Staples McJesus said:
The stuff must do something if it's managed to stay on the marked. I find it hard to believe that it's just snake oil.
Lol, sorry. There are plenty of products that do nothing that are on the market and have managed to stay on the market.
Biospira is the best by far. I've read of one person on this forum who it didn't work for, and usually that can be attributed to user error.
Stress Zyme does apparently work, I've seen multiple accounts of 2 week cycles with it.
Cycle does little to nothing. It generally takes about 1 week off of a 6 week cycle with fish.
I really hope you decide against cycling with fish. It's such a pain in the rear. You will be doing lots of water changes and lots of testing. Adding Stress Zyme and/or using some established filter media or gravel in your tank will significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to cycle.
It took me a month to fully cycle (adding ammonia with no gravel and no other addatives) and though it was frustrating towards the end, it was the best long term decision. I was able to decide exactly what I wanted to do with the tank, get exactly the fish I wanted, and do virtually no upkeep on the tank in the process. I also didn't get stuck with some "hardy fish" that I could care less about.