fishless cycling and bio-spira

Your ammonia needs to be zero, as well as your nitrite. As long as either one is present in your tank, the fish are in danger. 3-4ppm ammonia isn't high enough for what I consider a quality cycle. 3 guppies will maintain a 3-4ppm ammonia level indefintely. You need a bigger ammonia spike than that, IMHO. I always make sure my test kit is maxed out for at least a week. Makes the cycle take longer, but the end result is a better tank, more capable of supporting your fish and their waste.

1 - Get a bottle of pure ammonia from a drug store. Don't use the kind for cleaning, it's got perfumes and junk in it.
2 - I don't trust those miracles in a bottle. There is no shortcut to a cycled tank.
3 - I know you want to add fish, but nothing good happens fast in a fish tank.

bio-spira stands a good chance of shortcutting the cycle, but it is still safer to use it with a fishless than with Fishy cycling. Producing ammonia via rotting food will work but is very hard to control, adding ammonia in dosed amounts is far more controllable.

Either way I'd definately try the bio-spira, I definately would not add fish right away, and I'd definately keep an ammonia source in the tank or do daily dosing. Higher ammonia titers will counteract the second stage of the cylce estabilishment, and stall or severly slow the cycle as mentioned. 4 ppm is adewquate to create a huge colony of bacteria and handle a prettysignificant fish load.

For more information try this: cycling a tank

HTH
dave

if the cold packs were still cold when you got the shipment then the bio-spira will be fine. If your ammonia is already 4, you should add the bio-spira and nothing else, then take a reading tomorrow etc. Wait till it drops to to 1ish. I've never done a fishless cycle (I probably would now if I bought a big new tank and wanted to move my fish). Add some fish (or ammonia), keep testing your water parameters, and do partial water changes to keep the parameters within a safe range.

biospira does not work with fishless cycles. if you want to use the biospira, empty the tank completely and start over. for biospira to work, you HAVE to follow the directions on the packet, which means starting with a new clean tank, adding the biospira, wait 24 hours, add your FULL STOCK of fish, and test to make sure that you don't get a big spike because the biospira may or may not be viable.

trust me when i say that you MUST FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. i tried to do what everyone else is suggesting, having 3-4ppm ammonia in the tank and adding biospira to shorten the cycle. it did NOT work. the biospira cannot cope with the ammonia that high. it can't deal with such a high concentration of ammonia all at once. it has to be able to deal with the small ammounts of ammonia that fish produce as it is produced as it would in a cycled tank. when i added biospira to my tank with 3ppm ammonia, i got a nitrIte spike almost immediately, but after 2 weeks the ammonia still was not down. every single time i have heard someone try to add biospira in the middle of a fishless cycle it NEVER works.

if you can clean out your tank and start fresh, add the biospira, wait 24 hours, then start dosing very small ammounts of ammonia to simulate adding fish, then it can work, but that's like adding .5ppm ammonia, waiting for it to drop, and then slowly building up how much ammonia you dose at a time until you can dose about 4ppm and its gone in 24 hours.

as for a fishless cycle, 3-4ppm is the highest spike you should go. i know its almost impossible to get pure ammonia in the UK so rotting food is one of your only options. i think 3-4ppm ammonia is fine for a fishless cycle. any higher than that and your cycle will stall and can kill off your good bacteria that's been established.

yusufosman said:

... recently I read up on Bio-Spira and ordered some from the States which arrived here (in cold packs!) because I have never seen this product in the UK.

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Where did you order the BioSpira from (which site), and how long did it take to arrive? I'm in the UK too, and have failed to find anyone who sells it here. I didn't think they would ship it from the US. I'm interested to see if it works for you, as I am planning on setting up a new tank quite soon. :dive2: