Frozen bacteria?

[sarah5775]

My lfs says that this stuff will cycle my tank in one week. Anyone heard of it? What about freeze dried bacteria?

I have two ten gallon tanks to cycle which each have a betta in them currently. I figure with such light stock and testing regularly they will cycle, and I'm willing to do as many water changes as it takes to keep levels down, but I want to make it as fast as possible.

Any advice?

 

[HooKooDooKu]

The only thing I've heard of that consistantly works is bio-spira... basically referigerated bacteria. The problem is that the stuff has a short shelf life, and therefore most lfs don't seem to carry it.

To date, anything else has been considered dubious. I have not come accross anyone with real knowledge on the subject yet that has indicated any of these other products have actually sped up the cycle time on their tank.

Now I'll admit that the only experience I've had has been the products that are liquids kept at room temperature (none of them sped up the cycling of my tanks). So I have limited experience on the subject. But if any of this stuff really worked, then I would have expected to have seen success stories using the product by someone in one of the aquarium forums I frequent.

 

[missileman]

Frozen or refrigerated?
Bio-Spira is live refrigerated bacteria and IF (big if) it was stored properly during transport to your pet store and they stored it properly AND it is not expired, it works very well. I cycled a 75 gallon with it in 10 days. That was a fishless cycle where the amonia levels were allowed to be kept higher. With fish it will take longer but Bio-Spira will speed it up.
Other bacteria laden products like Hagens Cycle wich are stored at room temp take longer (I believe they contain spores) but are still much faster than adding nothing and relying on bacteria spores in the atmosphere to find their way into your tank.

 

[bs6749]

Man, I should get into the market of selling seeded sponge filters LOL.

 

[jsoong]

Man, I should get into the market of selling seeded sponge filters LOL.

My lfs actually sell seeded bioballs & sponges off their tanks! This is prob more reliable than BioSpira <assuming that you can trust the lfs's tank to not contain nasties.>

FAIK, frozen bacteria will not work. <Asked about that for shipment to Canada in winter ... BioSpira people basically said that if the culture got frozen, it is dead.>

 

[bs6749]

I'm sure some spores would probable survive the freezing but then it's essentially no faster than cycling other ways.