Seachem Prime is a water conditioner advertised mainly for fish in your aquarium. So, is this product also safe to use for your axolotls, aquatic plants, shrimps, snails and turtles?
You can find out in this guide from Aquarium Blueprints.
Quick Summary
As long as you follow directions and dose the correct amount of Seachem Prime, then this water conditioner is absolutely safe for your axolotls, aquatic plants, shrimps, snails and turtles.
In fact, this product offers a lot of benefits as it will remove chlorine and chloramine from your tap water in addition to small traces of heavy metals.
It will also keep the inhabitants of your tank safe as it can detoxify the harmful ammonia, nitrites and nitrates for up to two days.
With that said, severely overdosing Prime will cause oxygenation issues while underdosing will obviously makes it less effective when it comes to protecting your pets from chlorine, chloramine, heavy metals, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
What is Seachem Prime?
Seachem Prime is a water conditioner.
When added to your freshwater, brackish water or saltwater aquarium, it will remove chlorine and chloramine. It will also get rid of small traces of heavy metals such as arsenic, copper, lead and mercury.
Furthermore, this product will also detoxify ammonia, nitrites and nitrates for up to 48 hours. After around 2 days, the nitrogen compound will return to their normal toxic state if they aren’t consume by the beneficial biological bacteria or aquatic plants in your tank. You can also perform a water change to remove ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
Last but not least, Prime will increase the slime coating of your fish, helping them better ward off potential infections.
Is Seachem Prime safe for axolotls, shrimps, snails and turtles?
As long as you don’t severely overdose your aquarium with Seachem Prime, then this product is absolutely safe for your pet axolotls, shrimps, snails and turtles. In fact, Prime can be quite beneficial, especially if you have a new tank that didn’t have enough time to establish beneficial bacteria colonies for biological filtration.
As we stated previously, his product will help detoxify ammonia, nitrites and nitrates for up to 48 hours. Therefore, it will buy you some time to reduce the concentration levels of these toxic compounds. Even after 48 hours have passed, you can easily re-dose Prime again to keep the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates from becoming harmful.
Ammonia and nitrites are extremely toxic and could easy kill your aquatic pets, especially for the very sensitive shrimps. While Nitrates aren’t as toxic, exposure at high levels of 20 ppm or more can cause long term issues.
Is Seachem Prime safe for aquatic plants?
Seachem Prime is also completely safe for aquatic plants.
While this product will detoxify ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, your plants will still be able to consume the non-toxic forms of these nitrogen compounds to grow and keep the water in your aquarium pristine.
How Seachem Prime can become unsafe for axolotls, plants, shrimps, snails and turtles?
One of the only ways for Seachem Prime to become unsafe for your axolotls, aquatic plants, shrimps, snails and turtles is when you somehow managed to severely overdosed the product in your tank.
According to the official directions, you should dose 5 millimeters to treat every 50 gallons (or 200 liters) of tank water. You can safely overdose at five times that recommended amount, which is 25 millimeters per every 50 gallons or 200 liters.
If you add more than 5 times the recommended amount, then you will end up depleting the oxygen supply in your tank.
On the other end of the spectrum, you can also harm your axolotls, aquatic plants, shrimps, snails and turtles if you under-dose Seachem Prime.
If you don’t add enough of this water conditioner, then the chlorine, chloramine, heavy metals as well as the toxic forms of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates will still be present in your aquarium.
As long as you dose the correct amount, however, then Prime won’t cause any issues.
