Prime and Cycling....

[Lonewolfblue]

Is Prime as good as eveyone claims?

I'm really having second thoughts about this. I seeded my tank, and the cycle still is not complete, and just wondering if it's due to Prime. I took a closer look and here's what it says on the bottle in big letters.

Removes Chlorine, Chloramine, and Ammonia
Detoxifies Nitrite and Nitrate.

Any comments on this is appreciated. I'm temporarily switching over to a different treatment, one that only removes Chlorine and Chloramine, and heavy metals, and doesn't do anything with ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

Thanks......

 

[Lonewolfblue]

The product I'm switching over to is NovAqua+ plus Water Conditioner. It only removes Chlorine, chloramine, and heavy metals, and helps add slime coat, organic immune health aid, adds natural elecrtolytes and vitamins, and adds organic virus and harmful bacteria inhibitor. Does nothing else. It leaves ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate alone, and will not harm biological filters or nitrifying bacteria.

 

[Mazdaman]

not to sure of the effects of these products during cycle, but Prime is an excellent de-clor. due to isn't concenctration... ...it'll last a long time.

 

[QTOFFER]

If I'm not mistaken, products like Prime simply bind to ammonia and make it less toxic to fish. They don't remove it per se, but they may make it biologically unavailable to the nitrifying bacteria during the cycling process. Ditto for the nitrite apparently.

I would permanently switch to the NovAqua+. If you are regular about your water changes, and don't overfeed, you shouldn't ever have a need for products that detoxify ammonia.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I did overfeed in my smaller tank at first, and had small problems, but all problems have past, as I don't over feed any more. As for my 55G, it's still in the fishless cycle, so no feeding there, just dosing with ammonia.

 

[Tolak]

A byproduct of neuteralizing chloramine is ammonia. Sodium thiosulfate, a chemical used in neuteralizing chlorine & chloramine leaves you with ammonia. If your water supply uses chloramine, and your dechlor uses only sodium thiosulfate, you will have some ammonia in the tank. I believe sodium hydromethanesulfinate is used to bind ammonia into a non-toxic form, but I may be mistaken.

From what I understand, if you have 1 ppm chloramine, sodium thiosulfate will turn this into 1 ppm ammonia. If you have good bio filtration, and do say a 25% water change, this gives you .25 ppm ammonia, something most fish can handle for the short amount of time it takes your bio filtration to eliminate it. If you have more sensitive fish, or fry, it probably isn't too good.

Seachem states on their site that Prime won't affect cycling in a tank, the ammonia is bound up into a non-toxic form for fish, but is available to your bio filtration.

 

[Drocnoc]

Here is a good article about it.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_chlorine.htm

According to that article:

EPA Guidelines set a maximum allowed level of Chlorine of 4ppm. Most water supplies target 2-4 ppm Chlorine. Note that 4ppm of Chlorine is actually 5.8ppm Chloramine. (The Chlorine is 69% of the chloramine molecule, ammonia is the other 31%) So, with a possible 5.8ppm Chloramine, you have 4ppm Chlorine, and 1.8ppm ammonia.

 

[Tolak]

Thanks, good link, it's a saver!

 

[patagonia]

i did a fishless cycle on my 29gal tank using prime and a shrimp....i added a cup of gravel from my other tank and the process took 2 weeks...not too bad...