Hi, I wanted to post a response I received from Seachem about ammonia test and Prime and below is a quote from the email they sent this should be very helpful to anyone that raises fishes.
"Thank you for your email. The simple answer to your question is "no, Prime will not give you a false positive for ammonia", but the complete answer is a bit more complicated. Prime does not add ammonia, nor does it cause ammonia spikes to occur in fish tanks, but there are some situations in which you might get odd ammonia readings when using Prime.
Active Prime (Prime which has been dosed within the last few hours) does have the potential to interfere with water tests, but this causes a "false negative", not a false positive. Essentially, Prime has the potential to break down the dyes in some water tests, turning the test a much lighter color than it would otherwise be. If your test gives a reading for ammonia, then quickly goes clear, this is likely what is happening. Waiting 24 hours after your dose of Prime will ensure that this does not happen.
Ammonia is also an inherent byproduct of dechlorination; there is no way to chemically remove chloramine from tap water without producing ammonia. All good water conditioners will completely break down chlorine (Cl2) and chloramine (NCl3) so that they will not harm your fish. They do this by breaking up these chemicals into their component nontoxic parts. Chlorine becomes two nontoxic chloride ions (Cl-) and chloramine becomes three chloride ions and a nitrogen (N). That nitrogen promptly grabs a few hydrogens out of the water and becomes ammonia (NH3). Most water conditioners are just going to leave it there since the amount of ammonia produced is small enough that bacteria colonies in your tank will typically remove it within a few hours, but Prime includes an additional step - detoxification of this ammonia. This detoxification effect lasts for 48 hours, more than enough time for the ammonia to be fully utilized. This means that any time you use any dechlorinator on tap water that includes chloramine, you will have a faint temporary reading for ammonia until your bacteria colonies can pull it out of the water.
Another source of confusion between Prime and ammonia tests is the ammonia detoxification effect of Prime. As I mentioned, Prime will detoxify ammonia, preventing it from harming fish. This detoxified ammonia is still available to the bacteria colonies, so it will not interfere with the cycling process and in fact usually helps the bacteria colonies utilize the ammonia more quickly. If Prime is used every 48 hours it will keep this ammonia bound up and nontoxic, occasionally leading to a confusing situation of fish that appear perfectly happy and stress free in a tank with toxic levels of ammonia. This ammonia is still present in your water, so the ammonia test will still read it, but since it is detoxified it will not damage your fish.
I hope this helps,
Seachem Support"
Hope this can help allot of people.
"Thank you for your email. The simple answer to your question is "no, Prime will not give you a false positive for ammonia", but the complete answer is a bit more complicated. Prime does not add ammonia, nor does it cause ammonia spikes to occur in fish tanks, but there are some situations in which you might get odd ammonia readings when using Prime.
Active Prime (Prime which has been dosed within the last few hours) does have the potential to interfere with water tests, but this causes a "false negative", not a false positive. Essentially, Prime has the potential to break down the dyes in some water tests, turning the test a much lighter color than it would otherwise be. If your test gives a reading for ammonia, then quickly goes clear, this is likely what is happening. Waiting 24 hours after your dose of Prime will ensure that this does not happen.
Ammonia is also an inherent byproduct of dechlorination; there is no way to chemically remove chloramine from tap water without producing ammonia. All good water conditioners will completely break down chlorine (Cl2) and chloramine (NCl3) so that they will not harm your fish. They do this by breaking up these chemicals into their component nontoxic parts. Chlorine becomes two nontoxic chloride ions (Cl-) and chloramine becomes three chloride ions and a nitrogen (N). That nitrogen promptly grabs a few hydrogens out of the water and becomes ammonia (NH3). Most water conditioners are just going to leave it there since the amount of ammonia produced is small enough that bacteria colonies in your tank will typically remove it within a few hours, but Prime includes an additional step - detoxification of this ammonia. This detoxification effect lasts for 48 hours, more than enough time for the ammonia to be fully utilized. This means that any time you use any dechlorinator on tap water that includes chloramine, you will have a faint temporary reading for ammonia until your bacteria colonies can pull it out of the water.
Another source of confusion between Prime and ammonia tests is the ammonia detoxification effect of Prime. As I mentioned, Prime will detoxify ammonia, preventing it from harming fish. This detoxified ammonia is still available to the bacteria colonies, so it will not interfere with the cycling process and in fact usually helps the bacteria colonies utilize the ammonia more quickly. If Prime is used every 48 hours it will keep this ammonia bound up and nontoxic, occasionally leading to a confusing situation of fish that appear perfectly happy and stress free in a tank with toxic levels of ammonia. This ammonia is still present in your water, so the ammonia test will still read it, but since it is detoxified it will not damage your fish.
I hope this helps,
Seachem Support"
Hope this can help allot of people.
