Bristlenose pleco

[BeavisMom62]

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?

[jetajockey]

Originally Posted by BeavisMom62

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.

[elaine5182]

Last night I done a 10pwc and ammonia still 0.25!! After introducing the bogwood the ph levels is coming down although the water a light tea-bag colour!!! Was counting my fish though and I seem to have 3 missing!! How on earth can fish go missing. Am at a loss it seems when I try fix one problem another comes along

[FoxRob]

My rubber lip pleco disappeared for 2 months then just showed up one day. Same happened with one of my pictus catfish but when it turned back up it was floating in the tank.

[BeavisMom62]

I too have heard good things about Dr. Tim's. Went to his webpage and was impressed that he was the "inventor" of Biospira (thanks for providing the name, it wasn't coming to mind for the life of me).

Ive never heard of the angelsplus sponge. Sounds like a good idea. I guess it must be something like what I do by removing a seeded sponge from an established tank to cycle a new one, huh? I always keep sponges in all of my filters just for this reason and also to provide an extra home for bacteria.

Have you ever tried Special Blend/Nite out? I have actually had some success with that, but again I use seeded sponges. However for some reason at the moment I am trying to cycle a 10 gal QT and have not only used TSS, SB/NO AND seeded sponges, I'm still seeing ammo every day! Only .25, sometimes .5 (and yes I do large pwc's daily) but its there. I can usually get a tank to cycle in just a few days and here its been a week today! Could it be because Im using QC at the moment? My new goldies have just shown signs of ich, so I've started using that.

[jetajockey]

Originally Posted by BeavisMom62

Ive never heard of the angelsplus sponge. Sounds like a good idea. I guess it must be something like what I do by removing a seeded sponge from an established tank to cycle a new one, huh? I always keep sponges in all of my filters just for this reason and also to provide an extra home for bacteria.

yeah it's the same concept as keeping a spare sponge in an established tank to use for seeding a new tank.

Have you ever tried Special Blend/Nite out? I have actually had some success with that, but again I use seeded sponges. However for some reason at the moment I am trying to cycle a 10 gal QT and have not only used TSS, SB/NO AND seeded sponges, I'm still seeing ammo every day! Only .25, sometimes .5 (and yes I do large pwc's daily) but its there. I can usually get a tank to cycle in just a few days and here its been a week today! Could it be because Im using QC at the moment? My new goldies have just shown signs of ich, so I've started using that.

I've not used that particular product. One thing that is telling about a product is whether it is liquid or dry. You wouldn't want a seeded filter to dry out for the same reason you wouldn't want a bacteria product to be dry.

Another thing is expiration date. Bottled products really should have a manufacture or expiration date. The bacteria in there might be dormant but it doesn't live forever like that. I *think* the average life was either 6months to a year, depending on storage conditions, the exact amount of time escapes me at the moment.

Cycling small tanks is difficult, especially in the short term. It sounds like you are keeping it under control though, so don't worry and just hang in there.

As to whether QC affects biofilter performance or not, I'm going to say maybe. I do know that methylene blue, which also works on the idea of staining the water, does affect the BB, so malachite green probably does as well. That's probably something that deserves a good bit of time googling around for some actual data.

[elaine5182]

My missing fish was found. It had got stuck behind my filter and it must have tried to free itself and lodge itself further - it had small cuts over it's body and was a nightmare to remove from the back of filter. Needless to say it had died

[FoxRob]

Sorry to hear that the fish died. My gourami's are always swimming behind the filter and my common pleco likes to hang out on the pick up tube during the day took me a while to find him there last place I had looked.

[BeavisMom62]

Originally Posted by elaine5182

Was counting my fish though and I seem to have 3 missing!! How on earth can fish go missing. Am at a loss it seems when I try fix one problem another comes along

I think that must be a rule with fishkeeping or something, the minute a problem gets fixed something else goes wrong!

I just had that happen to me yesterday. I was cleaning out my betta tank and removing most of my plants and decor because I was going to add a large piece of driftwood. (Well, actually it WASN'T driftwood because when I was putting it in the water I noticed that it was quite soft and pieces were flaking off like crazy!). Somehow I didn't notice that a BN was on the underside of an anubia leaf (I'm assuming). So I take out the piece of crappy wood, put all my plants and stuff back in there, counted the fish and noticed a BN missing. Looked everywhere and even ended up ripping the plants back out again. Then I noticed one small fern on the dog's bed that was chewed up. When I first took the plants out of the tank, I had this fern next to the anubia that the BN liked to hang out on, in a dish on the floor. I can only assume that one of my dogs not only grabbed the fern, but probably the fish as well! I've been inspecting the tank ever since but I'm 99% positive the fish is gone!