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.
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.
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