Prime's other uses

[Robdog]

"Prime™ may be used during tank cycling to alleviate ammonia/nitrite toxicity. Prime™ detoxifies nitrite and nitrate, allowing the biofilter to more efficiently remove them."

Has anyone found Prime to be effective against ammonia and nitrite and not just as a de-chlorinator?

Reason I ask is that last night and this morning I found my new male Panduro doing a little gasping and hovering around the surface of what I considered to be a well cycled tank. Did the tests and came back positive for both ammonia and nitrite so then I dumped a bit of prime in.

I'll check again when I get home and maybe move them to my main tank until I can get it stabilised.

I changed the substrate over last week so I guess I lost a lot of good bacteria in the change.

[Merrilyn]

Prime is great for that Rob. I use it all the time.

You will still get an ammonia reading, but the ammonia will be in a non-toxic form.

I guess removing the substrate has sent your tank into a mini cycle. Hopefully it won't take too long to recover.

[Robdog]

Yeah it's only a fairly small tank too so it wouldn't have taken much to upset it I guess.

What kind of dosage are we talking about here?? I normally dose a little above the recommended anyway (I'm a Sydney water skeptic) and it's pretty concentrated stuff.

[Robdog]

...and isn't ammonia relatively harmless under a certain ph?

[Merrilyn]

Normal dose is 1ml per 40 litres. I use just a little over that.

From what I can remember it's supposed to be less toxic, because it becomes ammonium at a pH lower than 6.

Think that's right, but I better go look up some books :oops:

[Robdog]

better go look up some books :oops:

Books? In the age of google?

I'm thinking of doing a water change when I get home tonight and just add water straight from my main tank and then add some noodles from the filter and then add some extra Prime to be safe.

[Merrilyn]

Yep books. I'm really old LMAO.

Ahhhh yes, the belt and braces approach. Sounds good Rob.

[Robdog]

I feel like I'm over reacting a little and that sometimes it's better with a hands off approach and let them ride it out.
I'm not sure that ammonia and nitrite poisoning come under the "ride it out" heading for apistos.

I guess I'll see how good Prime is after this

[Merrilyn]

All jokes aside Rob, I'd be doing the water change, and the noodles and the prime, just to be on the safe side.

Be a shame to lose those gorgeous little fish.

[mistakes r crucial]

Hi Rob,

Ammonia turns to Ammonium in a Ph under 7. Prime will detoxify Ammonia, from memory I think up to 1ppm with a normal dose of 5ml per 200ltrs of water. Prime has an excellent name in the market place but running 8000 litres of water I find it a bit expensive. I've been using a product called Aquastar which is available on line and haven't noticed any difference in performance, you use just over half as much to do the same job. Whether it does do the same job, who knows, us mere mortals have to go by what's on the label.
MAC

[Robdog]

Thanks MAC. I was shown an article yesterday about the same thing. Apparently you can have ammonia readings through the roof as long as your ph is below 6.2 or 6.4 or something along those lines.
Don't quote me on that but I'll try and get a hold of it.