Seachem Prime and False readings
by Shadow
Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramines minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime will not halt your cycling process.
Seachem Prime
If you are using a liquid based reagent test kit for example the API master kit. Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. or you can wait to test, Prime dissipates from your system within 24 hours I have tried this by testing after treating with prime. The test tube water turns green 0.25 to 0.5. If I leave the test tube to stand for 24 hours, the water turns yellow as the prime degrades.
Seachem Prime
This could explain why sometimes we get ammonia readings with 0 nitrite but 10 – 20 nitrates, or permanent ammonia reading. Any dechlorinators will give you the same false readings as they will bind any chlorine present with ammonia.
Prime also converts ammonia into ammonium.
Ammonium is also a toxin, but is quite safe at the low levels found in aquariums.
Because ammonium is essentially ammonia with the Hydrogen atom removed, an ammonia reading will still be present when using test kits.
Seachem Prime