OH NO! The Chemical Filtration Debate

[aclockworkorange]

I've alway been curious about SeaChem's Prime and Denitrate. I have heard great things about Prime and I know a lot of people use it, but I tried it with no luck really. I was on vacation and someone else was looking after my fish and the tanks got nasty. I tried Prime to see if that would help any and I didn't see any changes really. Water Changes helped (obviously), but I wanted to see if Chemical.
As for denitrate, I have never tried it, has anyone tried it?

Prime will detox any ammonia or nitrite in the water, but it won't clean your tank. You still need to do water changes and gravel vac in most setups. Prime is great for a tap water treatment, and can be used in emergencies to detox harmful levels of ammonia and nitrite in the water, many people use it because it is effective and super concentrated, which becomes a cost concern when treating large quantities of water.

Have no experience with de-nitrate products, but, if making regular water changes, shouldn't be necessary. They might become a factor in large setups with very heavy bioloads to help ease the nitrate levels between water changes. Any input on this?

 

[komodo182]

Prime will detox any ammonia or nitrite in the water, but it won't clean your tank. You still need to do water changes and gravel vac in most setups. Prime is great for a tap water treatment, and can be used in emergencies to detox harmful levels of ammonia and nitrite in the water, many people use it because it is effective and super concentrated, which becomes a cost concern when treating large quantities of water.

Have no experience with de-nitrate products, but, if making regular water changes, shouldn't be necessary. They might become a factor in large setups with very heavy bioloads to help ease the nitrate levels between water changes. Any input on this?

Nitrates are all fixed now, but I had to do lots of water changes on lots of tanks, but its okay now.
Just curious for when I go on vacation again haha
I have used stress coat for 18 years now and I know tons of people using prime now and all I hear is how its sooooo much better, but they normally don't give me any information that isn't on the package,lol.
My tanks have been set up for years and are massively overfiltered ( largest being a 70 gallon with 800gph worth of filters), so I don't think I will have any ammonia and nitrite issues.

 

[zennzzo]

Well, whatever this direction is, I feel compelled to add that if I lived in a drought-ridden urban wasteland like much of the southern mid-west where tap water is recycled to death, I'd be trying out all sorts of metal absorbers, phosphate absorbers, etc. I am lucky to live in Everett Wa where the water is pretty much amazon from the tap after it degases.

Sure rub it in really really good huh??!?!??!
I so miss my unchlorinated 7.0ph after degassing, artesian water from the tap...
Grayland Wa. cranberry country...My god I could keep SA'a and Rays there so easy...

 

[aclockworkorange]

Sure rub it in really really good huh??!?!??!
I so miss my unchlorinated 7.0ph after degassing, artesian water from the tap...
Grayland Wa. cranberry country...My god I could keep SA'a and Rays there so easy...

I grew up in CA so I know all about it!

 

[zennzzo]

I grew up in CA so I know all about it!

About the 8.2Ph toilet water in the tap here in Ca.? (aka 8-2TWITT)
or
God's, Heaven on earth water, in Washington state?

 

[Pomatomus]

If my tap water has chloramines, or if I'm doing a large water change with chlorinated water, I use Amquel+

I have also used activated carbon to remove chelated copper from a system I was treating for parasites. It was too difficult to use other methods in a 900 gallon tank with 11 flounder.

 

['vspec']

Ok, so if we're going to view all internal workings of chemical deployment, I suggest we start breaking this stuff down in a systematised fashion so we can all follow without the randomness. Chose 'deployment' rather than 'filtration' by design then - Filtration doesn't encapsulate chemical exchanges as a whole subject we're about to explore.

I also suggest starting at the top layers with products relating to initial H2O, & moving our way in deeper along the complexity lines with scientific reasoning and interactions behind it.
If someone has better ideas id love to hear it, however the most simple, quick & efficient means of investigation of anything..... is a SWOT type analysis.

Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Opportunities:
Threats:

Every contribution to any given system, will display 'Cause & Effect'

Can we safely assume this is the one principle that encapsulates all of us into a singular discovery unit?


So what say you? Comments, Ideas or Different Directions?


Clockwork, if we roll on this, we'll leave O3 rundown to you bud, I can sense your itching for it..lol

 

[nfored]

I've alway been curious about SeaChem's Prime and Denitrate. I have heard great things about Prime and I know a lot of people use it, but I tried it with no luck really. I was on vacation and someone else was looking after my fish and the tanks got nasty. I tried Prime to see if that would help any and I didn't see any changes really. Water Changes helped (obviously), but I wanted to see if Chemical.
As for denitrate, I have never tried it, has anyone tried it?

Hum I think you mis understand the purpose of prime. It's not to make nasty water good, it detoxify and removes chlorine/chloramine. speaking only of the Chormine remove drop for drop nothing beat prime 5ml = 50 gallons of water compared to 10 gallons of any other brand. Theonly thing better then prim is another dechlorinater made for salt water by seachem.

 

[komodo182]

Hum I think you mis understand the purpose of prime. It's not to make nasty water good, it detoxify and removes chlorine/chloramine. speaking only of the Chormine remove drop for drop nothing beat prime 5ml = 50 gallons of water compared to 10 gallons of any other brand. Theonly thing better then prim is another dechlorinater made for salt water by seachem.

Stress Coat is much cheaper so I use that one. I used Prime to see how it would work for when I go on vacation again. Odds are the person looking after my tank does not want to water changes for me and according to their website

``Prime® also contains a binder which renders ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate non-toxic.``

So I thought Prime would help remove nitrate issues.

My Tanks are normally clean, water changes at couple times a week, but if I am not here to do them, the water will contain more nitrates than normal. So I thought prime would do what the company said it would.

So unless Prime detoxifies the nitrate, but the nitrate still shows up on a water test even after it is detoxified, than the bottle was useless to me.

But once again, I don`t know much about Prime. I have been using Stress Coat for over a decade and I don`t have anything chemical in my filters.

 

[aclockworkorange]

Stress Coat is much cheaper so I use that one. I used Prime to see how it would work for when I go on vacation again. Odds are the person looking after my tank does not want to water changes for me and according to their website

``Prime® also contains a binder which renders ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate non-toxic.``

So I thought Prime would help remove nitrate issues.

My Tanks are normally clean, water changes at couple times a week, but if I am not here to do them, the water will contain more nitrates than normal. So I thought prime would do what the company said it would.

So unless Prime detoxifies the nitrate, but the nitrate still shows up on a water test even after it is detoxified, than the bottle was useless to me.

But once again, I don`t know much about Prime. I have been using Stress Coat for over a decade and I don`t have anything chemical in my filters.

The water tests you use are most likely Nessler based, which means even after prime has bonded with ammonia and nitrites and nitrates and rendered them non-toxic, the test cannot differentiate between the toxic and non toxic forms. You shouldn't blame prime for this, it's doing its job. Just because the test can't read it right, don't go knockin' prime.

More from Seachem:

"Prime® also contains a binder which renders ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate non-toxic. It is very important to understand how those two functions work together. All dechlorinators operate through a chemical process known as reduction. In this process, toxic dissolved chlorine gas (Cl2) is converted into non-toxic chloride ions (Cl-). The reduction process also breaks the bonds between chlorine and nitrogen atoms in the chloramine molecule (NH2Cl), freeing the chlorine atoms and replacing them with hydrogen (H) to create ammonia (NH3). Typically, dechlorinators stop there, leaving an aquarium full of toxic ammonia! Seachem takes the necessary next step by including an ammonia binder to detoxify the ammonia produced in the reduction process."

and

"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 (which is both the free and ionized forms of ammonia (the ionized form is not toxic))."