Seachem Prime is a water conditioner that is primarily used in a fish tank. So, can you also add this product in a pond? You can find out in this article from Aquarium Blueprints.
What does Seachem Prime do?
The primary function of Prime is that it will remove chlorine and chloramine from your tap water immediately. If these chemicals are left in your pond or aquarium, then your fish and beneficial bacteria may end up being harmed.
The secondary feature of the product is that it will temporarily bind ammonia, nitrites and nitrates to non-toxic forms for up to 48 hours. Otherwise, these may cause health issues to your pond inhabitants. To keep these compounds non-toxic, you should re-dose Prime every day until you figure out a more efficient way to remove them.
Furthermore, this solution will help encourage your fish to naturally promote more slime coat as well. The stronger coating will help them ward off any potential infections.
Seachem Prime will also detoxify small trace amounts of heavy metals in your pond water.
Can Prime be used in a pond?
Seachem Prime can absolutely be used in a pond. The aforementioned benefits of the water conditioner in a fish tank are also applicable for the pond as well.
How to use Seachem Prime in a pond during a water change
In order to properly use this product during a water change, we recommend that you take the following steps:
1. To start off, remove the water from the pond. We recommend changing no more than 25% of the pond water volume at a time so that you don’t stress out your fish with big swings in parameters.
2. Next, you need add Seachem Prime.
When dosing, you should add at least 2.5 mL of the water conditioner for every 50 gallons (or 200 liters). Make sure you dose based on the total water volume that your pond can hold.
In most cases, you can dose up to 5 times the recommended amount of 2.5 mL per 50 gallons before problems start to occur.
3. After adding Prime to your pond, you can then refill it with new tap water.
How to use Seachem Prime to a new pond
If you are setting up your prime for the first time, then you can use Prime by taking the following steps:
1. To begin, add your pond equipment if you haven’t done so already.
2. Next, you need to fill up the pond with tap water.
3. You can then dose Seachem Prime.
As we stated above, you should add at least 2.5 mL per 50 gallons (or 200 liters) of pond water.
4. With the tank filled with water, you can then turn on the pond equipment.
5. We don’t recommend any fish or other aquatic pets to the pond unless it is fully cycled. This process may take many weeks.
If you do want to add fish right away, then we suggest adding live beneficial bacteria to the pond water and then re-dose Seachem Prime every day so that you can safely do a fish-in cycle until you build up your biological filtration.
Seachem has a similar product called Pond Prime. You can check out this comparison guide between these water conditioners to see what are the differences are.
