Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

[Azedenkae]

@Malcontent

The more I think of it, the more confused I get. How are you drawing the conclusion that Prime is not detoxifying 5ppm or less total ammonia?

Like, I get the above 12ppm ammonia bit. That's cool. But yeah, still so confused about how you came to that conclusion from the experiment performed by Taricha.

Like just, how?

OK, so then we don't raise ammonia levels beyond 5 ppm.

And then no test organisms in any group die.

So... Prime is not detoxifying ammonia???? Is this bit here how you are drawing that conclusion?

 

[Malcontent]

Okay. So you called me a shill just because I pointed out that Seachem Prime did say their product can only be dosed up to 5x dosage, which corresponds to detoxifying 5ppm ammonia. Now you are not 100% sure either. Cool. That's great, just great. Sorry I guess for just wanting to be more certain of the conclusion drawn. Or something. I dunno, I mean clearly you were mad and I still don't actually know why.

Well, it seems that Seachem's 5X limit is due to concerns about dissolved oxygen and not concerns that Prime dosing doesn't scale beyond 5X.

And this post implies that it will scale:

Safe will continue working until the whole dose has neutralized available free ammonia, so if there's not enough ammonia in the tank the remaining safe will stay active and treat free ammonia as it's produced.

No mention of a 5X limit, either.

Or here:

Prime will bind to ammonia molecules as long as they are present in the water for Prime to bind. The ammonia is prioritize.

This states that the 5X limit is for safety and also that you dose 1X per ppm of ammonia (with no mention of an upper limit in that context):

If your ammonia and nitrite are 2ppm and above, you can safely dose up to 5x the recommended amount. Typically, I do a dose per ppm of ammonia or nitrite. So in your case of 1ppm of ammonia and 1ppm of nitrite, I would do a double dose of Prime.

Don't forget that a lot of freshwater live stock that people may keep are reportedly intolerant even of slightly elevated salinity though. But otherwise you are right.

It takes so little chloride to render nitrite non-toxic that it's not an issue for even the most sensitive species. Or even plants if using sodium chloride instead of KCl.

 

[Dan_P]

All I wanted to ensure was we were not pulling the wrong conclusion because we were dosing more than 5x dosage.

If you give a reason to doubt, there will be doubt. And this is a clear reason to doubt.

If 5ppm ammonia (let's go with total) kills something, and then dosing 5x Prime does not solve the issue, then that's the clearest evidence I could see. I'd love to know for certain what is going on here, but I can't accept partial evidence as complete evidence.

Again, I personally could not bring myself to test this on fish, specifically something we often keep, that'd be something I'd love to know the results of. Whether it'd be 'oh actually, 5ppm (total) ammonia is not toxic to fish, so eh either way' or 'yeah 5ppm (total) ammonia is toxic to fish, and prime did not help'. Either answer would be awesome, though the latter would be best for obvious reasons.

I am not saying by the way, that this experiment is completely pointless or that there are not some interesting or important information that came out of this. I am pointing to the incompleteness of it, and that's fine, not all experiments can be so all-encompassing that it answers all doubts at once.

On the same token, I would only ever derive conclusions to the extent that the experiment could provide, no more, no less. The experiment did not deal with fish, did not actually prove that Prime could not detoxify (total) ammonia at less than 5ppm, so I am still curious about that. That's all.

I ran the test with less than 0.5 ppm total ammonia and the recommended dose. Prime did not work. Nor does Prime become effective when the dose is increased.

Ammonia cannot be detoxified unless it is covalently bonded. Hydroxymethylsulfonic can do this through the conversion to aminomethylsulfonic acid. If this sort of thing were happening, the free ammonia concentration would decrease. The Seneye experiment shows a small decrease in ammonia but it is No where near what Seachem claims.

I am not sure what your reservations are about the data. We rarely have such a black and white situation as this one. Vendor claims X but customr shows using vendor’s test that X is baseless.

 

[Azedenkae]

Well, it seems that Seachem's 5X limit is due to concerns about dissolved oxygen and not concerns that Prime dosing doesn't scale beyond 5X.

And this post implies that it will scale:

No mention of a 5X limit, either.

Or here:

This states that the 5X limit is for safety and also that you dose 1X per ppm of ammonia (with no mention of an upper limit in that context):

Sure. Again. There is a 5x dosage limit. If you are dosing >5x normal dosage, then there is no reason to not believe it won't work the same. I mean clearly it scales, because even they show it in a linear fashion: https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000125454-Info-Prime-dosing-instructions

But again, regardless of the case, the experiment was not evidence that Prime was not detoxifying at 5ppm total ammonia or less. If that's the case, I would not have needed to point this out.

Showing that <5ppm TAN has no effect on amphipods is very different from showing that Prime does not detoxify ammonia at the dosages they allow.

