not come up with a reasonable explantion for fixing ammonia to ammonium that would not have included a pH shift, something that would be rough on fish and likey impossible for water more buffered than my ultra soft rainwater.
 

I am not a chemist, alas, only a molecular biologist turned immunologist, and I am more than happy to defer to your expertise. 

 

Of course, now I want to know how the bacteria do it...we can just wave our hands and say "enzymes" right? Hello, rabbit hole, my old friend...

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7 minutes ago, tonyjuliano said:

So, if one uses the Seachem products to manage ammonia, you have to rely on another of their products to confirm?

Thanks for the info, but for me this is just confirmation of my reluctance to use chemical water conditioners of any kind.

I’ll keep in using my preferred “natural” methods.  Water changes, RODI water when necessary, zeolite, etc. 

I’m also fortunate that I don’t even have to de-chlorinate my tap water, no chlorine or chloramines in my public supply. (I live in central New Jersey and our public utility draws its water from deep well aquifers).

That said, our water is on the alkaline side (usually 7.8 pH), but I’ve found that almost all the freshwater fish that I keep can acclimate, so I don’t play the pH alteration game.

I’ve been keeping fish for many years, and only had to deal with a serious ammonia spike one time (a result of my own neglect, a long time ago) and water changes and zeolite took care of it.

I have a some Walstadt method tanks that run without a filter or heater, require a water change like one or two times a year, and just keep on going perfectly. 

Lately, I’ve been considering setting up a “high-tech” affair, with fancy “soil”, lighting and CO2, but just because I’m curious.

Haha, In my original post, I gave a disclaimer. I have no hate for Seachem and some of the products are really solid, the ammonia alert thingy happens to be one of them. I have used them for years in both fresh and saltwater. I am sure there are other products out there to detect free ammonia in water, but the little Seachem one works, and is cheap, so why change? In the event that it changes color, then I can investigate and figure out what is going on.

Everywhere I have ever lived has had deplorable water, so I have always used RO or distilled/deionized water for almost all of my aquariums with rare exception. I do keep some water treatments on hand for emergencies when I have to, or do use tap, and prime works well for that. 

Somewhere in a box in the garage I have a worn out copy of the 1st edition of Diana Walstad's book. Her approach to aquarium keeping speak for themselves. I have kept indoor 'Walstad' tanks in the past, and am going to experiment with one outdoors this summer for pond plants and some native fishes.

Hi-tech (or high energy as George Farmer calls it) can be fun. I have had CO2 injected tanks with EI dosing in the past, but did not have access to a high PAR (energy) light, and relied on natural sunlight. It became pretty tedious TBH.

 

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9 minutes ago, DShelton said:

Hi-tech (or high energy as George Farmer calls it) can be fun. I have had CO2 injected tanks with EI dosing in the past, but did not have access to a high PAR (energy) light, and relied on natural sunlight. It became pretty tedious TBH.

I’m sure I will come to the same conclusion.  I like a “challenge” from time to time, but realize that the “juice may not be worth the squeeze”, for me anyway.

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45 minutes ago, gardenman said:

Not to go totally off-topic, but Poly-Filter has been around for decades and supposedly removes ammonia from the water.

Poly-Filter = foam pad embedded with zeolite. An expensive repackaging of a proven ammonia reducing agent.

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12 minutes ago, gardenman said:

Not to go totally off-topic, but Poly-Filter has been around for decades and supposedly removes ammonia from the water. Many wholesalers include chunks of it in the fish they ship to protect the fish from ammonia in the shipping process. I'm assuming there's simply a sprayed on coating of some sort on a foam matrix that then gets released in the water. Perhaps whatever they use as a coating is also what Prime uses? It's fairly expensive stuff and wholesalers aren't noted for wasting money on stuff that doesn't work. You see quite a few fish shipped with chunks of Poly-Filter though. 

I do not think it is really off-topic at all. Personally I have never used the poly filters, but based on their website, it looks like they work both mechanically, and chemically a little bit like activated carbon, and zeolite work.

Their FAQ specifically mention that the pads cannot be recharged, and that they are NOT ion-exchange resins, but based on what they say they 'eliminate' (not just NH3, but some metal ions, proteins, VOC's) (and they have lots of cited references), it has to be some sort of absorption substrate.

 

 

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1 hour ago, tonyjuliano said:

So, if one uses the Seachem products to manage ammonia, you have to rely on another of their products to confirm?

Thanks for the info, but for me this is just confirmation of my reluctance to use chemical water conditioners of any kind.

I’ll keep in using my preferred “natural” methods.  Water changes, RODI water when necessary, zeolite, etc. 

I’m also fortunate that I don’t even have to de-chlorinate my tap water, no chlorine or chloramines in my public supply. (I live in central New Jersey and our public utility draws its water from deep well aquifers).

That said, our water is on the alkaline side (usually 7.8 pH), but I’ve found that almost all the freshwater fish that I keep can acclimate, so I don’t play the pH alteration game.

I’ve been keeping fish for many years, and only had to deal with a serious ammonia spike one time (a result of my own neglect, a long time ago) and water changes and zeolite took care of it.

I have a some Walstadt method tanks that run without a filter or heater, require a water change like one or two times a year, and just keep on going perfectly. 

Lately, I’ve been considering setting up a “high-tech” affair, with fancy “soil”, lighting and CO2, but just because I’m curious.

This is actually super great for me to know. I'm in South Jersey, and I feel genuinely stupid for not knowing that there's no chloramines or chlorine in my deep well aquifer water! I noticed that chlorine never showed up on test strips but I thought it was just a false reading. My water parameters are pretty much the same as yours.

Thanks for this information!

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2 minutes ago, laritheloud said:

This is actually super great for me to know.

If you want to be really sure, go to your water company’s web site.  They will most likely post detailed info about supply (where, why, how, etc.). Some even post detailed composition reports.

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