wow I wish I would have known about this sooner bio spira was expensive safe start is cheap. But IMO you still cant beat a fish or fishless cycle 
Is Bio spira still available ?
- Thread starter tcarswell
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wow I wish I would have known about this sooner bio spira was expensive safe start is cheap. But IMO you still cant beat a fish or fishless cycle
Planted tank + safe start = darn near better than fishless =D
Funny how that works. I just waited over 60 days for my 55 to completely cycle :swear::swear::swear::swear::swear: At least it is stable .
If you plan your planted tank properly and stock appropriately you won't have to cycle at all.
That is what I was eluding to ;p but thank you for straight out saying it. I should have done the same.
That's cool, I thought you were saying it was still worthwhile to use it in that scenario.
I'm new here and haven't really checked out the planted tank area yet so I'm not sure what methods are popular here.
I've not used these products, so I can't say for sure, but I've heard that their benefit is minimal. It would be interesting if anyone had any links to some tests of this stuff. I know some products are absolutely worthless...then BioSpira came out and there was a lot of interest and hope, but many were still expressing doubts about it's effectiveness. I never had much of a need for it and it was expensive at the time so I didn't continue to investigate it further.
ehhh I dunno , What exactly is stocking your tank appropriately? Why not just build a good bio foundation with a fish or fish less cycle. Plants can eat nitrates yes but you need beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia>Nitrite then to Nitrate...
ehhh I dunno , What exactly is stocking your tank appropriately? Why not just build a good bio foundation with a fish or fish less cycle. Plants can eat nitrates yes but you need beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia>Nitrite then to Nitrate...
Actually that isn't how it would work in a planted tank, which is what I was speaking of.
Sure, you can "build a foundation" with a fishless cycle, but keep in mind the tank adjusts to what it's stocked with. If you fishless cycle and then only add a few fish the tanks bio capacity is going to adjust to that and you will still have to add fish slowly.
All I'm saying is if you like planted tanks then look into how to start it off right and avoid all the cycling issues and have a nice stable healthy aquarium.
If you aren't going to do plants then it's a different story.
