Adding 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt to the tank helps to protect the fish from nitrite by blocking its uptake. Although it is widely reported that Prime will render som ammonia/nitrite harmless I haven't seen any data about the levels where this is effective or how much ammonia/nitrite is treatable using this method.

Load of info here as to why Seachem Prime is fab for spikes/new water meds. Works for everyone here and on FK/PFK too.

Product link here: http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Prime.html

Most of the advisors/mods here use Prime, as well as many forum members.

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A shame. It does its job very well, though given previous emergency posts here. Prime certainly deals with these spikes.

The link says "To detoxify nitrite in an emergency, up to 5 times normal dose may be used".

But it gives no idea of the levels of nitrite this treats and neither have you. Surely dosage is quite an important part of the advice so that members are aware of how much to add to treat certain levels of nitrite, otherwise the advice is worthless because it isn't complete.

Using 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt for the entire tank will block the uptake of nitrite and protect the fish completely and at that level salt intolerance isn't an issue. This level of salt will protect the fish at any level of nitrite which is likely to be found in an aquarium.

Now you can argue all you like Violet, but quite honestly I would prefer a treatment where all the facts are presented and one which works well. As opposed to one which is data inadequate (regarding dosage) and one where even the makers state publicly that they don't know how it works.

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No argument at all, you silly billy.

Prime works, end of - go see other sites - if you don't trust us here......

It isn't a matter of trust, it is simply trying to get the full answer, the salt method works, it is understood scientifically and it is safe.

The Prime method is based on "anecdotal evidence" with no science behind the findings nor is it complete i.e the dosage information is missing along with the levels the product will treat.

This is what Seachem say:
"I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that when they overdosed with Prime they were able to reduce or eliminate the high death rates they experienced".

http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime.html

In view of this why would this method be recommended in preference to a known and well understood treatment?

We do recommend Prime because it does detoxify ammonia and seems to so the same for nitrite. As it is excellent value as a dechlorinator, if used for that and on hand it can also be used as an emergency measure to deal with ammonia/nitrite spikes.

While Seachem don't state how nitrite detoxification is achieved I think there must be more than anecdotal evidence from customers or they'd presumably be in trouble with the claim that it does so on every bottle. The dosage and level of ammonia treatable is shown both on the web site and on the bottles: 5ml used to dose 200L of water will detoxify 1mg/l ammonia.

Yes, salt works too and there's no reason not to recommend that, but nothing wrong with recommending Prime either as it has proven itself repeatedly both for our members and many others.

I don't question it has an effect, BUT does it remove 0.001 mg/l or does it remove 0.5mg/l and how much do you add?

For example if I had a 450 litre tank with 0.5 mg/l of nitrite because I didn't know about cycling just how much prime should I add to the tank to make it safe?

Indeed does anyone know for certain that this level could be made safe using prime?

This is my issue with this quite frankly poor advice - no one knows anything for sure. The fact that the makers are very reluctant to offer any dosage guidelines also is a concern because if they have done their own tests it would be a case of simple maths to formulate a dosage.

Does the nitrite reading remain the same for the "detoxified nitrite" after treating with Prime, when testing with an aquarium test kit?

I know that nitrite and nitrate tests still show positive after dosing as there's no test yet to separate bound from unbound in those cases.

Dosage is not specifically stated but reading around the Seachem site they suggested a double dose (i.e. 10ml for 200L) will detoxify 0.5ppm nitrite . Up to 5x standard dose can be safely used with higher levels of nitrite and detoxification continues for 48 hours after dosing.