It takes so little chloride to render nitrite non-toxic that it's not an issue for even the most sensitive species. Or even plants if using sodium chloride instead of KCl.

How much salt are we talking about? I mean that'd be great if we can dose low enough amounts that will detoxify nitrite while is still safe for sensitive fish.

 

[Azedenkae]

I ran the test with less than 0.5 ppm total ammonia and the recommended dose. Prime did not work. Nor does Prime become effective when the dose is increased.

Ammonia cannot be detoxified unless it is covalently bonded. Hydroxymethylsulfonic can do this through the conversion to aminomethylsulfonic acid. If this sort of thing were happening, the free ammonia concentration would decrease. The Seneye experiment shows a small decrease in ammonia but it is No where near what Seachem claims.

I am not sure what your reservations are about the data. We rarely have such a black and white situation as this one. Vendor claims X but customr shows using vendor’s test that X is baseless.

Actually, none here. If you ran a test where at 0.5 TAN caused toxicity and Prime did not detoxify it and death still ensued, that's great. Sorry, I was not aware that test was already done, though then I'd be concerned since 0.5ppm TAN is not much. But anyways, can you link me to that experiment? Would love to see. That's all I wanted. ^_^

 

[Malcontent]

Sure. Again. There is a 5x dosage limit. If you are dosing >5x normal dosage, then there is no reason to not believe it won't work the same. I mean clearly it scales, because even they show it in a linear fashion: https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000125454-Info-Prime-dosing-instructions

But again, regardless of the case, the experiment was not evidence that Prime was not detoxifying at 5ppm total ammonia or less. If that's the case, I would not have needed to point this out.

Showing that <5ppm TAN has no effect on amphipods is very different from showing that Prime does not detoxify ammonia at the dosages they allow.

Does Seachem claim that Prime won't detoxify >5 mg/L TAN?

How much salt are we talking about? I mean that'd be great if we can dose low enough amounts that will detoxify nitrite while is still safe for sensitive fish.

Something like 9 mg/L for 1 mg/L NO2-. It's a level that could come in your tap water.

 

[Azedenkae]

Does Seachem claim that Prime won't detoxify >5 mg/L TAN?

I mean, yeah. In the link above, this one:
https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000125454-Info-Prime-dosing-instructions, they do have in red, capitalized letters that their maximum dosage is 5x... for, you guessed it, 5ppm ammonia.

Look, I am all for debunking claims by these companies. But if we are gonna do it, gotta do it properly.

Like yeah, if @Dan_P found that even 0.5ppm TAN caused toxicity and Prime could not detoxify that level of ammonia and still resulted in deaths or disease, then yeah. That's awesome. That's absolutely be what we should be aiming for.

Something like 9 mg/L for 1 mg/L NO2-. It's a level that could come in your tap water.

That's good to know. That's less than what is believed to be harmful for even fish like corydoras as far as I can tell, so cool.

 

[Malcontent]

I mean, yeah. In the link above, this one:
https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000125454-Info-Prime-dosing-instructions, they do have in red, capitalized letters that their maximum dosage is 5x... for, you guessed it, 5ppm ammonia.

That maximum isn't set because Prime can't detoxify more than 5 ppm TAN but because of concerns that more than 5X Prime might deplete dissolved oxygen levels.

 

[Azedenkae]

That maximum isn't set because Prime can't detoxify more than 5 ppm TAN but because of concerns that more than 5X Prime might deplete dissolved oxygen levels.

So your conclusion that Prime definitely works just fine on greater than 5ppm ammonia comes from a statement about dissolved oxygen levels, plus an implied statement that Prime may work exactly the same at higher dosages as at lower dosages (or rather, at higher ammonia concentrations as at lower ammonia concentrations)?

 

[Malcontent]

So your conclusion that Prime definitely works just fine on greater than 5ppm ammonia comes from a statement about dissolved oxygen levels, plus an implied statement that Prime may work exactly the same at higher dosages as at lower dosages (or rather, at higher ammonia concentrations as at lower ammonia concentrations)?

There are many statements in their support forum about >5X being an overdose and concerns about oxygen depletion.

There are zero mentions of 5X being any sort of limit when they talk about dosing and Prime's ammonia detoxification capabilities.

One explanation is straightforward and the other requires substantial mental gymnastics.

 

[Azedenkae]

There are many statements in their support forum about >5X being an overdose and concerns about oxygen depletion.

There are zero mentions of 5X being any sort of limit when they talk about dosing and Prime's ammonia detoxification capabilities.

One explanation is straightforward and the other requires substantial mental gymnastics.

Oh absolutely.

And yet here in lies the problem I don’t think you still quite understand despite us derailing the thread for like two pages now (sorry @taricha, didn’t mean to).

There is a difference between evidence clearly leading to a conclusion, and evidence only pointing towards it.

