Prime versus Stress Coat and others

jason longboard

Piranha
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Apr 12, 2007
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First, I did a search and their are a lot of threads on this but they are all over the place and mostly about the smell of Prime and so forth. I would like to see all of you do a quick chime in on this.

As of right now, are you using Prime, and why?
 

ehh

Blue Tier VIP
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Aug 30, 2013
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really, for the most part, conditioners are the same thing. the only thing that sets prime apart is that its way more concentrated than, say, stress coat. thats why people of this site are a huge fan of it because everyone here has multiple tanks. i use prime. but if you have a ten gallon, it doesnt really matter.

and sure, primes detoxifies ammonia and no2 and no3, but if your bacteria is where it should be and youre doing proper water changes then ammonia, no2, and no3 is all taken care of already.
 

jason longboard

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2007
3,754
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california
really, for the most part, conditioners are the same thing. the only thing that sets prime apart is that its way more concentrated than, say, stress coat. thats why people of this site are a huge fan of it because everyone here has multiple tanks. i use prime. but if you have a ten gallon, it doesnt really matter.

and sure, primes detoxifies ammonia and no2 and no3, but if your bacteria is where it should be and youre doing proper water changes then ammonia, no2, and no3 is all taken care of already.
thanks bud, anyone else?

Wait so how does it detoxify no2 and no3?
 

ehh

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I don't know the exact chemistry but it has some compound that turns no2 and no3 into something non toxic for the fish.




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rodger

Polypterus
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Apr 29, 2008
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Prime and Safe ( dry Prime) turns ammonia into ammonium, which is non toxic. It gives your bio filter 48 hours to process it into nitrates. If you do large waterchanges you need to worry about ammonia being released by chloramines. I nearly killed a tank of fish years ago thinking my filter would handle the free ammonia. I no longer worry about it as my water uses free chlorine.

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ehh

Blue Tier VIP
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But that's why you use a conditioner, to removes chlorine and chloramines. Any and conditioner will do that.


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brz

Piranha
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Sep 23, 2012
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My wife actually made me stop using prime on my upstairs tanks bc smell. Using stress coat on those when doing water changes.
 

Empyreal

Fire Eel
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Sep 2, 2013
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I used prime on all my tanks. If you follow directions with the correct amount it shouldnt smell. Then again, I do add my prime to 5 gallon buckets before putting in the tank (i never add directly to the tank)
 

wild bill

Fire Eel
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Apr 4, 2010
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Used to use Prime but switched to Safe. Both work great but Safe is way cheaper to use. If you want the low down on what is the best check out RD's thread in the sticky section here. Then go buy either Prime or Safe and don't look back.
 
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