Bio-Spira not working?

uglylittlegirl

uglylittlegirl

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Jan 13, 2007
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I bought Bio-Spira for my 55g and tried to start a fishless cycle, but the nitrites never went away and I kept adding ammonia to make the bacteria think the fish were there. After failing for about a month I emptied my whole tank and cleaned out my filters and I read that you were supposed to add bio-spira with your fish, so I bought another two packets of bio-spira and I added 12 lemon tetras with them, they seem to be fine, but I am still battling with the Nitrites, they are slowly getting higher and highger and I am doing 30% water changes to try and lower them, I add Prime everytime I change the water. The Nitrites are normally at 1 or .50 when I check them and I bring them down to .25, Ph is normal 7.0, Ammonia is .50 and Nitrates are 10 right now. Before I thought this was a problem I added a betta, and he is sitting at the bottom of the tank on the far right side on the sand next to a fake plant, the lemon tetras are on another side schooling near a rock. So my question is, are the nitrites going to be a real problem for my fish tank and how long will I need to be doing water changes before everything is normal?
 
It could easily be eight weeks before everything settles down during a cycle. For reference you should try to keep both ammonia and nitrite below the .25ppm level when fish are present. The bacteria that consumes nitrites seems to be the slower bacteria to develop.
 
I am pretty far away from an expert, but I just udes BioSpira. Initially I was feeding it with ammonia as you were. One day I tested it and it seemed to be close to being cycled. Checked the next day and it still seemed good. I did some water changes to lower the ammonia and added fish. It took another 1 1/2 weeks to cycle, and that necessitated daily WCs. I don't know if it caused stress for my fish or not, but they all survived it. It's been several weeks since and they're all still alive. I think that when BioSpira works it's still a bit of a roller coaster until it cycles, so it might not be the most kind to fish.
 
Biospira works well but only if it is kept refrigerated. Sometimes when it is traveling to the fish store or even in the fish store they don't keep it cool and the bacteria dies. I have used it successfully in the past. Was it kept cool at the store and when you bought it?
 
yes they had it refridgerated, I even kept the ac on full blast to make sure it didnt warm up on the way home.
 
the more amm. you add the more nitrites you make.. keep this at a steady level to keep the nitrites lower till the nitrite eating bacteria grow to catch up.. these are slow growing the others are fast growing..
 
I wouldn't add ammonia right now since there are fish in the tank.
 
So am I at a stage where I have to keep doing water cycles and hope for the best, because nitrites are still at .50 even after the water changes (this is the second one I did today right about 6 hours later)
 
In theory I think another 50% WC would bring the nitrites down to .25ppm. This is the number I was give to try to stay below. I'm not sure that 3 WCs in on eday is good or not though. Personally (again, I don't "know" what I'm doing, and have little experience) I would leave it at 2 WCs for today, then do another one in the morning. Check the water in the mid afternoon, and if needed, do another WC.

I swear when my tank cycled it just happened. It didn't really peter out, just everything zeroed. I was doing daily, and occasionally twice daily, water changes. I wound up with fish in an uncycled tank as well, so I understand your concerns.
 
Are you using a liquid test kit or dip strips?
 
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