jeta, are there any bacterial supplements that you would recommend? The one that I have seen most highly recommended is Tetra's SafeStart, which is supposed to be the same as Bio.....what the heck? BioStart? something like that? But suposedly Tetra bought out the Bio....company or the patent or something. I've used the Safestart and haven't found it to be that effective. I wonder if there is something else that is better?
I had decent results with Safestart. The formula was bought by tetra and is the old freshwater version of Biospira, so yeah you were close. I have not tested Dr Tim's one and only, but I am willing to bet it is a good working product as well, since he's the inventor of the Biospira product and has the actual science backing him.
I tested it 4 times and it worked 3 out of 4, so decent, but still not a miracle in a bottle, so to speak.
There are several factors that can affect the performance of TSS, including its handling prior to it reaching the consumer's hand. The bacteria is alive in the bottle, it's just dormant, but it still can't be exposed to temperature extremes. The other thing is that it doesn't seem to be very effective on a heavily stocked tank. It probably comes around in time, but it just takes time to build the colony just like it does when done the natural way.
The major pro for this particular product is its availability. Around the middle of last year, they started stocking it on the shelves at petsmart, so no more mail order nonsense.
I think my favorite hands down supplement however is the angelsplus active sponge filter. I tested this one twice (on another forum) and had 100% success. I've used it a few other times but I didn't record the results apart from that it worked.
I had so much faith in this particular product that I originally tested it in a brand new tank and added several breeder pairs of electric blue rams that had just been shipped in.
The con to this particular one is that it has to be shipped unless you happen to be local to the angelsplus people. The shipping cost is high because they use UPS.
However, the pros outweigh the cons in this situation, because the overall cost ends up being just about the same as if you were to buy a bottle of SafeStart. The added bonus is that you have a sponge filter also, which can be left running and used to cycle as many tanks as you want it to. This works out great in a pinch when you need to set up a QT or a hospital tank.
I also tested stability, cycle, biozyme, fritzzyme, and a few others, results were dubious at best.
The link to the angelsplus active filter is here
Sponge Filters for aquariums
If you scroll down there is a description of the product and a link that goes back to a test I did on it.
NOTE:
I am not affiliated with this company/site in any way apart from being a consumer
Hope this helps.
