After commissioning in 1851, Nix saw little activity, apart from short training exercises and cruises in the Baltic Sea, which were frequently punctuated with boiler fires.

In 1855, the Prussians sold Nix to the British Royal Navy in exchange for the sail frigate Thetis, and was commissioned as HMS Weser.

The Nix-class avisos were paddle steamers designed by the British naval architect John Scott Russell and Prince Adalbert of Prussia in 1849.

In March 1851, the ship's first commander, Kapitänleutnant Schirmacher, and crew traveled to London to be trained during the vessel's sea trials.

Nix left London to travel to Prussia in mid-April, but the inexperienced crew caused one of the boilers to catch fire, while another sprang a leak.

Friedrich Wilhelm IV and Prince Karl boarded the ship once again in July for a visit to Kronstadt that ended in September.

[4] The poor reputation of the vessels, in large part a result of the repeated fires, led the naval command to decide to sell the two Nix-class ships.

[6] In early November, Nix and Salamander left Danzig and on the 23rd, they stopped in Jade Bay to take part in celebrations marking the founding of the naval base at Wilhelmshaven.

Two days later, they resumed their voyage to Britain, but the Hannoverian government initially refused to grant permission for the vessels to enter Bremen on the Weser to take on coal for the trip across the North Sea and shelter in the port to avoid bad weather.

[8] Weser later entered the Sea of Azov and on 11 October, Commerell, William Thomas Rickard (the ship's quartermaster), and a seaman went ashore to burn Russian stores.

After the war, Weser was stationed in Malta, and in early 1859, she returned to Britain for a major overhaul at the Woolwich Arsenal, carried out between 1 May 1859 and May 1861.