Bad news for all of you...
Freshwater Bio Spira is no more.
Marineland has been acquired by an very large corporate conglomerate (would rather not say who it is at this time).
After looking over the product line, many products that are not carried by large pet shops (Petco, PetSmart, Foster & Smith, etc.) are being scrutinized to determine if they have a positive or negative impact on the bottom line.
FW Bio Spira is one of those products. It was not an easy decision, as there is a demand for it. A lot of word of mouth advertising on the Internet helped fuel this demand. However, the current facilities have proven unreliable in order to keep this demand filled.
In order to justify new facilities for a bigger production, the product needs to be carried by the large vendors, and this is something they are unwilling to do.
The other hurdle is that there is too much saturation in the aquarium "market" of "bio" type products that have proven time and time again to not work. This has greatly reinforced the belief that starting a new tank with a full fish load is next to sacrilegious. I know for a fact that employees at PetSmart are trained to tell customers that a tank needs a month to cycle, and any product the customer mentions the employee is trained to respond with something along the lines of "I don't have firsthand experience with it, but in general such products help the cycling process, but don't establish it right away, nothing can."
All of these factors have proven to Marineland's new owners that the product is more of a cost to the bottom line than it is a benefit.
The Saltwater version will still be produced in Marineland's current facilities. Since the demand for it is less, it can be supplied reliably.
