I'll start out by quoting Rick Hess from Goldfish Connection in his newest e-mail/update:

---------------------
Dear Goldfish Collector,
I hope everything is well with you and your goldfish. We have received a few
questions about the use of "Prime" when doing a water change. The best
treatment, is adding enough "Prime" for the entire size of your tank regardless
on how much water you are changing, BEFORE you add the NEW water. Example: if you have a 100 gallon tank and change 25% you add enough "Prime" for the 100 gallons before adding the new 25 gallons of water.
---------------------

And he just leaves it at that.

Off the top, I trust anything that Mr. Hess has to say about goldfish and aquatics in general. But to ask us a seemingly strange request such as this without providing any details about why is a little wierd. Especially when it comes to adding chemicals to your tankwater. Hopefully, some of you guys can either enlighten me or hypothesize with me...........

Here is exactly what is printed in bottles of Prime (Seachem):

DIRECTIONS: Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 200 L (50 gallons*) of new water. For smaller doses, please note each cap thread is approx. 1 mL). This dose removes approximately 0.6 mg/L ammonia, 3 mg/L chloramine, or 4 mg/L chlorine. May be added to aquarium directly, but better if added to new water first. If adding directly to aquarium, base dose on aquarium volume. Sulfur odor is normal. For exceptionally high chloramine concentrations, a double dose may be used safely. To detoxify nitrite in an emergency, up to 5 times normal dose may be used. If temperature is > 30 °C (86 °F) and chlorine or ammonia levels are low, use a half dose.


What do you suppose the reasons behind this request from Rick and Prime are?

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the viability of Prime once it has been added to water with chlorine would be low? As if the prime cannot reduce ammonia/nitrites/nitrates after it has dechlorinated a bucketful of water?

I'm grasping at straws here. I think its going to come down to me trying to get a detailed answer from Rick himself (or maybe seachem?)

Help?

Rick tends to be a bit less specific than I'd like at times.

You need to dose for the entire volume of the tank IF you're using a python to add chlorinated water DIRECTLY to the tank.

If you're dechlorinating water in buckets and then adding the treated water to the tank you just need to dose for the amount of water in the bucket.

There's some great info on it here under the Water conditioner's section:
http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/FishInfo.html#WaterQuality

Thanks Betty!

That was my first thought too. I wonder why he didn't specify that this is for users of pythons only? Seems to me that that is the most important bit of info in the suggestion and it was omitted......... I'm sure it was an honest oversight.

One thought though. I have always double dosed prime because I want to make sure that not only the chlorine is removed, but that any free ammonia/nitrItes aaaand nitrAtes in the tankwater are detoxified as well. Since I do 50% waterchanges with double dosed prime, that brings my dosage up to the level that rick is asking python users to use anyway.

Got any ideas how much nitrates prime detoxifies per single dose?

And heres a mindbender:

Is the chemical responsible for dechlorination the very same chem that detoxes ammonia/nitrIte/nitrAte? If that is so, then is there really any way to tell for sure how much nitrAtes are actually detoxified by each dose?

This seems to be the only bit of info that prime dos not disclose.


P.S. its good to be back, huh?

Paul

Yea. tho it's been nice getting to work on time! LOL

I dunno on the claims of nitrIte and nitrAte reduction. My nitrAte tests doesn't register any change after using prime.
Their FAQ basically says they don't know how it works either.
http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime_faq.html
Here's a decent thread with some info from the Prime tech support ppl.

The only issues I've heard on the water conditioners using sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate is that they lower the O2 saturation of the water for several days after use. This effect can be pronounced if the water temp is high, and there is no chlorine/chloramine or ammonia to bind.

I came across an article by Dr. Roddy Conrad (He's a chemist) here while back on how much ammonia is released during a partial water change. I have 2.5ppm chloramine on average in my tap water, so I thought it was pretty interesting that he says you don't need to worry about the ammonia released when chloramine is broken down if you biofilter is happy unless you do massive water changes with water with lots of chloramines/ammonia in it.
See the editorial at the bottom of http://www.wernersponds.com/water_changesxxx.htm

I built a calculator in Excel using his formula and added the info on how much of the ammonia is toxic based on pH and water temp. It's here:
http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/Converter.xls
Even with how bad my tap water is and if I do my usual 50% partial water change, the amount of toxic ammonia is negligable (.008ppm).

I'd actually like to switch to a Sodium Thiosulfate conditioner, however I haven't found one that is concentrated and doesn't have anything else besides something to detox heavy metals.

Doesn't it say on the bottle (don't have it in front of me as I post) that recommended dosage will deal with 6. nitrItes?

Well, I got that idea from somewhere, that's what I base my 50% daily Prime doses whilst cycling.

betty,

I figured the nitrAtes that were bound by prime were just like ammonia or nitrItes, they werent removed, they were only detoxed.

anyway, imma go read those links............