There’s a difference between being able to say ‘yes Prime definitely does not detoxify ammonia, even at <5ppm because as we can see that <5ppm still was toxic despite dosing Prime’ versus ‘Prime may not detoxify ammonia at <5ppm, because while the data is indicative of it, we did not actually directly show Prime is incapable of detoxifying up to 5ppm ammonia because ammonia did not seem to be toxic below 5ppm’. The former, while sounds absolutely triumphant to say, is not the conclusion that can be drawn here. The latter though, is exactly what can be drawn from the experiment by @taricha (not talking about any other person’s experiments here). Shifting from the long latter conclusion to the former, ironically enough lol, requires some mental gymnastics to get to.

Though that’s only like the third time I explain the difference between the two conclusions here so… I guess, draw whatever conclusion you want?

To me, the conclusion from the experiment is clear. I mean, the deficiency in being able to make the statement you want to make is acknowledged by @taricha after all. You know, the guy who did the experiment.

Could the experiment be made more applicable and convincing with sensitive fish and a lower ammonia level? sure, but I have zero interest in doing that since it's clear to me that Prime doesn't detoxify ammonia and it would just end with dead fish.

Just to clarify @taricha, no offense at all to you. You did what you could with what you had, and it was a solid experiment. I only wanted to play Devil's advocate to point out one thing we have to consider was all.

 

[Dan_P]

Actually, none here. If you ran a test where at 0.5 TAN caused toxicity and Prime did not detoxify it and death still ensued, that's great. Sorry, I was not aware that test was already done, though then I'd be concerned since 0.5ppm TAN is not much. But anyways, can you link me to that experiment? Would love to see. That's all I wanted. ^_^

Post #16 above, the very last plot, shows how much free ammonia changes with various amounts of Prime. I did one experiment with the recommended dose. All other doses were larger because I needed a zero ammonia solution for an experiment. That’s how I discovered Prime removes very, very little ammonia. I ran my experiments with less than 0.5 ppm total ammonia. I did not assess the effect on animals.

 

[taricha]

Post #16 above, the very last plot, shows how much free ammonia changes with various amounts of Prime. I did one experiment with the recommended dose. All other doses were larger because I needed a zero ammonia solution for an experiment. That’s how I discovered Prime removes very, very little ammonia. I ran my experiments with less than 0.5 ppm total ammonia. I did not assess the effect on animals.

Indeed. Side story of this is that the Free Ammonia, NH3 distinguishing products are pretty decent. Seneye unit, seachem Ammonia multi-test disks, and the ammonia alert badge all seem to be fairly consistent about reflecting the actual amount of NH3. Their limits of detection can be questioned, but they are responsive to actual relevant amounts of NH3.
If one of those kits shows me a concerning amount of NH3, then I would act based on that and disregard any manufacturer claims that the NH3 has been somehow "detoxified".

 

[Azedenkae]

@Dan_P @taricha Thanks guys. I must admit, I was following the amphipod experiment predominantly, so missed a lot of other info.

To summarize - so we found out how Seachem Prime actually allegedly detoxifies anmonia, and that the allegedly detoxified ammonia is definitely not supposed to be registrable with non-Nessler/salicylate tests, so by measuring free ammonia with them we found no significant changes - is that right?

 

[taricha]

Let me try to address a recurring question - "but Prime saved my fish from an ammonia event?"
Let me give a brief (haha) run-down of some reasons why a hobbyist might think that Prime etc has saved their livestock from ammonia when it hasn't. (No judgment, less than a year ago, I had some fish loss and not much time, detected a little ammonia, and dosed Prime to "save" the unaffected fish. I was convinced it had worked. Here's why I was wrong.)


1. Ammonia accumulates more slowly than we think. When I feed generously for my small fish, (pinch of flake + cube of mysis + cube of brine) I am only putting in enough protein to elevate total ammonia by 0.5 ppm.

If I feed a cube of mysis, a cube of brine, and a pinch of flake...
mysis: 3.3g x 7.6% protein x 16% N in protein = 40mg N
brine: 3.3g x 3.7% protein x 16% N in protein = 20mg N
pinch of flake: 0.5g x 53% protein x 16% N in protein = 42mg N
Total = input of 40+20+42 = 102mg N in 260L system = 0.39 mg/L of N
if 100% of that protein N went into NH4 that'd give 0.39 x (18 mass NH4 / 14 mass N) = 0.50 ppm NH3+4

Since fish release ~80% of protein input as ammonia, this would take 5 days to reach 2ppm ammonia. If you feed sparingly, you could probably stretch that out to 2 weeks before total ammonia would go up to 2 ppm, even if your tank consumed zero.

2. Most ammonia is non-toxic NH4. NH3 is a small %. pH really matters. Even if I have the hypothetical 2ppm total ammonia at pH 8.2, then it's only 0.13ppm toxic NH3. see calculator. If the pH drops to 7.8 then 2ppm total ammonia is only 0.05ppm NH3.

