Seachem Prime Review – price and quality comparison

N.B. I have not received any reward from any of the companies mentioned herein. This is an honest price comparison and review of the products.

I recently bought a bottle of Seachem Prime. I had heard fantastic things about it and wanted to give it a go. Immediately, I noticed a difference, if only in the amount of water conditioner I use!

Water conditioner is important for any fish, because there are chlorine and chloramine in most tap water. These are very nasty chemicals for fish, even in the comparatively small amounts they are in – at least compared to a swimming pool. Unless you can leave the water out for at least 24 hours before a water change (think of the number of buckets you would need), water conditioner is the safest way to go.

That said, it was quite an expensive outlay at £19.99 when other bottles of similar products which remove these chemicals are MUCH cheaper, or at least they appear to be cheaper. There is a very good reason for that! They tend to be a lot weaker in strength so require you to use more, and they don’t act on ammonia, nitrites and nitrates!

So – for the comparisons!

I should make a clarification here.The top Seachem Safe is for if you are treating ammonia. The bottom Seachem Safe is if you are not. Ammonia can be present in your water from the tap. The easiest way to find this out is to either take a sample to your local pet store, or buy a testing kit yourself. Moreover, Seachem also removes ammonia from the water for up to 24 hours. This is the coolest thing in the world as it can help you avoid massive bumps in your cycle.

Moreover, all prices are from Amazon UK and are correct at the time of posting.

Seachem Safe certainly comes out on top price wise!

There are plenty of advantages to this product over others. Firstly, it can help detoxify the nitrite and nitrate in the tank. This does not mean that you can reduce water changes. Just because we don’t know that there are other nasties in there, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. There example, these is some discussion about fishy growth hormones being present in the water although some dispute this. Should you go away on holiday for a week or so, a kind-hearted friend or neighbour could easily pop a little (pre-measured) Safe or a cap of Prime into your tank, just to help your cycle. With reduced feedings and the addition of Prime/Safe, you can be more assured of the health of your fish.

The difficulty is that how on earth are you going to measure 0.1 of a gram? Seachem do have a digital spoon for the purpose but the cheapest I could find on Amazon was £50. There is the alternative of a cheap digital kitchen scales which go up in increments of 0.1g which costs significantly less. You may, however, feel like you should be called Heisenberg!

Another disadvantage is that the stuff stinks! Prime certainly does although I can’t speak for Safe as I haven’t used it yet. It smells really badly of sulphur but, frankly, the benefits far outweigh the cost.

I’m currently using my Seachem Prime but I will be going onto Seachem Safe when I finish this bottle. I should also probably use up my Tetra AquaSafe too! Stupid false economy! As with most things, a decent outlay financially looks scary but certainly pays off in the long-run.

The importance of variety in diet

Imagine your favourite food.Now imagine you have to eat that every day for a month. Do you think it would still be your favourite food? If you had chosen to eat it every day for a month, it might be a little different, but if it was effectively force-fed to you, or there was no other option, I imagine you would get fed up with it pretty quickly.

My grandfather used to joke that he could never tell my grandmother that he liked something or he’d forever be eating it. Shortly after he passed away, I fell victim to this. We stayed with my gran to keep her company, help arrange the funeral, help around the house, and then it was Christmas. We must have lived with her for a month or so. Chocolate mousse started out as a lovely treat, but by the end of that month, I couldn’t even look at one without feeling ill.Even now, I’m reluctant to tell my gran if there’s a food I particularly enjoy! A year of pesto and pasta twice a week resulted in my not being able to eat it for over a year and I don’t think I’ll ever truly love chocolate mousse in the same way.

The thing is, it’s my gran’s way of showing her love. She’s a truly wonderful lady who I love to bits. I really don’t know what I’d do without her. When she knows what a person likes, she will be first in line to give it to them. She’s kind, loving, generous and amazing company.

I’m proud to say that take after my gran in a lot of ways. We have an awful lot in common and can spend hours chatting and ‘putting the world to rights’. One way that I take after her is that if I know someone likes to eat something, I will go out of my way to feed it to them. Sometimes, this can be a very good thing. Other times, I worry that I’m getting monotonous and boring.

I’ve also noticed that I was doing this with my fish. They went crazy for the gel food when I first started giving it to them, but today they didn’t seen quite as excited. Variety is the spice of life, even if you’re a goldfish.

I have lots of different types of food in stock to feed them so I should be able to give them a good variety.

I have flakes which I don’t like to feed because of the quality and that they would gulp at the surface and swallow water. For particularly tiny fish, like Aggy and Jampa when they were babies, and before I learned how to syringe pellets, flakes were a great way of getting them to eat.

I have Aquarian pellets which I didn’t like to use because I thought they were making Dharma particularly bloaty. I swapped them out for Hikari Oranda pellets as I had heard great things about the brand, wanted to improve wen growth, they were more nutritious and I hoped would help Dharma’s tummy trouble. I’ve since started putting the Aquarian pellets in the gel food for the vitamins they contain so they wont be wasted.

