Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

[Dan_P]

hah.
So the detailed quantification using digital eyeballs nails the amount of NH3 decrease by Prime to be pretty precisely zero.
Not just less than the claimed 1ppm ammonia it can detoxify. Zero.

I am still surprised at what I found and how simply the myth busting proceeded.

 

[Malcontent]

While we're dumping on Seachem, check out my Seachem Safe meme.

 

[Dan_P]

While we're dumping on Seachem, check out my Seachem Safe meme.

I wonder how AmQuel plus would hold up to the testing?

 

[Malcontent]

I wonder how AmQuel plus would hold up to the testing?

I don't think it would detoxify nitrite or nitrate and only a slim chance it detoxifies ammonia.

 

[brandon429]

We need an official summary of data for non chemists


what’s the simplest layman’s description that can be humanely typed about these findings


what has been the likely replacement action for safety, in any setting where prime was dosed

for example, did simple tank dilution handle the claimed toxin


or, are cycles this good? Or collective plant loading?

nitrite doesn’t need any neutralizing in marine setups. So unfactor that side other than for test proofing.

seems the total focus is ammonia control, what’s been accomplishing that if prime is essentially as beneficial as adding prune juice to a reef


my takeaway is that something other than prime has been controlling free ammonia in all events where it was suspected not controlled. Perhaps ability for the masses to know accurately their ammonia status off test kits is implied


or something about the inherent ability of a cycle to handle large insults, factors along those lines may be at play in explaining how a false need for the use of Prime arises.


my interest was never its chlorine control, it was always its ammonia impacts if any. Every aquarist on the planet has recommended prime to another reefer.


have you discovered the most permeated yet false buying impulse the reefing hobby has? That marketing team does deserve a million bucks. They convinced everyone to sell for them… one cannot fault that one must applaud the marketing team as absolutely top notch.

 

[Dan_P]

We need an official summary of data for non chemists


what’s the simplest layman’s description that can be humanely typed about these findings


what has been the likely replacement action for safety, in any setting where prime was dosed

for example, did simple tank dilution handle the claimed toxin


or, are cycles this good? Or collective plant loading?

nitrite doesn’t need any neutralizing in marine setups. So unfactor that side other than for test proofing.

seems the total focus is ammonia control, what’s been accomplishing that if prime is essentially as beneficial as adding prune juice to a reef


my takeaway is that something other than prime has been controlling free ammonia in all events where it was suspected not controlled. Perhaps ability for the masses to know accurately their ammonia status off test kits is implied


or something about the inherent ability of a cycle to handle large insults, factors along those lines may be at play in explaining how a false need for the use of Prime arises.


my interest was never its chlorine control, it was always its ammonia impacts if any. Every aquarist on the planet has recommended prime to another reefer.


have you discovered the most permeated yet false buying impulse the reefing hobby has? That marketing team does deserve a million bucks. They convinced everyone to sell for them… one cannot fault that one must applaud the marketing team as absolutely top notch.

Question: when someone wants to “detoxify ammonia”, would you say the occasion is usually an emergency and not some variation of cycling an aquarium?

 

[wareagle]

We need an official summary of data for non chemists


what’s the simplest layman’s description that can be humanely typed about these findings


what has been the likely replacement action for safety, in any setting where prime was dosed

for example, did simple tank dilution handle the claimed toxin


or, are cycles this good? Or collective plant loading?

nitrite doesn’t need any neutralizing in marine setups. So unfactor that side other than for test proofing.

seems the total focus is ammonia control, what’s been accomplishing that if prime is essentially as beneficial as adding prune juice to a reef


my takeaway is that something other than prime has been controlling free ammonia in all events where it was suspected not controlled. Perhaps ability for the masses to know accurately their ammonia status off test kits is implied


or something about the inherent ability of a cycle to handle large insults, factors along those lines may be at play in explaining how a false need for the use of Prime arises.


my interest was never its chlorine control, it was always its ammonia impacts if any. Every aquarist on the planet has recommended prime to another reefer.


have you discovered the most permeated yet false buying impulse the reefing hobby has? That marketing team does deserve a million bucks. They convinced everyone to sell for them… one cannot fault that one must applaud the marketing team as absolutely top notch.

Interesting that you say that, since they use carbon dosing in aquaculture to handle ammonia spikes, but only temporarily.

 

[brandon429]

Dan I really did give it thought and the spread of use reported by posters covers both ends of the spectrum, dosing during both perceived emergencies and during cycling right alongside bottle bac


the dosing alongside bottle bac seems easy to rectify, the bottle bac simply worked as we’ve seen it work in tanks that never needed the prime portion.


regarding perceived emergencies, we cant know if it was a real emergency when I have fifteen pages handy of stated ammonia emergencies which are really just common api posts/ help my ammonia is stuck at .25 (said no calibrated seneye owner)

 

[Screwgunner]

It does not say it removes it but detoxifys it . It is not a permanent fix . It just gets your fish though so you can fix the problem with water changes. That is my understanding of it . Would never use it. Rodi water for my reef nothing else. After cycle and you see ammonia that high you need to hang it up. Through in the towel. Get a new hobby. Just my two cents.

