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This started when @Dan_P was looking at measuring NH3 with seneye and was curious about performance near zero NH3. I suggested trying Prime to artificially zero out the NH3 sensor, and the results were weird... so I checked with my seachem kit.
Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap water, it dechlorinates Chlorine and Chloramine. This effect is strong and easily measurable by test kits.
But Prime also claims that it "...detoxifies ammonia. Prime® converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily removed by the tank’s biofilter." They say that the normal dose of Prime can detoxify 1ppm ammonia.
NH3 is the toxic form of ammonia, which under normal tank conditions is a tiny part of the total ammonia (Randy's Article for details). Most chemical kits measure total ammonia - NH3+NH4, and so seachem says that these kits can't detect the effect of Prime to detoxify NH3. And one should instead use a test method that measures only free ammonia - NH3 instead, according to Seachem - such as their kit.
"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 (total ammonia is both free ammonia and non-toxic ionized forms of ammonia)."
So here we go.
I pulled a liter of tank water, spiked it with ammonia to ~1ppm total ammonia.
API at 5 min confirms it's in the ballpark of 0.5-1ppm total ammonia.
Then I dosed a drop of Prime from two separate bottles (one new unopened) into the 1L of water. Approximately a double dose from each for a cumulative 4x dose of Prime and stirred.
After 30 minutes, I then used the ammonia sensing films from the seachem kit to see if the measured free ammonia, NH3 was decreased by the "detoxifying" effect of Prime.
The ammonia sensing discs are supposed to be read at 15 or 30 minutes to determine free ammonia.
Each beaker has ~75mL of sample water.
Bottom left is tank water only - clean zero
Two in the middle top and bottom are replicates of tank water +1ppm total ammonia - disks form a color as they should, approximately consistent with 1ppm total ammonia at ~8.0pH (maybe around 0.05 on the top 30 minute scale of the color card)
Top right beaker is tank water +1ppm total ammonia +4x dose of Prime - the disk forms exactly the same color as the samples that were not treated with Prime. The same amount of NH3 is apparently present.
So according to Seachem's free ammonia kit, Seachem Prime does not do anything to decrease toxic free ammonia, NH3. If it has any effect, it's gone within 30 minutes.
(BTW, when I overdose prime to 30x recommended dose, it still didn't decrease the NH3 measured.)
Maybe Prime worked better for @Dan_P measuring with the Seneye NH3 sensing device???
Update: see Dan's measured zero effect from Prime with two more ammonia detecting kits in post number 16
Update: Amphipods seem to fare equally poorly when exposed to NH3, whether treated with Prime or not. post number 44
Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap water, it dechlorinates Chlorine and Chloramine. This effect is strong and easily measurable by test kits.
But Prime also claims that it "...detoxifies ammonia. Prime® converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily removed by the tank’s biofilter." They say that the normal dose of Prime can detoxify 1ppm ammonia.
NH3 is the toxic form of ammonia, which under normal tank conditions is a tiny part of the total ammonia (Randy's Article for details). Most chemical kits measure total ammonia - NH3+NH4, and so seachem says that these kits can't detect the effect of Prime to detoxify NH3. And one should instead use a test method that measures only free ammonia - NH3 instead, according to Seachem - such as their kit.
"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 (total ammonia is both free ammonia and non-toxic ionized forms of ammonia)."
So here we go.
I pulled a liter of tank water, spiked it with ammonia to ~1ppm total ammonia.
API at 5 min confirms it's in the ballpark of 0.5-1ppm total ammonia.
Then I dosed a drop of Prime from two separate bottles (one new unopened) into the 1L of water. Approximately a double dose from each for a cumulative 4x dose of Prime and stirred.
After 30 minutes, I then used the ammonia sensing films from the seachem kit to see if the measured free ammonia, NH3 was decreased by the "detoxifying" effect of Prime.
The ammonia sensing discs are supposed to be read at 15 or 30 minutes to determine free ammonia.
Each beaker has ~75mL of sample water.
Bottom left is tank water only - clean zero
Two in the middle top and bottom are replicates of tank water +1ppm total ammonia - disks form a color as they should, approximately consistent with 1ppm total ammonia at ~8.0pH (maybe around 0.05 on the top 30 minute scale of the color card)
Top right beaker is tank water +1ppm total ammonia +4x dose of Prime - the disk forms exactly the same color as the samples that were not treated with Prime. The same amount of NH3 is apparently present.
So according to Seachem's free ammonia kit, Seachem Prime does not do anything to decrease toxic free ammonia, NH3. If it has any effect, it's gone within 30 minutes.
(BTW, when I overdose prime to 30x recommended dose, it still didn't decrease the NH3 measured.)
Maybe Prime worked better for @Dan_P measuring with the Seneye NH3 sensing device???
Update: see Dan's measured zero effect from Prime with two more ammonia detecting kits in post number 16
Update: Amphipods seem to fare equally poorly when exposed to NH3, whether treated with Prime or not. post number 44
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