3. Most organisms are tougher than the few sensitive fish we think about. From RHF article
" Marine fish generally have 96 h LC50 levels that range from about 0.09 to 3.35 ppm NH3-N."
That is, while there are sensitive fish that have a LC50 (lethal concentration to 50% of specimens) over 4 days (96 hr) of ~ 0.1ppm NH3, many saltwater fish are much tougher. So many systems could spend days at the above hypothetical 2ppm total ammonia (pH 8.2, NH3 = 0.13) and not lose livestock. Benthic organisms are even tougher than that, in looking up NH3 tolerances for random inverts in my system, pods, asterinas, snails, crabs, shrimp - all quite high by our sensibilities.

4. We assume new fish will be a little stressed in a new environment "take a few days to settle down." Many hobbyists might confuse some sub-lethal level of NH3-stress for new to a system stress, and think Prime prevented NH3 toxicity.

5. Any non-frozen bottle of traditional nitrifying bacteria can keep up with a slow rise in ammonia laid out the scenario in numbers 1 and 2. Recommended dose of Biospira can eat ~0.5ppm ammonia/day straight out of the bottle (for me anyway). One and Only a little slower, Fritz turbostart a bit faster. They expand capacity quite well too, especially if there is a constant presence of ammonia.

6. Heterotrophic bacteria are everywhere (and in some bottled tank starter products). They can reproduce really fast if conditions are right. With addition of carbon - present in all fish food - they can process ammonia quickly also. Plenty fast to avoid bad outcomes. Bottled bacteria myth or fact thread showed repeatedly the headscratching result that adding fish food caused ammonia to go down with these bacteria.

7. There are a zillion photosynthetic organisms that will show up rapidly in any tank that has light. Photosynthetic organism are strong consumers of ammonia themselves, and they release dissolved organic carbon that can help the heterotrophs consume ammonia also.

8. Photosynthetic organisms have such a strong preference for ammonia, that they have a hard time consuming any other form of N, if any ammonia is present. They'll ignore 20ppm NO3 to grab 0.2ppm ammonia. It's not like they are choosing it, it's just so much more energetically favorable as a food source.

9 / Putting it all together.
Tank "crashes" / die-offs don't raise NH3 as much as you might think. A 100g of dead fish that hides in your 55 gal (210 Liter) tank doesn't immediately turn into a bunch of ammonia. The fish might be ~20% protein, ~16% of protein is N, so 100*.20*.16 = 3.2g N. 3200mg N / 210 Liters = 15mg/L N = ~19 ppm total ammonia
Protein is broken down gradually over days to a week so maybe only 3ppm ammonia release per day. Some of that is eaten by clean up crew, that might assimilate 20% into growth and release the other 80% as ammonia. The carbon in the tissues also increases heterotroph activity that reduces how much N is released into ammonia. And on top of that, the metabolic processes involved in breaking down the fish will lower pH as well, thus reducing the fraction of ammonia that is NH3.
If all that decomposing organic material pushes the pH down to say 7.8 (my tank goes that low sometimes without dead fish), then the daily 3ppm total ammonia release would be only 0.08ppm NH3.
And that's without even considering the nitrifiers and the photosynthesizers, that with ammonia present will do nothing but eat ammonia, day and night.
So when I lost a couple of small fish to rapid disease and added Prime to "protect" the rest from toxic ammonia, there was never actually a clearly toxic condition to protect them from.

If I wanted to do something I could be sure would help protect fish during an ammonia event:
1) lower pH (7.8 is fine in a pinch, I wouldn't try to push the aragonite buffer around ~7.6)
2) add algae
3) add carbon (vinegar or whatever carbon you already use in your system)
4) add aeration (heterotrophs and nitrifiers both need O2 to work well, and the die-off could push O2 low.)
edit: 5) and y'know... water changes

Those are all incontrovertible and do not require trusting any unsupported manufacturer claims.

 

[Malcontent]

Prime is the hobby's greatest placebo.

 

[Garf]

It had better bloody get rid of bleach, I use it after I’ve cleaned my Purigen... nice work btw

 

[Righteous]

It had better bloody get rid of bleach, I use it after I’ve cleaned my Purigen... nice work btw

Are you saying this because of using Prime to neutralize the bleach? I do believe it neutralizes chlorine pretty effectively. Where they get into trouble is claiming it does all these other things as well.

 

[Garf]

Are you saying this because of using Prime to neutralize the bleach? I do believe it neutralizes chlorine pretty effectively. Where they get into trouble is claiming it does all these other things as well.

Yes. Makes the skimmer go nuts for a while. Now I’m wondering if it’s the prime or bleach.

 

[Malcontent]

Try some sodium thiosulfate next time. It has to be magnitudes cheaper than Prime for dechlorination.