Sodium thiosulfate is great, if you have only chlorine in your tap water. If you have chloramine in your tap water & plan on doing larger water changes using only that you'll be back to having ammonia issues, until your bio filtration processes the ammonia. If your tap water is treated with chlorine only it is the absolute cheapest way to treat water.
I believe Seachem states that Prime can be used in an emergency to detoxify ammonia, but much as a can of Fix-A-Flat can be used to fix a flat tire in an emergency neither is a proper or long term solution.
I totally agree. I have a copy of our water report. And have an email from the water company, that they don't use chloramine in our waters....yeah. Our water report says that maxiumum mean valve is 0.03mg/l of chlorine, and when i tested the tap water with sera chlorine tube test (whose lowest reading is 0.3mg/l) it came back at 0! so its likely between 0- 0.3mg/l.....yeah
Sodium thiosulfate........wow i only need so little of this stuff and its so much cheaper, for my 6ft tank.......whooopppeeee
I only need a little bit, to make a stock solution, and then take only a little bit of the stock solution per water change......happy days
The less chemicals i put into my tank water, bothe my fishes and i are happy.
I am so confused right now...my tank is cycled, but I've been using Prime and the API master kit. Can anyone else verify for sure if these two products are not compatible? I'm not doubting your orandas, this is just the first time I've ever heard this. I still test my tank every other day, and I'd hate to miss something because I'm using the wrong products. I do have ammonia present in my tap water, which is why I prefer Prime just for safety's sake.
You are fine. I have used prime and api test kit in conjunction and i get acurate results.
As i understand prime;
1. used for detoxifying ammonia/nitrite, and that situation is usually during a fish-in cycle, or a mini-spike, or in your case in the tap water.
2. then you dose to the required amount, but if the api test kit, is inaccurate with it, you can;
a) buy seachem's test kit(pricey), or
b) go to alloweable max dose(x5) on their label, but thats wasteage of prime,but then how to protect fish? Signs of ammonia burns etc Even seachem's ammonia alert indicator placed inside the tank, gave false readings...go figure.
NB whats not on their label is, this detoxifying 'ingredient', expires in under 24hrs, so if its a fish-in cycle, you have no choice but to daily top up the entire volume of your tank, and not just the volume of the replaced water, like other simple water conditioners. Since yours is just the tap water then you can get away with just the volume of replaced tap ammonia water.But api test result will be inaccurate. Its all unnecessarily complicated, which is another reason, why i don't like prime. All this cost saving malarky is just that. However if you were in a fish-in cyle, not only daily water changes are a must, but daily prime is also a must since, the detoxifyier ingredient expires < 24hrs. Seachem didn't deny it when they called me up, they agreed.
A similiar product to prime is korden's amquel+ it can be used with api test it, and as far as i know the detoxifying ingredient does not expire in <24hrs,but it holds, and if i recall correctly, any excessive unused dose evaporates, so you use it normally, dose for the required replacement volume only, and it lasts, until you physically remove the water.
so if you are useing these products for the purposes of detoxifying ammonia/nitrite etc, then know the difference, distinction, and see if you really are making a saving.
Personally since my tap water doesn't have ammonia/nitrite and now my tanks are cycled, i don't have to use either products.Thank goodness. And shud i ever need to detoxify my tank water, i wud rather just do the water changes with just a simple water conditioner, and not with either of these products.
I've already gone thru this, doubting, verifying, checking etc......thats why i don't want anyone 'convincing' me, thats all.
