Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes I know what it is. The water solution would still probably have a higher boiling point, and a higher density than water. If example 30% solution of VS is upwards of 1.29g/ml, and a boiling point less than water. I found that while not using a thermometer erase-cl it was seemingly lower than water. Also unnoted that it seemed to have 2 boiling points. It could rule rongalite out if someone tests this on prime. I agree reducing chemically ammonia at home is not happening.

Seriously? I mean seriously?

I'm not going to feed this sort of discussion any longer. It is so far off of chemical reality and possibility that it is not beneficial to the thread at hand.

 

[WVNed]

What an intensely, well something discussion.

When I dropped the 150 pounds of live rock into the tank after shipping and ammonia exploded in the tank Prime got the live stuff through it.
That is pretty much all I need to know.

 

[DrZoidburg]

Seriously? I mean seriously?

I'm not going to feed this sort of discussion any longer. It is so far off of chemical reality and possibility that it is not beneficial to the thread at hand.

Yes but how would you explain the missing .52mg on nitrogen in these test. I don't think the bacteria would bioaccumulate that much nitrogen, and I don't think that much ammonia could evaporate. If the possibility of organic reactions is there with these compounds? This could explain a possibility.

 

[DrZoidburg]

I do think it is beneficial presenting arguements, and suggestions. By nature of this thread it is not even beneficial claiming something does not detoxify without proper proof. Getting people all worried. That gov paper says pvp can be. Not just parma bound. It does not say how long. 1 - 2 years though it is possible with impurities, and bacterial contamination. It also says possible alkaline hydrolysis. Just saying it is possible. For all I know the "bloom" he saw in tank could of been a precipitation reaction with VS, and ammonia. If it did have it in there. He says though no ammonia. This indicates a possible carbon source, or excess oxygen source. If it was the sulfur in it I would think more likely happen in a slower anaerobic condition.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do think it is beneficial presenting arguements, and suggestions. By nature of this thread it is not even beneficial claiming something does not detoxify without proper proof. Getting people all worried. That gov paper says pvp can be. Not just parma bound. It does not say how long. 1 - 2 years though it is possible with impurities, and bacterial contamination. It also says possible alkaline hydrolysis. Just saying it is possible. For all I know the "bloom" he saw in tank could of been a precipitation reaction with VS, and ammonia. If it did have it in there. He says though no ammonia. This indicates a possible carbon source, or excess oxygen source. If it was the sulfur in it I would think more likely happen in a slower anaerobic condition.

FWIW, I've never made any claim about whether prime does or doesn't work to reduce ammonia toxicity, only that if it does, I do not see how it does based on what Seachem says is present.

It's fine to speculate all kinds of reasons it may work, but speculating on how it might work based on speculating about chemicals that may be there without any evidence should at least, IMO, be confined to chemicals that would behave as suggested IF they were there. Since there's no reason to think the chemicals you suggested are there, and the scientific literature says they do not behave as you suggest if they were there, and the methods you suggest to demonstrate their presence does not fit chemical reality, that discussion seems to me to not be fruitful in any way.

 

[DrZoidburg]

Yes not saying you said that the creators are. You also said it was possible. With those ingredients even though limited. A lot of the things I was saying, and some of their tests match how that could happen. @Randy Holmes-Farley Still curious though where could the .52mg N have gone in a vial test with minimal sand, prime, and water?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Still curious though where could the .52mg N have gone in a vial test with minimal sand, prime, and water?

I do not understand why you assume none is taken up by bacteria? The nitrogen cycling bacteria are likely expanding in numbers with an addition of ammonia, and they consume N as they grow.

 

[DrZoidburg]

I do not understand why you assume none is taken up by bacteria? The nitrogen cycling bacteria are likely expanding in numbers with an addition of ammonia, and they consume N as they grow.

I didn't say none, or any at all. In chart post he did say not carbon zero. Am skeptical though they could take that much in 6 days. Reading else where it is said they they take 2 - 100 atoms for every x amount of carbon to make amino acids. I forget exactly. I realize that is possible. Yes it is also possible under certain conditions/bacteria N2 escapes as gas. For .52 milligrams though in 6 days with the carbon source diminishing over time? Unless it actually does contain a huge carbon source? Maybe they are limited by nitrogen. I think could likely see bacterial matting if used that fast. I just don't think they would use that much in 6 days.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Here's a hypothesis that may be the reaction of Prime with ammonia based on known literature reactions and the exact composition claimed by Seachem. The product is NH2SO3-, a sulfamate. The reaction is analogous to the reaction with hydroxymethansulfonate, and according to one person writing about this years ago (Boomer), Prime was the Seachem way around the hydroxymethanesulfonate patents (I do not independently know that part)..

