Testing Bio-Filter "chemicals" Part 1

[carpus]

While I was "cycling" my new 35 gallon tank I thought that I would do a comparison of some leading bacteria additives for establishing the bio-filter.
I had a fair bit of NH3 in the tank, almost 5 ppm, and a fair amount of substrate sediment in the water column, which I figured the bugs could glom onto that a bit, so...

Admittedly, this is only semi-scientific, and the results may not extend far beyond these conditions, but they are what they are. I did try to control as many factors as possible, FWIW. The differences are real, its applicability to different situations is open for discussion.

I set up 150 ml of the tank water in three beakers, and the sediment was agitated as frequently as I could on a daily basis. I added the same volume of bacterial solution--30 drops--and let it go for about 5 days at room temp.

At the end of the period I did an API nitrate test and the results were clear cut.
The Microbe-Lift Special Blend and the Seachem Stability each barely showed a slightly different color than a Zero Reading, but it was really close to Zero.

The Tetra Safe-Start Start Up, with BIO-Spira showed about 5 ppm nitrate--a clear-cut win for this product. In these circumstances one could state it was the only one that worked. It has been pointed out to me that this has been said before of Safestart, but many have made favorable comments about other products of this type--me among them--so I always took such recommendations cautiously.

I will test for Nitrites later--cannot find the darn kit.
Like I said, I don't know that the results extend to all filters and tanks, but with results as conclusive as this, I am picking up some more SafeStart. I welcome additional contributions to this area of citizen science.

 

[MarkA123]

safestart is my favorite, and to the best of my knowledge everyone says its the best cycling chemical, most of the others dont work as well as safestart.

 

[carpus]

I heard that too...

safestart is my favorite, and to the best of my knowledge everyone says its the best cycling chemical, most of the others dont work as well as safestart.

but I tend to want to take such advice as vague guidance, rather than reality. I am not a naysayer by nature, its just...well, you know, I think people should be a bit more careful about the evidence that they gather and what they can conclude from it.

For instance, given my previous experience with Stability--and the rapid cycling experiences I have had with a couple of small tanks, I would have bet money that it was an awesome bio-filter inoculant and as it turns out my results suggest the opposite might be true. Might: my results apply to the experiment that I did, but I did not use any actual bio-media, and it was in still water at room temp. Nevertheless, I will use Safestart, as the differences were not trivial!

Further results:
I do find that there is a distinction between the "losers" of my three-for-all:
Stability does convert some NH3, but stalls once some NO2- is produced, and the NO3- is not produced in measurable quantity.
Microbe-Lift is truely worthless, thanks LFS.
Safestart worked well in these test circustances, and it was dramatically more effective in completing the "cycle".