My first tank - Tetra Safe Start

[Jen283]

Hello! I am starting a 10 gallon aquarium.

I currently have 2 platies, I've had them for about a week and a half. (There was a 3rd but he died within a day. Seemed stressed and scared the whole time). I tried to do a fishless cycle before buying the fish with a month of no luck so I decided to start with a couple small fish and Tetra Safe Start. I did some research and users seemed to have a lot of success with this product.

So far I have gotten no nitrite or nitrate readings. My ammonia has been lurking around 0.25 (I've been doing daily 25-30% water changes). Temp is at 75-79 F, I have a mini airstone going, and lights are on for about 12 hours per day.

So yesterday, I went back to the TSS website and apparently I was supposed to wait a bit longer to do water changes; I might have removed some of the bacteria from the product in doing so.

I'm probably going to take it day by day because I really overfed them in the first few days. I'm getting a gravel vacuum this weekend. The fish don't seem stressed at all (for now), but I'm thinking about vacuuming the food on the bottom, buying another bottle of TSS, and feeding a lot less and seeing if that get rid of the ammonia reading.

So I guess my question about all of this is: Does anyone have experience with this product? What do you think of my plan for buying another bottle of TSS? Should I wait a couple more days before I go out and spend more money?

Thank you for reading!

 

[bkiggy]

Stop changing water. Get another bottle. IMO Seachem Stability is better bacteria starter. My ammonia is always .25 Lights only 6-8 hours

 

[Jen283]

Ok thank you! I will see if my Petsmart has that brand.

 

[bkiggy]

Petsmart does not carry any of "good brands"
ie: Seachem. The tetra is ok though

 

[shellieca]

Petsmart does not carry any of "good brands"
ie: Seachem. The tetra is ok though

The petsmarts around me have all the main Seachem products; Prime, ferts, stability, etc. Maybe it depends on location?

 

[bkiggy]

It does I guess. I never go in petsmart, petco

 

[librarygirl]

Water changes won't affect the cycle and if ammonia gets over .25 you should do a water change to keep the water safe for the fish. The fish are most important, the cycle will happen eventually.

I haven't had much success with the bacteria starters and to me they just seem gimmicky. It's very difficult keeping bacteria viable in a bottle that goes through temperature changes, etc. The bacteria are naturally in the environment and will make their way to your tank, seems silly to pay for something nature provides. But as I said some users have had good success with them and if you want to try it, that's fine of course. Just don't rely on it.

A week and a half isn't much time either way, so it's still too early to tell much. Just keep testing the water and do water changes as needed when ammonia is over .25 and you should be good. Cycling takes time unless you have a lot of used media from an established tank on hand.

 

[fireman731]

I just used this product, and I can tell you that it does work, but you messed up, do NOT change water with this product. you removed all the free floating bacteria before it had a chance to colonize. I added a up to 30 gal bottle of TSS to my 5 and 10 gal tanks, they say to use 2x, you cant really over dose but you can under dose. I tried doing a fish in cycle, for my first tank, but with overstocking and overfeeding I was doing twice daily water changes and it got to be too much. I changed 90% of the water, waited 24 hours, then added TSS. DO NOT CHANGED WATER. I waited a week and checked my levels and ammonia was low, .25, 0 nitrites and 20-40 PPM nitrates. I started seeing nitrates in the second day. It works, just be patient, and don't change the water. I took my filter media out and put half the bottle of TSS directly on the filter itself, a week later my filter is brown from bacteria colonies. If ammonia levels get very high, your fish seem stressed you can use prime and do a PWC, the prime is the only one I would use, it doesn't completely remove the ammonia it just neutralizes it, so the TSS bacteria still have the ammonia to eat up, without it they starve.

 

[fireman731]

petsmart/petco around me at least only carry tetra and IAP, youll have to find a different aquarium specialty place for the others like prime. Library girl is right, to an extent, you don't want the ammonia levels to become too high or it will hurt the fish, but you don't want to remove all the free floating bacteria from TSS before it colonizes. If you must change water, I would wait as long as possible after adding TSS to do so, and add the TSS directly only the filter pad so the bacteria will colonize there and wont be removed with the water change. between my two tanks I had 2 betas, 2 cory cats, 2 dwarf frogs, a blue gourami, a snail and two black skirt tetras. The ammonia levels, with strips as inaccurate as they are, were about 1 PPM or "stress" and it stayed that way for an entire week until I tested this morning with my new API liquid test kit to find more nitrates and less ammonia.

 

[Jen283]

Thanks to all for the advice. I vacuumed the gravel a few days ago and added another bottle of TSS the day after that. In a day or two I will check my ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I will try to avoid water changes until I get cycled readings. I have also been feeding them less so that there is not as much left over food sinking to the bottom.

Once the tank is cycled I will probably get a couple more platys and some bottom feeders. I don't want to overstock as this is my first tank.