Here's the full justified rationale:

Seachem says Prime contains hydrosulfite salts and bisulfite. Hydrosulfite is a chemical synonym for dithionite. Seachem has been adament online that the product does not contain dithionite, despite them seemingly adding it. Why? Perhaps because it decomposes to trithionite as noted below, and trithionite is the actual active ingredient.

A mixture of sodium hydrosulfite (= sodium dithionite) and sodium bisulfite results in a variety of products, including trithionite:

Chemistry of sodium dithionite. Part 1.—Kinetics of decomposition in aqueous bisulphite solutions

The decomposition of sodium dithionite in concentrated bisulphite buffer solutions follows first-order kinetics with an activation energy of 18 kcal/mole. The rate is also first order in bisulphite ion, variable fractional order in hydrogen ion and shows zero salt effect. The reaction...

pubs.rsc.org

"The decomposition of sodium dithionite in concentrated bisulphite buffer solutions follows first-order kinetics........Two sets of stable products, (½Na2S2O3+NaHSO3) and (Na2S3O6), found in ratios between 9 : 1 and 1 : 1, probably result from common intermediates in reaction (3)."

Note that Na2S3O6 is trithionite.

This reference shows that structure for the potassium salt:

https://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?s0567740879008268

Then this reference shows how trithionite reacts with ammonia in aqueous solution to form NH2SO3- (a sulfamate):


THE REACTIONS OF POLYTHIONATES: KINETICS OF THE CLEAVAGE OF TRITHIONATE ION IN AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS

The reactions of polythionates: Kinetic of the cleavage of trithionate ion in aqueous solutions

A kinetic study of the cleavage of trithionate has been made in water over the temperature range of 40–80°C, and in aqueous ammonia solutions over the…

www.sciencedirect.com

"In the cleavage of trithionate in aqueous ammonia solutions, therefore, the following reaction is considered to proceed in parallel with reaction (1) described previously."
S306-- + 2NH3 = S203-- + SO3NH2- + NH4+

 

[Lasse]

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

The bioflock methode use heavy aeration- heavy aeration drive out CO2 - pH rise- Higher pH change the NH3/NH4 realisationsship into favour NH3. NH3 is a gas. It will be aerated out - total ammonia will decrease. High DOC content will total block the forming of nitrification biofilms. It is very welkl documented in all publications of waste water treatment

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.

Nema problema Dan. I have measured 6.5 in pH in bags after 48 hours transport. I have done hundreds of lowering pH in saltwater from 8,2 (and higher) to around 6.8 in order to meat the low pH bags when unpacking - time around 1/2 hour. No negative reactions. Even if you just lower it to 7.5 - it will work well in a critical situation. Use the calculator (link posted first by @taricha )

Decrease the pH to 7.5

Decrease pH with 0.7 units decrease the free NH3 nearly 5 times. If you go down to 7 in pH - you will decrease the NH3 15 times

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.

Yes - but they also release NH4/NH3

Somewhere it was referring to high death rates in high nitrite/nitrate environments in saltwater
As I know - there is no high death rates in high nitrite environment at all for saltwater. Talking about high death rate for high nitrate levels is also rather wrong IMO

So no real science here but at the LfS I used to work for we would get freshwater fish shipped overnight with 50-100+ fish in a bag. We had lots of loss during drip acclimation until we started adding a capful of prime to each bag upon opening which dropped loss to near zero.

I have been experimenting with use of an NH3 blocker when we unpack saltwater fish transported for 48 hours. We got back to our old method - using CO2 to lower the pH in receiving tanks - works much better.

The NH3 detection methods still reporting high NH3 levels when Prime is in use. For their own product Seachem state that it is only detecting free and toxic NH3. They also state that their own product Prime make NH3 into a nontoxic form. Both this statement can´t be true IMO. One must be false because @taricha found that their alert report toxic form of NH3 that should have been detoxified by prime.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[taricha]

Still curious though where could the .52mg N have gone in a vial test with minimal sand, prime, and water?

short answer: it's NO3.
First, N accounting wasn't the point of this particular exercise - the timing of nitrification was. It's not delayed by Prime at all.

(not the point, but....) here's the missing N. Look at the Red line (no Prime) for ammonia. It's super linear from day 2.00 to 4.00.

So NO2 production is also linear in this time frame....

