Seachem "Pristine"

A healthy tank has no need of additives like this - I sometimes think the people at these companies sit down and say 'what can we market next to increase our bank balance'. A lot of these products are aimed at people who want a living ornament and are not prepared to take care of their tanks.
This one claims to contain bacteria rather than chemicals but your tank will soon grow these bacteria by itself -it would not surprise me if your potting compost contained a lot of them already.


If you want to try it it shouldn't do any harm - unlike a bottle of chemicals which would end up inside the fish.

It's heterotrophic bacteria, the kind the filter-maturers used to use back when they didn't work very well. They break down solid waste... into ammonia. This waste is much better removed from the tank. Every tank has these bacteria anyway, so the mulm that settles in the gravel is largely inorganic and harmless after these guys have used it.

So, a few days later after the Seachem Pristine was added...  Firstly, I should say that because the initial dose was so small, I have added another two 5ml capfuls, each one representing about 25% of recommended dose for my tank size...  Total dose now is @ 75%

Results are twofold...  First noticeable thing is definitely a more "invisible" water column, which just looks so much sharper, brighter and cleaner...  Secondly, while not removing detritus per se, you can tell that it has had the effect of breaking down the detritus, and still is doing...  I purposely have not done a water change yet since adding the Pristine, so that I can see the differences it might make, but will do probably this weekend... 

It's hard to evaluate the usefulness of the Pristine objectively and I am concious of wanting it to work and just how that affects my perception of the results so far, but my inclination is to view it as beneficial, just not by a very large margin...  My plan is to continue with it and see where this goes - I will of course report back more on how things go with a bit more time...  One thing I can say is that it hasn't made any noticeable difference to the cannister filter pipes - yet...  Time will tell though... 

"Pristine" update: 

No an awful lot to add but I can say that the first impressions have stayed and that water clarity does definitely look slightly improved and has that polished look to it...  If there were any key difference now that it has been in the tank for 9 days it would be that there is an ongoing, slow, improvement in the detritus levels...  There's no clear way to measure the difference as such, but detritus "clumps" are getting smaller and there appears to be less detritus overall too...  This gives me the impression that this aspect of Pristine is ongoing and still at work... 

What is a key factor in my particular set up is that there are quite a lot of plants, plus there is a large glass brace in the tank, both of which make it really hard to effectively gravel vac significant areas of the substrate and this is the main reason why I chose to give Seachem Pristine a try... 

Would I recommend it...?  That's a tough one as part of me thinks yes and part of me thinks no... 

Would I buy it again myself...?  Yes, I think I would actually... 

I love those little Kuhli Loaches, they're truly a fantastic fish...  My understanding though is that they are not best kept with Corys at the same time, effectively ruling them out for me...  When the Corys have had their day though, I may well switch to Loaches and would love a bunch of Kuhlis... 

To be honest Helen, I can't recall why this was recommended, just that I seem to remember a few times on TFF UK that it has been mentioned about not keeping any Loaches with Corys...  Having said that, don't bank on the accuracy of my memory, that would be an act of folly, lolol...   

So, the Seachem Pristine has been in the tank for a little while now and it has to be said that it definitely has had an impact on the mulm/detritus...  Because of the numerous plants, I just can't get to all the gravel for cleaning so there had been quite a bit of organic debris over time...  This has now reduced in visible quantity and there is much less clump like material pretty much as if Seachem's claim to break detritus down is about right...  I use a surface skimmer, just occasionally rather than all the time, to help with flow and removal of surface film & debris etc and previously, this would stir up a significant amount of organic matter - now that the Pristine has had more time to do its work, the difference in water column debris when running the skimmer is huge...!!!  On top of this, the water in the tank also looks, for want of a better word, brighter...

Now I would definitely recommend it for certain folks, especially if their layout makes doing a gravel vac difficult...  The only caveat here would have to be that it's obviously no substitute for regular water changes and routine tank maintenance - that would be a mistake of course - but aside from that, I'm of the opinion that it's an excellent product now...

Rock steady, as always...  I think that's down to the plants as much as anything else...