 

[Screwgunner]

Carbon dosing is for nitrates not ammonia.

 

[Dan_P]

We need an official summary of data for non chemists


what’s the simplest layman’s description that can be humanely typed about these findings


what has been the likely replacement action for safety, in any setting where prime was dosed

for example, did simple tank dilution handle the claimed toxin


or, are cycles this good? Or collective plant loading?

nitrite doesn’t need any neutralizing in marine setups. So unfactor that side other than for test proofing.

seems the total focus is ammonia control, what’s been accomplishing that if prime is essentially as beneficial as adding prune juice to a reef


my takeaway is that something other than prime has been controlling free ammonia in all events where it was suspected not controlled. Perhaps ability for the masses to know accurately their ammonia status off test kits is implied


or something about the inherent ability of a cycle to handle large insults, factors along those lines may be at play in explaining how a false need for the use of Prime arises.


my interest was never its chlorine control, it was always its ammonia impacts if any. Every aquarist on the planet has recommended prime to another reefer.


have you discovered the most permeated yet false buying impulse the reefing hobby has? That marketing team does deserve a million bucks. They convinced everyone to sell for them… one cannot fault that one must applaud the marketing team as absolutely top notch.

Here are thoughts on

my takeaway is that something other than prime has been controlling free ammonia in all events where it was suspected not controlled. Perhaps ability for the masses to know accurately their ammonia status off test kits is implied

Total ammonia, pH and temperature are required to determine the concentration of free ammonia. As a first approximation, everyone uses total ammonia as a stand in for free ammonia which badly overestimates the free ammonia, in the ballpark of 10-30x. An API ammonia test color that is difficult to interpret as 0 or 0.25 is safe.

With products like Bio-Spira and Turbo Start, we might want to think about them as the only product that can detoxify ammonia quickly, though not instantly. When instant relief is needed, possibly lowering the pH is the only method that can work. I hesitate suggesting this remedy because I don’t know how much and how quickly we can lower pH safely.

 

[Dan_P]

It does not say it removes it but detoxifys it . It is not a permanent fix . It just gets your fish though so you can fix the problem with water changes. That is my understanding of it . Would never use it. Rodi water for my reef nothing else. After cycle and you see ammonia that high you need to hang it up. Through in the towel. Get a new hobby. Just my two cents.

Correct, Seachem does not say destroys or removes ammonia but they do connect the concept of “detoxify” with binding the ammonia or making it not free. If this actually occurred, there should be a decrease in the free ammonia concentration. The data we have presented shows that Prime does little or nothing to the concentration of ammonia. The anecdotal data about Prime helping fish would seem to be a placebo effect, on humans not the fish.

 

[wareagle]

Carbon dosing is for nitrates not ammonia.

Heterotrophic bacteria don't care about what form of inorganic nitrogen they're using. You can carbon dose to take care of an emergency ammonia problem.

 

[Spare time]

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

Prime is not supposed to get rid of it, but rather make it temporarily harmless so that the biofilter can handle it during the 48 period that it is active. I have used prime in emergency situations at my part time lfs job and it seems to work very well for this.

 

[brandon429]

but they've tested it and directly found it does not lower/bind as claimed, that's my takeaway?

do you have the lab type approach w data to show it does


wareagle

how are bacteria reproducing fast enough to keep up with a spike



responding to carbon dosing with new cells via division see,s slower than the toxicity of a true nh3 event, the sole causative in reefing I can imagine would be a disease that kills off most/all fish at once and they are left in to degrade partially somehow such as owner being gone during the event. it takes something that strong to overcome bacteria dosed, or adhered by waiting out a legit cycle.

every free ammonia post I've ever seen is among healthy fish, and with a non digital ammonia test kit skipping TAN conversion.

 

[wareagle]

but they've tested it and directly found it does not lower/bind as claimed, that's my takeaway?

do you have the lab type approach w data to show it does


wareagle

how are bacteria reproducing fast enough to keep up with a spike


I think the best indicators for alternate mechanism for safety other than actual binding of nh3 is simple dilution and the ability for current levels of bacteria to simply step up and metabolize more/faster given the same mass of cells, no increase in biomass required. they can simply sustain more metabolic work for a time interval

responding to carbon dosing with new cells via division is slower than the toxicity of a true nh3 event, the sole causative in reefing I can imagine would be a disease that kills off most/all fish at once and they are left in to degrade partially somehow such as owner being gone during the event. it takes something that strong to overcome bacteria dosed, or adhered by waiting out a legit cycle.

every free ammonia post I've ever seen is among healthy fish, and with a non digital ammonia test kit skipping TAN conversion.


Would also offer this proof: if we study the thread where multiple seneye owners dose raw cycling ammonia into their running reefs, for pages, the seneyes show current bacteria instantly stepping up and neutralizing the dose in 5 mins, faster than mitosis and + mass could have it covered.