So if Ammonia -> NO2 production is linear from day 2.00 to 4.00, then you can use the straight line to see how much NO2 was made and then turned to NO3 during this time.
So we have ~0.75 ppm N represented in this chart (NO2 is reported here as NO2-N), and then there's 0.08 ammonia-N left at day 4 from the first chart. So that gets us to ~0.83 ppm N accounted for at day 4.0, from a starting value of 1.06 ppm N. So the "missing" N is ~21%. and this analysis doesn't count any NO3 was made before day 2.00 or N assimilated to biomass. So the "missing" N is mostly NO3 and is small on the scale of the uncertainties involved.

The only argument for "missing" N due to Prime is the comparison between the no-Prime line (red) and the Prime (yellow). By that standard, there's a tiny 0.14 ppm N "missing" at day 4 on this NO2 test, and I've already posted data showing that Prime in these doses can negatively interfere with the NO2 test. That interference more than covers the "missing" amount here.

To confirm that there's no N missing, look at the final NO3 I already posted.

Rather than "missing", there's an excess of N at the end of the cycle. 1.5ppm N as NO3 (chart again is in ammonia-N and NO3-N) vs initial ammonia of 1.06 ppm N.
So all the ammonia added + some organics from the tank water or sand were converted to NO3 at the end. And there is really zero NO3 missing from the final comparison of Prime vs No Prime (1.55 vs 1.49 ppm NO3-N).

So rather than Prime turning any ammonia into something that wasn't cycled - this test points to complete cycling of all initial ammonia with or without multiple big doses of Prime.
(Prime as a big carbon dose possibility also seems excluded by this data)

 

[taricha]

Here's a hypothesis that may be the reaction of Prime with ammonia based on known literature reactions and the exact composition claimed by Seachem.

Thank you Randy. Heroic efforts here.

So if it was determined that NH2SO3 is still measured as NH3 by ammonia-sensing films by seneye and seachem, then this mechanism for Prime would be viable, and it's the NH3 sensing films that are failing the job....

For their own product Seachem state that it is only detecting free and toxic NH3. They also state that their own product Prime make NH3 into a nontoxic form. Both this statement can´t be true IMO. One must be false because @taricha found that their alert report toxic form of NH3 that should have been detoxified by prime.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you Randy. Heroic efforts here.

So if it was determined that NH2SO3 is still measured as NH3 by ammonia-sensing films by seneye and seachem, then this mechanism for Prime would be viable, and it's the NH3 sensing films that are failing the job....

That would seem to make sense.

Do we know how ammonia treated with Amquel (hydroxymethanesulfonate) impacts the Seneye? The two products (NH2CH2SO3- and NH2SO3-) are somewhat analogous.

 

[taricha]

That would seem to make sense.

Do we know how ammonia treated with Amquel (hydroxymethanesulfonate) impacts the Seneye? The two products (NH2CH2SO3- and NH2SO3-) are somewhat analogous.

That doesn't seem to be known.
I have some ChlorAm-X (it's also hydroxymethanesulfonate) that I can check it with, but....

Not to get too tinfoil, but do we know that reaction (with hydroxymethanesulfonate) actually occurs in Saltwater and reacts with ammonia rather than just interfering with an ammonia test (which I'm pretty convinced it would).

The attached paper purports to show that amquel decreases total ammonia and NH3 in a dose dependent way (freshwater stable pH 7.6), but they just did a hach total ammonia test and calc'd NH3 from pH, and made no considerations (that I saw) for the possibility of interference with the test.

 

[Malcontent]

32 mg/L is an insane dosage, too.

 

[Lasse]

So if it was determined that NH2SO3 is still measured as NH3 by ammonia-sensing films by seneye and seachem, then this mechanism for Prime would be viable, and it's the NH3 sensing films that are failing the job....

I have always thought that these are build on gas permeable membrane - if so - I can´t understand how NH2SO3 (that´s probably is much larger) can interference with these equipments. Orion have NH3 gas sensing membrane in their selective ion probe for ammonia. The only chemical used here is NaOh in order to rise the pH to 12. I have also tested it in fresh water - pH 8.2 and high total ammonia concentration. Only problem is that is not really linear in NH3 concentrations below 0.1 ppm (at least 1994 )

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Malcontent]

The list of interferences for ammonia ISE probes is pretty small:

I don't know about large but non-ionic molecules. If ammonia is bound or converted to ammonia so it can no longer pass through gills then it should be the same with the PTFE membrane.

 

[Malcontent]

Hmmm...

The permeability of gases through PTFE and other membranes at 25°C

The permeability coefficients for a number of common gases passing through a PTFE film used in an electrochemical sensor are reported. A comparison wi…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[Lasse]

I do not think NH2SO3 is in gas form

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do not think NH2SO3 is in gas form

Sincerely Lasse

It's not a gas. In seawater it will carry a negative charge spread across the oxygen atoms. NH2SO3-