Tap water conditioner - ammonia

[UABsleeperSRNA]

Britty That's a pretty good question.. and not 100% sure on! If you have high chloramines(which break down into ammonia) in your tap water then yes it would help to neutralize them in the bucket but prime dissipates after 24 hours thus it is no longer able to neutralize ammonia if their is ammonia in your aquarium.. in the bucket if their is chloramines that it brakes down then it will neutralize the ammonia.. here is where i get a little confused their are two types of ammonia free ammonia which can readily pass through fish gills and cause damage the toxic ammonia, and ionized(or charged) ammonia called ammonium which can not pass through a fishes gill membrane or skin and is considered non toxic.. At a given PH these two exist in equilibrium where one form is not changing to the other depending on the ph you may have more than one form or another.. but i believe the basic principle of prime is if you neutralize or bind to one form either the ionized or unionized toxic form the equilibrium will shift towards the one that was removed in order to reach equilibrium again so i'm guessing it binds to non toxic ammonium so that toxic will shift to the non toxic form.. this will continue to shift to the nontoxic form which would be neutralized by prime either until all of the neutralizer in prime which has about a max of .8ppm or their is no more toxic ammonia as far as i know the substance that was neutralized does not shift back to toxic ammonia after 24 hrs just no more prime left to neutralize because it's gone..
So all that to say most people let their water sit to allow time for the dissolved gases to dissipate and if you have no ammonia in your tank then their is no need to sweat pouring the water into your tank most likely no ammonia or anything.. but if your wanting to help decrease some of the nitrates and ammonia then would probably be best to add the Ammonia neutralizer say probably 30 min or so before adding to your tank and all should be clear with chlorines ect.. and still have action of removing ammonia build up from your tank

Sorry for all the errors in spelling and grammar don't judge to harsh.. hope this helps

 

[Delapool]

Prime is good. Just to clarify, my (very limited) understanding is while Prime will render chloramines and heavy metals inert permanently, it locks ammonia (same for nitrites and nitrates) only for about 24 hours (?).

So if you are into the habit of aging your bucket of water for WC for 2 days and you put Prime in at the very beginning, it may not still be there for ammo control when you flow the water into your tank?

I'm not sure on nitrites and nitrates. As I understand it, prime converts ammonia to ammonium for 24 to 48hrs and then wears off. Reading through the website again I thought it would then convert back to ammonia (ph / temp willing). So I would be re-dosing or dosing as it goes into the tank just in case. And I don't have a test kit that just reads ammonia only.

I guess the other question would be is if you overdose prime, do the ammonia fixing salts decay after 48hrs and not useable. Or would the ammonia get converted back to ammonium again?

I've never really tested as I fill the DT just after each water change.

 

[Britty]

I got that impression also, that after it wears off the ammonia reverts back to its toxic form, dependant on the pH level.

Would be wise not to age your WC with prime already in it, but to add the Prime to your WC just before you perform it, to get the desired effect by the sounds of it.

 

[UABsleeperSRNA]

Yeah from what I have read it degrades after 24 to 48 hours and thus the potential to release ammonia back into the tank if you have no be bifocal bacteria to break it down I'm guessing in like a bucket setting so probably best to dose again before adding/using aged water or just add prime 30 min or so before you add water to your tank

 

[UABsleeperSRNA]

No I don't think that increasing the dose will increase the duration I believe it mostly just breaks down after that time and ammonia is free but you have to remember that if you have a cycled tank, are not overfeeding/Overstocking for your tank size or are not using medications.. Then your tank should not have ammonia build up.. The reason we do water changes is to keep your fish healthy and remove organics such as nitrates.. Ammonia should not be a be a big concern with a healthy cycled tank

 

[Delapool]

That would make sense (er, I think - must read more). Wiki had the following quote "The ammonia has to be removed by another chemical. Such chemicals are Aliphatic Amine salts, hydrosulfite salts or sodium hydroxymethane sulfinic acid." Salts and acid - not sure if these are that stable.

Tank wise I'm not too worried as normally the canister filters are pretty robust and I don't see ammonia. It's only from filling the tank with tap water directly (I guess minor concern mainly) and from stuffing up the DIY ferts substrate capsules that I want to try. Some plants I have are in pots so I'm not sure how deep I will be able to get the capsules.

 

[UABsleeperSRNA]

Yeah if just concerned with ammonia from tap water chloramines breakdown into ammonia prime is probably great it will make ammonia harmless until your tanks bio filtration bacteria are able to neutralize it and break it down for good! Remember that the best way is to change your water if you have ammonia in your tank 50% water change roughly cut your ammonia in half and the addition of prime can help to neutralize any remaining ammonia so it can be broken down hope this all helps

 

[Delapool]

Found this under seachem tech support (yet another reason to swap when I spend more time reading seachem websites).

"Prime will keep the nitrites detoxified for about 48 hours and then you will want to dose again."

Directions for detoxifying nitrite with Prime? - Seachem Support Forums

Found another one (interesting reading through the posts):

"Thank you for your post! You can certainly use Prime to detoxify ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in any system and when used every 48 hours it will keep them bound in the non-toxic form."

http://www.seachem.com/support/forums/showthread.php?t=7225&highlight=nitrate