99.9% of cases where prime was dosed it wasn't even needed

and the .01% where it was needed, functioning bacteria in place either by classic cycle or by dosing bottle bac which have been tested as quickly able to reduce nh3 handled the safety. by the time dilution worked its effects there wasn't much work for the actual bac, that's a viable mechanism it seems.

If we hadn't added prime in the situations we bought and added it, the data prior shows the outcome would have been the same as adding it. its shocking to me as well to consider this polar opposite potential

Heterotrophic bacteria have a much faster growth rate and doubling time than autotrophic bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

also Taricha has mentioned plant loading/benthic algae carry in addition to that ability of bacteria, could be a dual shock absorber system in many tanks

I think we do need to find and test out a repeatable carry alternative to Prime in order to outline how it's been a false padding this whole time. viable options have been offered so far, nice.

 

[wareagle]

Here you go, and phyto would be faster than benthic algae, but not anywhere near as fast as heterotrophic bacteria, but then you have the problem of out of control algae.

Route 1: photoautotrophic intake by algae or phytoplankton​

Actually, the intake route of ammonia by photoautotrophic algae is the process of well-known photosynthesis as follows [10]:

16NH4++92CO2+92H2O+14HCO3−+HPO42−→C106H263O110N16P+106O216NH4++92CO2+92H2O+14HCO3−+HPO42−→C106H263O110N16P+106O2E3
Or when nitrate is as the nitrogen source

16NO3−+124CO2+140H2O+HPO42−→C106H263O110N16P+138O2+18HCO3−16NO3−+124CO2+140H2O+HPO42−→C106H263O110N16P+138O2+18HCO3−E4
where C106H263O110N16P represents the stoichiometric formula for algae.

In this process, the ionic ammonia of NH4+ is the first-order utilized inorganic nitrogen for synthesis of organic materials. However, a carbon to nitrogen to phosphorus ratio (C:N) of about 106:16:1 is also needed, indicating that to promote ammonia assimilation, exogenous additions of inorganic carbon and phosphorus sources are needed and that in general make the growth of algae, especially blue-green algae or cyanobacteria, to be very difficult to control and easily result in cyanobacteria blooming, a serious deterioration of water quality and a disaster for human daily life.

Chapter: Novel Biofloc Technology (BFT) for Ammonia Assimilation and Reuse in Aquaculture In Situ

Ammonia is one of the most harmful risks for success of fish and shrimp culture. There is no effective solution for harmlessness of ammonia in traditional aquaculture operations except exchanging wate

www.intechopen.com

 

[brandon429]

and would also add that it makes sense for systems with visible algae mass to uptake decent amounts of ammonia alongside active monera, Taricha may have some data stating how plant mass that isn't readily visible as tufts or mats on the rock can still uptake large amounts of ammonia, but its harder to imagine than tanks carrying a lot of visual plant mass in place.

some tanks are very cleaned of algae, whether by chemistry or by physicality / hard to imagine those having the same uptake rates as:

(SeaBass’ before peroxide dosing picture)


and then imagine this post rip clean tank still relying primarily on plant binding vs bacterial work

 

[taricha]

It's hard to imagine a way for Seachem to weasel out of this one since they say you need their tests to be able to distinguish between ionized/bound and unionized/unbound ammonia.

I think a bioassay would be more definitive. Maybe daphnia?

It does not say it removes it but detoxifys it . It is not a permanent fix .

Prime is not supposed to get rid of it, but rather make it temporarily harmless so that the biofilter can handle it during the 48 period that it is active. I have used prime in emergency situations at my part time lfs job and it seems to work very well for this.

First point is that I don't know of any "non-toxic" versions of free ammonia, NH3.

Secondly, with seachem saying that a reason to buy their ammonia kit is that their kit can distinguish the toxic from non-toxic ammonia, and yet their kit shows no effect from adding Prime, I'm really skeptical about their claims on making NH3 some kind of detoxified NH3.

"FAQ: I tested my tap water after using Seachem Prime® and came up with an ammonia reading. Is this because of chloramine? Could you explain how this works in removing chloramine?

....I am going to assume that you were using a liquid based reagent test kit (Nessler based, silica). Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. You can avoid this by using our MultiTest™ Ammonia kit (not affected by reducing agents)..."

So their kit lets you "avoid false positives", thus a positive on the seachem kit should be interpreted as a real positive, I guess.

elsewhere...
"...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)."

But their kit shows no change in the toxic form of ammonia, NH3 with or without Prime.

Thirdly, the fundamental question is toxicity, I suppose. The most charitable interpretation thus far is that seachem prime creates a special form of NH3 that still registers as NH3 on kits but is non-toxic, temporarily. I think it's nonsense, but I suppose toxicity is measured by effect on organisms.
So I started a very rudimentary attempt at a bioassay with my amphipods, since I feed them to my fish whenever I pull them out of the sump anyway.
Details to follow...