SEACHEM PRIME

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

yup, wording is very important. So are chemistry and toxicology.

Thiosulfate, for example, does not "dump ammonia into the system". Rather, ammonia is generated as a decomposition product of chloramine. That's a good thing! You're reducing toxicity by roughly one order of magnitude (10-fold) when you go from chloramine to ammonia. What's more, as copy/pasted above, ammonia and ammonium are in a pH- (and temperature!)-dependent equilibrium. Worst case scenario in tanks with African Rift Lake alkalinity, it's about 10% ammonia. Now we have reduced toxicity of tap water by two orders of magnitude (100-fold), down to irrelevant levels considering we probably started out with 2 parts-per-million chloramine.

Yet again, I think thiosulfate does the job just fine from a scientific point of view.

Seachem's Prime just has a better marketing department - they are that good!

HarleyK

 

[clarence]

pls do not over dose your Seachem Prime. i believe the recommended amount it based on your tank size.

 

[Pharaoh]

they guys.. i just started to use sachem prime... but i notice that it makes the water and my house smell real real real bad... i was wonder how long does it take until the smell is gone? or it latest until the next water change?....

I doubt it's the Prime. Something else is wrong.


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[Pomatomus]

Howdy,

yup, wording is very important. So are chemistry and toxicology.

Thiosulfate, for example, does not "dump ammonia into the system". Rather, ammonia is generated as a decomposition product of chloramine. That's a good thing! You're reducing toxicity by roughly one order of magnitude (10-fold) when you go from chloramine to ammonia. What's more, as copy/pasted above, ammonia and ammonium are in a pH- (and temperature!)-dependent equilibrium. Worst case scenario in tanks with African Rift Lake alkalinity, it's about 10% ammonia. Now we have reduced toxicity of tap water by two orders of magnitude (100-fold), down to irrelevant levels considering we probably started out with 2 parts-per-million chloramine.

Yet again, I think thiosulfate does the job just fine from a scientific point of view.

Seachem's Prime just has a better marketing department - they are that good!

HarleyK

Yeah I was being a little too colloquial (i.e. dumping ammonia). You're right about the unionized ammonia (UIA) calculation, I use it all the time at work. But in the hypothetical scenario you proposed (African cichlids / saltwater with OP's ammonia), 10% ammonia (~25µg/l) is VERY high. Potentially even lethal to a lot of fish species. It doesn't mean that you have reduced the toxicity of ammonia to 10%, it just means that 10% of the Total Ammonia Nitrogen (measured with the API kit) is unionized, which is the toxic part. Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN) and UIA are two different things. The UIA will always be a % of the TAN, but unless your pH approaches 11-12 then it's going to be a fraction.

Again, this is just hypothetical as I doubt the OP has a high pH. Assuming it's around 7 you would get a manageable amount of UIA (about 1.65µg/l), but that triples if the pH is 7.5. These results are temporary and are unlikely to cause noticeable harm, but all I'm saying is that they seem less than desirable imo when there is a product that can avoid it. It's probably no more severe than an overfeeding to most systems, except for tanks with very high pH and tropical temperatures.

 

[pops]

pls do not over dose your Seachem Prime. i believe the recommended amount it based on your tank size.

prime is safe up to 5 times the regularly suggested dose. i am not saying use more, follow the directions, will not make the tank stink. adding more than the recommended dose is not the answer for bad water quality. water changes are.

 

[RD.]

You are incorrect in stating that it does not neutralize chloramine. It very well does. The chemical reaction is not too dissimilar from neutralizing molecular chlorine, just that it doesn't act on the chlorine, but it reduces the oxidation stage of nitrogen. Thiosulfate neutralizes chloramine, and that's a fact.

I'm well aware of the science involved, and as already stated by Pomatomus sodium thiosulfate only reacts with chlorine, not the ammonia portion of chloramine. Perhaps in some set ups, and some water changes, the resulting ammonia spike when using water conditioners based on sodium thiosulfate on chloramine treated tap water is a non issue - but you don't know, and can't speak on behalf, of every member, and every set up, on MFK. So what might be safe & effective for you, and your tap water, and your tanks specs (based on filtration, water temp, pH, plants/no plants, 02 levels, etc) might be a recipe for disaster for the next person.

A good read on the toxicity of ammonia can be found in the following article posted on the krib.

http://www.thekrib.com/Chemistry/ammonia-toxicity.html


Then factor in that the LC50 (survival time) of most tropical species of fish placed under various levels of ammonia has yet to be established, and IMHO this becomes much more than a marketing spiel from Seachem. If you don't think so, then cycle a tank with 10 live fish, 5 discus, and 5 danio. Let me know how long those discus survive post the ammonia peak. Seachem doesn't own a crystal ball, same as you & I don't, which is why we should always error on the side of caution.

The pH of my tap water, and my tanks, can approach 8.5 in the winter months, and hovers at approx 8.0 the rest of the year - so I avoid ammonia at all costs - which isn't difficult, or costly to do when using bulk dry powder products such as Seachem Safe.


Cheers!