stress zyme, stress coat, water conditioner.same thing??
- Thread starter bizzy420
- Start date
As far as I know ...
Stress Coat = dechlorinator + artificial slime coat. We got a little bottle of this w/ our aquarium kit but haven't used it. Wife bought a big bottle of NovAqua (same thing I guess) and I use that with water changes.
Stress Zyme = beneficial bacteria "starter". Again, got a little bottle of this with our kit - about one dose worth. Bought a bigger bottle since the ad copy made it sound decent. Doesn't seem to be doing anything though, stopped using it.
Stress Coat = dechlorinator + artificial slime coat. We got a little bottle of this w/ our aquarium kit but haven't used it. Wife bought a big bottle of NovAqua (same thing I guess) and I use that with water changes.
Stress Zyme = beneficial bacteria "starter". Again, got a little bottle of this with our kit - about one dose worth. Bought a bigger bottle since the ad copy made it sound decent. Doesn't seem to be doing anything though, stopped using it.
Got me - I only started this back at Christmas time!
I can tell you what I've tried over the last month:
"Clarity" - it's a flocci.., flocul..., er, it's some goo that's supposed to make the water clear. Made cloudy water look like thin caramel sauce - didn't work at all. Also read here it's very bad for fish. It went in the trash.
"AmQuel" - gets rid of Ammonia, Nitrite & Nitrate. If you oopsie like I did and add fish way before the tank has cycled (I didn't know any better, honest), you'll need some of this to keep the ammonia/nitrite down.
A good test kit (pH, Ammonia Nitrate, Nitrite, kH, gH). We had the 5-in-1 strips but I think they may have been old since the readings were pretty variable. I went and got the dropper tests instead - seems to be the preferred tests here.
Other than that, I'll say that at first I thought "better fish living through magic chemicals" - have a problem, dump some goo in the tank to fix it. From reading here and on other boards, it seems that chemicals just treat the symptoms - they don't fix the problem. Like painting a wall in your house to cover up water damage; it looks better but you didn't find/fix the leak.
And above all - read, read, read and then read some more! The "sticky" posts here are pretty good. I got a lot of useful info from them.
I can tell you what I've tried over the last month:
"Clarity" - it's a flocci.., flocul..., er, it's some goo that's supposed to make the water clear. Made cloudy water look like thin caramel sauce - didn't work at all. Also read here it's very bad for fish. It went in the trash.
"AmQuel" - gets rid of Ammonia, Nitrite & Nitrate. If you oopsie like I did and add fish way before the tank has cycled (I didn't know any better, honest), you'll need some of this to keep the ammonia/nitrite down.
A good test kit (pH, Ammonia Nitrate, Nitrite, kH, gH). We had the 5-in-1 strips but I think they may have been old since the readings were pretty variable. I went and got the dropper tests instead - seems to be the preferred tests here.
Other than that, I'll say that at first I thought "better fish living through magic chemicals" - have a problem, dump some goo in the tank to fix it. From reading here and on other boards, it seems that chemicals just treat the symptoms - they don't fix the problem. Like painting a wall in your house to cover up water damage; it looks better but you didn't find/fix the leak.
And above all - read, read, read and then read some more! The "sticky" posts here are pretty good. I got a lot of useful info from them.
Yes, stress zyme starts your cycle if you do a fishless cycle- I never have cycled a tank fishless but it sounds like you use a few drops of the Zyme every other day or so untill the good bacteria starts growing. I just add a sponge from an old filter but that is only becouse I have other tanks.
As for the water detox, I use Tetra's stuff, I think its called Aqua Safe or something like that - yellow bottle, works good as a water conditioner.
As for the water detox, I use Tetra's stuff, I think its called Aqua Safe or something like that - yellow bottle, works good as a water conditioner.