I have Hikari algae wafers which were another attempt at laxatives and variety. These prove very popular with my fish! They were a great thing for them to eat while I was away for Christmas as they were a clear portion for my housemate to drop in the tank.

In the freezer, I keep frozen Daphnia and frozen Bloodworm. Daphnia, otherwise known as ‘water fleas’ are a great source of food for goldfish and they love to chase lumps of it around the tank. It also helps keep their tummies moving. A great link to information about daphnia is here. One day, I would love to cultivate my own daphnia, but for now, I’m quite happy with the frozen variety. Bloodworms are the larvae of midges – those pesky little bugs that bite in the height of summer (not mosquitoes!). They’re a great treat but both of these frozen foods I probably only give once a week, or so,  each. I’m also a little concerned about bloodworms as it is possible to have an allergic reaction to them and develop allergies to them over time. If I’m ever going to grow live food, I’ll stick the the daphnia!

My gel food has been a real hit, but I’m really pleased that I made two varieties!

I keep several different live plants in my tank, in the hope that my fish will eat them. They love the marimo moss ball, and I’m beginning to see more leaves being eaten on some of the plants. Plants offer a great way to filter out nitrates (although not a lot, so changing the tank water is still a must!) and a little something for them to nibble on, should they feel peckish.

Fruits aren’t something I really like to feed to my fish as they tend to be quite high in sugar. I do like to give them vegetables though. They don’t seem to know what to do with leafy greens like spinach, but they love blanched peas (with the skins removed), brocolli, leek and the occasional slice of cucumber. The carrots I tried weren’t blanched enough and didn’t go down well at all. Sometimes, I’ll pop in a whole slice of cucumber and watch as they chase it around the tank. Other times, I’ll chop it into smaller pieces (without the skin), and let them go to town on it. It can also be weighted down with a fork (ensure the tines of the fork face the bottom of the tank to avoid injury to the fish!). Peas and leeks tend to be the ones I go for if I suspect any constipation as they really seem to get things moving.

 

So like humans, goldfish love to mix it up and try something different. A less healthy treat is perfectly acceptable every once in a while, but not at the expense of healthy eating. I say this like I eat healthily – which I categorically don’t! Healthy food doesn’t have to be boring or tasteless. I’ve made some delicious food for myself that can be considered very healthy, and it is quite clear that my goldfish love my cooking. Keeping dinner times healthy and interesting, at least for my fish, is a real winner!

Twenty four hours away from my fishies!

So Bankei’s ich seems to have cleared up really quickly. I took a risk and popped him into his hatchery in the main tank and, in an even riskier move, left the house for over 24 hours.

On returning, he didn’t look particularly happy in his hatchery, even with a marimo moss ball for company. He’s a very sociable fish and is really taking an interest in his tank mates. He seems to think he’s a dog and is enjoying sniffing the butts of all the others. I can almost hear him saying ‘Hi! My name is Bankei! What does your butt smell like?’ The others weren’t entirely impressed with his, perhaps overly keen, way of greeting them but he seems a confident little soul. Even Jampa doesn’t seem to be aggressive in any way. He may be a little interested but so far, Bankei seems to be taking this in his stride.

Actually, Jampa reminds me of Lotus when he first arrived. Lotus kept checking on Jampa but he was very nervous. Perhaps when Zhi-Zhi first arrived, Jampa was just being overly friendly and Zhi-Zhi was very nervous? Maybe I’m over thinking this too much!

I’m not impressed with my new filter. At 1500 litres per hour it may actually be a bit too strong for the fish. I have to direct the output into the nearest wall of the tank because they just can’t seem to cope. After 48 hours of it blowing into the main part of the tank, they look absolutely knackered and Aggy was a bit too bottom-sitty for my liking. It also releases the water so strongly that it doesn’t appear to be sucking up the poop. I have a turkey baster for this as I don’t like to use substrate, but I would like to see less poop lingering at one end of the tank.

It was awful leaving them. On Friday I had to do two water changes on the main tank. After the first one, I added some Interpret Fin Rot and Fungus medication as Aggy had had a little tear on her dorsal fin and I wanted to complete the treatment. For some unknown reason, despite following all the instructions to the letter, all my fish started to look really ill. Aggy sank to the bottom like a pebble and the rest seemed to be resting at the top of the tank. I couldn’t say it was gasping for oxygen because they weren’t even doing that. I watched and waited with baited breath.

After an hour, I couldn’t take it any more. They (with the exception of Jampa) couldn’t even be tempted with an algae wafer. As ever, a goldfish with no appetite just isn’t right. Despite just having put all my water change kit away, I did the whole thing again. Because I am overstocked, I like to change as much water as possible. In this case, it was probably about 80%. It did the trick and they instantly perked up but I had no idea why that had happened. A little Google search revealed that others have had similar problems and lost fish as a result. I got very lucky!

