5.5.3.2.5. Prime Concentration

Seachem makes two water conditioners, Prime and Safe. They make a series of claims about these two products which are simply snake oil marketing hype. This article examines one of those claims.

In their literature Seachem claims that Prime is 5X more “concentrated” than competing products. This is just snake oil marketing hype.  There are some products which are much more “dilute” than Prime. The pure rip off that is Top Fin conditioner is ten times more “dilute” than Prime. So for Top Fin the claim is true.  But the popular API conditioner is three times more “concentrated” than Prime.

We did a test of the ability of various water conditioners to neutralize chlorine. They were all very similar, neutralizing 1 to 2 ppm chlorine, AT THE DOSAGE RECOMMENDED ON THE BOTTLE. This testing included Seachem Prime. The Prime was not “five times more concentrated”, at least not in the sense that it neutralizes more chlorine if used per the instructions.

Prime and Safe are very reasonably priced as far as water conditioners go.  Here is the costing data on Prime and Safe. This is the cost of conditioner required to neutralize 1 ppm chlorine in a 50% water change on a 200 gallon aquarium. This is not a lot of money (except for Top Fin).

Sciaenochromis fryeri OB blueberry

The author must emphasis here that Prime and Safe are perfectly safe to use with fish and are both effective and inexpensive ways to neutralize chlorine or chloramine in tap water. The author’s research has ONLY shown Prime and Safe do not even temporarily “detoxify” or “bind” ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate.

Other False Claims

In addition to the false claim that Prime is five times more concentrated than other conditioners, Seachem goes on to make the following false claims about Prime and Safe:

• Prime and Safe detoxify ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.
• Prime and Safe used during cycling won’t affect the cycle time.
• Prime and Safe are not both sodium dithionite
• Only Prime and Safe remove chloramine, other conditioners are not effective with chloramines.
• Safe cannot be made into Prime. If diluted into a liquid, Safe must be used immediately.

All of these claims are nothing more than snake oil marketing hype with no more validity than the late night commercials for hair loss products or virility enhancing pills. To go to an article proving each claim false simply click on the link on the false claim. All of these claims are proven false by testing delineated in each of the articles.