So since I've been having trouble with my ammonia budging at all, I finally tested my tap water after treating. I had some stress coat + and some prime. When I added the prime to the water, my tap water shows 1 ppm!!! AH! I added some stress coat to the water then and it went away. Strange....I thought prime was supposed to help?! Maybe my tap usually has 2 ppm or something?
Prime doesn't remove my ammonia?!
- Thread starter mirasmom
- Start date
Quote from seachem website, "Seachem takes the necessary next step by including an ammonia binder to detoxify the ammonia produced in the reduction process."
It only references detoxifying ammonia which is NH3 not ammonium ions NH4+. If your test kit tests for both at the same time you may be reading more heavily to ammonium.
It only references detoxifying ammonia which is NH3 not ammonium ions NH4+. If your test kit tests for both at the same time you may be reading more heavily to ammonium.
Also be aware that it DETOXIFIES the items it lists but it does NOT REMOVE them. The instructions for prime or maybe Safe state that you should use your fish to judge water because while the seachem treatment will detox the nitrate, ammonia, etc., it won't remove them and your test kit will still detect the chemical.
You definately want to use it during cycling and at every water change. The reason is that it detoxifies the ammonia but does not rempve it. If it removed it then the ammonia eating bacteria would never grow and your tank would never cycle.
Use Prime to detoxify the ammonia and use regular water changes to reduce the concentration. Same story for nitrites. When you start to see nitrates you are getting close.
Have patience, it will happen soon.
Use Prime to detoxify the ammonia and use regular water changes to reduce the concentration. Same story for nitrites. When you start to see nitrates you are getting close.
Have patience, it will happen soon.
SeaChem Multitest: Ammonia Test KitThis kit measures total (NH3 and NH4+) and free ammonia (NH3 only) down to 0.05 mg/L and is virtually interference free in marine and fresh water. Free ammonia is the toxic form of ammonia (vs. ionized Ammonia NH4+ which is non-toxic) and thus it is much more important to keep an eye on the level of free ammonia in your system. This kit is based on the same gas exchange technology that is used in the Ammonia Alert and thus is the only kit on the market that can read levels of free ammonia while using ammonia removal products such as Prime, Safe, AmGuard and any similar competing products. The other kits (salicylate or Nessler based) determine the total ammonia by raising the pH of the test solution to 12 or greater. At this high pH all ammonia removal products will breakdown and rerelease the ammonia, thus giving you a false ammonia reading. multi-cavity plate for simultaneous testing of up to 6 tests at the same time sensor based, sensitive to less than 0.01 mg/L includes reference for test validation marine or fresh water Range: 0.0 - 6.0 mg/L Precision: 0.01 - 0.1 mg/L
Ammonia toxicity is pH dependent. So if the pH is under 7.5, then 98% of the total ammonia is already in the non-toxic ammonium form.
The detoxifying effect of prime is only temporary also, lasting up to 48 hours according to the seachem techs on their forum.