I added bio spara and full load of fish sunday and have lost 3 of my six serpe tetra. One monday,one tuesday, one today. I checked water every day and today is first day ammonia at.25, PH 7.6, nitrates 0. At a loss as to why fish have died no signs of anything till swimming on sides and floatiing. Feeding tropical fish flakes and all seem to eat well? is it time for water change? how much?tested now PH 7.6 - nitrates 0 - nitrites 0 - ammonia .25. Do you think bio spira not working and do I need more. Put in 3 oz package? water change 50% ?
bio sbira working?
- Thread starter vibe
- Start date
bio-spira is LIVE bacteria. it should be used within 2 or 3 days for optimum effeciency. it may have died from shipping and then sitting in a fridge for two weeks. also the you shake because the bacteria settles on the bottom, so you need to shake it to get the bacteria all in the liquid before you pour it.
vibe said:
Using water conditioners that also "remove" ammonia (Prime is one example) can have a negative effect on Bio-Spira. This is what Marineland Labs says on their website:
IMPORTANT:
BIO-Spira is a "live" bacteria culture that is sold refrigerated and must be kept refrigerated until used. It can not be overdosed. Repeated dosing of your aquarium with ammonia removing liquids (such as BIO-Safe, Amquel, Ammo-lock and Aqua-Safe) can inhibit the beneficial action of BIO-Spira. Ammonia removing liquids should only be used to initially treat tap water. It is normal to have a small (<2 ppm) amount of ammonia or nitrate during the first few days after set-up. These concentrations are not harmful and will quickly drop to zero with proper use of BIO-Spira.
They do mention "repeated dosing" as being an issue, so it would depend on how much Prime was used. When I fishless cycled my tank I used a regular water conditioner that just removed chlorine & chrloramine, but didn't affect the ammonia, and added Bio-Spira to finish the cycle. I switched to Prime when I finally added fish.
My guess would be the prime also. I know Bernie at the Lighthouse personally, and his bio spira supply is replenished every week from Marineland. I doubt you got a bad batch. It could also just be that the fish were sick to begin with. Your bio spira is suspended in your water right now, and takes a few days to attach itself to something in your tank or in your filter. If you do a water change, you will take a lot of the bio spira out with your old tank water.