Ok good. I've read somewhere online that people said not to use it...something about the way it binds to ammonia may alter the cycling effect. I don't know. It sounded way to technical for me. I'll stick to my basics and stop trying to analyze everyone's situation *n1
Let me share my experience with Prime then you decide.
I acidentally added a toxin from gloves I was wearing to my 55g mixed reef. Within hours fish were extremely stressed and in 8 hours I lost a 3 year old yellow tang. I tested the water and ammonia was off the charts. The api test kit showed a very very dark opaque green (almost black) result. A cardinal was horizontal, all fish were breathing very heavy and hardly moving.
I got most all the fish out of that tank and into a 20g and within hours things looked much better and the cardinal was vertical again.
I treated the tank per instructions with prime and pH dropped from 8.4-8.8 to 7.5 or so which is extremely low for a marine tank. With the multitest the prime did make the ammonia safe but the total ammonia was still high resulting in the same api test results.
A week later I rinsed my oyster shell filter media and in 24 hours ammonia dropped down and fill to unmeasureable levels then next day. then the nitrItes and finally nitrates eventually fell three weeks later as thepH finally returned to normal levels.
Prime, other ammonia locks, and dechlorinators lock up oxygen so when overdosed can suffocate the fish. As reflected in the pH crash in my case.
Should you not use Prime ever. Can't say that as a couple of fish i could not get out of the tank did survive my case. And the resulting ammonia was the safe locked variety. so under extreme emergencies or screw ups like I did, sure it has it's place.
But for routine planted tank operation IMHO absolutely not.
During initial setup with a heavily planted tank I get a max of .25ppm ammonia for 1 day. And little to no nitrItes that last only a day also. Plus the plants are consuming carbon dixide and returning oxygen. The opposite of my experience with prime. I do get a bump up in nitrates which lasts for 2-3 weeks as the aerobic bacteria builds up. Then nitrates drop down to unmeasureable levels as the plants run out of ammonia to consume and start consuming nitrates.
All in all chemicals are not for routine operation. Especially with tanks where plant life is balancing out and stabilizing the system.
So you decide and I hope you don't do that "beaslbob" screw up.
my .02