Seachem Overhyped or Good compared to others

[jft]

Are these products really worth buying or are they overhyped compared to say API which is alot cheaper. Please weigh in on Prime, Purigen and matrix carbon. I am interested in what you think compared to chemipure , brightwell products, Marineland etc < thanks in advance.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do not support Seachem or their sister company Aquavitro. I think reefers can do better.

They have a number of clearly poor products, and intentionally mislead reefers, IMO.

At least one is a total fail since it literally is impossible to do what they claim: Aquavitro Balance.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Prime likely can dechlorinate, but based on very extensive testing, appears totally ineffective in relation to ammonia, and I also believe it has no effect whatsoever on nitrite or nitrate toxicity.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Purigen is likely a fine material to bind organic matter, like GAC but with a different subset of total organics that it binds than does GAC.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IMO, I recommend ROX 0.8 carbon.

 

[homer1475]

I find Matrix and ROX to be about the same quality as far as GAC goes, but ROX is way cheaper.

Their other products are a waste of money. Much better products out there that cost loads less.

It's like comparing apple to android. Yes they do the same things, but with android your not paying for that nice little apple logo on the back that carries a lot of clout.

 

[The_Paradox]

It's like comparing apple to android. Yes they do the same things, but with android your not paying for that nice little apple logo on the back that carries a lot of clout.

That just made me want to buy SeaChem.

 

[homer1475]

That just made me want to buy SeaChem.

Then you are drinking the koolaide like most everyone else that has blinders on.

 

[jft]

Thanks I kind of figured that would be the case.

 

[merkmerk73]

Seachem has some good stuff like their trace elements

Prime worked for me to reduce ammonia in an emergency and I was able to confirm that with a test kit

How that works on a chemistry level I don’t know

But I don’t believe that just within 12 hours my ammonia levels naturally resolved

So I keep it available

 

[exnisstech]

It's like comparing apple to android. Yes they do the same things, but with android your not paying for that nice little apple logo on the back that carries a lot of clout.

Homer I love you man. Android also allows you to decide what you want / need not have it decided for you

 

[homer1475]

Seachem has some good stuff like their trace elements

Prime worked for me to reduce ammonia in an emergency and I was able to confirm that with a test kit

How that works on a chemistry level I don’t know

But I don’t believe that just within 12 hours my ammonia levels naturally resolved

So I keep it available

Complete and udder BS. It has been shown on a chemistry level to do squat to ammonia.

It's a placebo effect. They claim it does, so you think it does.

What it actually does is convert ammonia to ammonium, then after a while it converts back to ammonia where your biofilter will process it.

It does not NEUTRALIZE ammonia as it claims it does. It simple converts it to a non lethal form, buying you time for your biological filtration to catch up.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

What about Cuprisorb?

I can say for sure their trace test kits have never worked for me, I can't get consistent values from their own standard they include, and the iron one has never ever given me a result from their standard. Iodide also seems especially bad, but it might be that I have gotten bad kits everytime, but that's an incredibly high failure rate if so.

 

[The_Paradox]

Then you are drinking the koolaide like most everyone else that has blinders on.

Yeah totally. I rock a constant Apple hard on because the logo makes me cool. It has nothing to do with the fact there is no unified Android architecture that allows me to hand off between workstation, tablet, laptop, phone, watch. Android is closing the gap but still too many holes.

 

[homer1475]

Self Edited:

No need to devolve the conversation further.

 

[Spare time]

Complete and udder BS. It has been shown on a chemistry level to do squat to ammonia.

It's a placebo effect. They claim it does, so you think it does.

What it actually does is convert ammonia to ammonium, then after a while it converts back to ammonia where your biofilter will process it.

It does not NEUTRALIZE ammonia as it claims it does. It simple converts it to a non lethal form, buying you time for your biological filtration to catch up.

Did the prime thread on here find it to lower the pH enough to convert ammonia to ammonium? I thought it didn't lower the pH enough unless you dosed a ton of it?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Seachem has some good stuff like their trace elements

Prime worked for me to reduce ammonia in an emergency and I was able to confirm that with a test kit

How did you confirm that?

There are very extensive studies in the chem forum showing it does not reduce ammonia in any test we tried, including those stated by Seachem to be appropriate.

These are the studies showing it does not detoxfy ammonia:

Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

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...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Spare time]

Self Edited:

No need to devolve the conversation further.

Lol I feel such a strong desire to add a comment to the last post on android because of how wrong it is but I am like no be good do not debate android vs apple on a reef forum

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Did the prime thread on here find it to lower the pH enough to convert ammonia to ammonium? I thought it didn't lower the pH enough unless you dosed a ton of it?

It does not, and Seachem states it does not.

 

[Spare time]

Seachem matrix carbon is nice, and their biomedia is duriable. I also like aquavitro fuel's contents, despite its misleading trace element label. Aquavitro skimmers look neat but I have no experience with them. I don't like their dosing instructions for some of their products, and I feel that they are really bad at explaining how their products work. Take purigen for example. It says it removes nitrogenous waste. It does not remove ammonia, and the other two options for nitrogenous waste are urea and uric acid. Fish don't produce uric acid, and urea is the only other option. However, Seachem could have just stated this from the get go. This also has implications as to if seachem matrix is of much use in freshwater, where many fish produce very little urea (compared to marine fish that produce large amounts for osmoregulation, though there are freshwater exceptions i.e. teleost fish from my understanding)