I worried the whole time I was away about how they were doing and how Bankei was doing in his little hatchery. I had a lovely time with my boyfriend and got to enjoy some rare British sunshine but that thought was in the back of my mind.

Jim (said lovely boyfriend) and I went to a garden centre for brunch and to look for bits for his garden. The storm last week had blown out a fence panel so he needed to pick up some bits. Unfortunately, the garden centre had an aquatics area and I was loving it! they had red-cap orandas which I have wanted for ages but I had to stop myself. To start with, I would have had to have taken said fish straight home and I had volunteered to help Jim with his garden.That’s love right there!

It was torture being in that shop, though! There were so many beautiful fish! There was even a panda telescope who was absolutely beautiful and who kept watching me watching him/her. This is the reason I will be spending my next milestone birthday (21! I’ll be 21 and wont be told differently!) in the London aquarium – I get to look at pretty fishes and can’t take any home! They were advertising for part-time staff and if it wasn’t at the wrong end of Kent, I would definitely be applying! It would be hell for my fish addiction but so much fun!

So after all my worry, I needn’t have. This is usually the way life goes! It’s been a lovely weekend and, while I already miss Jim, it is nice to see the fishes so happy.

Holidays and pet-sitting

Holidays and leaving your fish can be a worrying time for people who love their goldfish. The truth is that it needn’t be.

Going away for a couple of days, even a week isn’t a problem. Your fish will not starve while you are gone. Their digestion is different to that of some mammals and while it may seem unkind, it can actually be beneficial to them!

A fasting day once a week is actually recommended, although you should be prepared for them to keep following you with their eyes around the tank and beg for food even more than they would normally. Fasting days or occasionally going away for a few days helps them clean out their digestive tract and helps avoid constipation. Over feeding is very problematic in general, and while I wouldn’t recommend chronically under-feeding your fish, a week or two is fine.

Less food = less poop = less ammonia in the water. The less ammonia in the tank, the less you have to worry about a build up of nasty toxins in the water while you are gone.

Over Christmas, I went home to my family for ten days, leaving my trusty housemate in charge of fish care. I had deliberately stocked up on live plants to try and combat the harmful toxins in the water (which, helpfully, are fertiliser for these plants!) and had invested in some algae wafers as treats for my fish. Ela, my housemate, was left with a typed up A4 sheet of paper, detailing the fish and how to look after them while I was away. In reality, all I asked her to do was pop an algae wafer in every three days or so just to keep them ticking over. In particular, I asked her to give them an algae wafer on Christmas Day as I felt rotten about leaving my poor fish! Yes, this makes me a bit of a sap and I’m fairly certain that my fish don’t celebrate Christmas, but it’s a day for being with one’s family.

Before I left, I did a major water change. At this point I was still using buckets to change my water. If the bucket held about 14 litres of water and my tank was 120 litres, I must have walked up and down the stairs to my bedroom at least six times to ensure the water was clean.This was before a five hour drive!

Ela is very slight and I couldn’t and wouldn’t bring myself to ask her to do water changes! Popping a little food in every few days wasn’t a big ask, but heavy water changes by bucket would have been.

Immediately on my return, I checked on the fish who were very pleased to see me and quite happy and healthy. Ela had done a fantastic job with them! I had arrived home a couple of days early because the weather was set to be very bad over the next few days. We had had substantial flooding in Yorkshire and I didn’t want to be cut off from Kent by any more flooding! With this in mind, I didn’t do a massive water change immediately upon my return because it was already so late and I was absolutely shattered from another five hour drive. Ten days with limited food wasn’t too much of an issue. Had they been fed their normal amount, I might have been more worried. Instead, I did a water change as soon as I woke up the following morning.

If I had any tips for going away on holiday for a couple of weeks they would be this:

1. Ensure that you trust whomever you leave in charge of your fish.
2. Write detailed instructions.
3. Do a large water change before you leave, and as soon as you get back.
4. Have pre-prepared amounts of food for your trusty pet-sitter to feed them. Perhaps pellets in those pill boxes which are marked by day would be helpful? Algae wafers or pre-prepared Repashy Soilent Green are also a good idea.
5. It is possible to buy automatic food dispensers but some have mixed reviews. Some will just throw food out as and when they feel like it, or not at all.
6. Seachem Prime or Seachem Safe help detoxify ammonia, nitrate and nitrite by bonding them with other elements so they are less toxic for the fish. It isn’t a long term solution to water changes, but makes the water healthier. It can be added by the pet-sitter to reduce the need for water changes until you return.

As it turned out, Ela and the goldfish really took to one another. There is now talk about moving the fish tank down into the living room so that she can enjoy them too. She had never understood my attraction to goldfish but now, having spent time with mine, is as interested in their well-being as I am.As a result of fish-sitting for me, she even wanted to get her own fish – but more on that another time.