Cycle in a Bottle Discussion.

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

TankMan

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 26, 2011
Messages
437
Location
NJ, USA
Just wanted to get a thread started on peoples opinions on the products out there such as Bio-Spira©, Tetra SafeStart©, Nutrafin Cycle©, and the many other aids to the BB in a tank. What are your thoughts on them for cycling a tank or simply dosing small amounts to maintain BB. Friendly discussion please, since this is a delicate topic. :)
 
I used Tetra Safestart and it cycled my tank in 2 days. I was about half way through the cycle, but it still helped a lot. the only problem i have with it is that prime kills the bacteria.
 
I've had decent results with TSS. Cycle I believe is just snake oil.

BioSpira isn't available for FW anymore and hasn't been for a few years. (TSS is the replacement for it)

Dosing small amounts of nitrifying bacteria regularly isn't necessary, the colony will maintain itself. I wouldn't even consider dosing TSS into a tank unless I absolutely wiped out the colony somehow.
 
This is quite a common threaded discussion. But add me to the count of SafeStart... Worked IME.
 
Umm....huh? Seachem Prime you're referring to? Kills the bacteria?
when i did a water change with Seachem Prime and added TSS, i had no results, but when I used TSS about 48 hours after adding Prime, I had results. It may be a coincidence, but this is just what happened to me.
 
jetajockey said:
I've had decent results with TSS. Cycle I believe is just snake oil.

BioSpira isn't available for FW anymore and hasn't been for a few years. (TSS is the replacement for it)

Dosing small amounts of nitrifying bacteria regularly isn't necessary, the colony will maintain itself. I wouldn't even consider dosing TSS into a tank unless I absolutely wiped out the colony somehow.

Haha is Nutrafin Cycle© really just snake oil?! Lol
 
Yes. I believe it is. The reason is because the bacteria that they use is not the same bacteria that occurs in a naturally cycled tank. Because of that, it does not sustain itself and can cause issues down the road.
 
Not sure about Nutrafin Cycle... but if it doesn't contain the correct combination of autotrophic bacteria that perform the nitrogen cycle, which are "Nitrosomonas (converts ammonia to nitrite) and Nitrospira (converts nitrite to nitrate)," then I wouldn't get it. SafeStart contains those strains of bio-spira and (from reading my bottle of TSS) Nitrosophira. Aside from TSS, Dr. Tim’s Aquatics “One and Only" contain these strains. Other brands might not be as effective because as it stands, it remains limited to these two products due to patent restrictions. TSS works and I don't' think it's snake oil...LOL
 
I've used TSS before and it seemed to work fine. I used Nutrafin Cycle and it really made no difference. It took just as long to cycle.
 
Back
Top Bottom