SafeStart Cycling

[xazax]

Hey all, I am quite new to aquariums but have read some of the fish-in and fish-less cycling threads. I had started with the intent of a fish-less cycle. I planted the tank (55G), filled it up with treated water, and let it sit for about a week. I looked at every hardware store and grocery store locally and couldn't find pure ammonia. Didn't want to pay crazy shipping so I tried Tetra SafeStart. I poured a whole big bottle in and put 10 Zebra Danios in. I monitored the water every day for two weeks and never got any spikes. Just a gradual increase in nitrates. I added 4 Boesemanis and a CPO and watched for two weeks. No spikes. Added 4 Denison Barbs and a pleco.

Anyways, it has been about 7-8 weeks and I haven't had a single spike. My question is: why doesn't everybody use bacteria in a bottle? What is the drawback? Isn't it just like getting bb from an established tank?

 

[serena00]

I used this for my 36g start up and not a single problem. And so much faster. Everybody has been happy and healthy got 3 months now.

 

[friscuba]

I think a lot of people don't trust it simply because they can't measure the cycle. That, and in case it doesn't work, which apparently does happen, it can be a bit of a disaster.


Every time I watch Tanked on Animal Planet, those guys start heavily loaded to fully loaded tanks day one with bottled bacteria. It would be curious to find out if or how often they have failures. I suspect when customers are paying big money for custom tanks, any failure would be a huge embarrassment.

 

[fish jihad]

I just used safestart for the first time. Tanm was about 90% cycled within 10 days. I took measurements daily.
Day2 saw huge jump in nitrites. So huge i did a 20% water change
Day5 huge jump in nitrates. Off the scale. Another 20% aater change
Day7 nitrites and nitrates dropping to .25 and 40ppm respectively
Day 10 nitrites barely registering and nitrates w around 30ppm

From my experience this stuff works well and works fast.

For future reference i added my stock on day 5. The bottle says to add stock immediately but i already had a little pure ammonia in the tank for a fishless cycle. My only advice is keep an eye on the nitrites. Ive read that around 4ppm and higher it becomes toxic to fish. Hence the water changes.

 

[Jeremiah_Conway]

I think a lot of people don't trust it simply because they can't measure the cycle. That, and in case it doesn't work, which apparently does happen, it can be a bit of a disaster.


Every time I watch Tanked on Animal Planet, those guys start heavily loaded to fully loaded tanks day one with bottled bacteria. It would be curious to find out if or how often they have failures. I suspect when customers are paying big money for custom tanks, any failure would be a huge embarrassment.

I've heard that a lot of tanked setups are extravagant. they don't maintain the tanks so when the maintenance crew come in they have to remove some fish