Bio Spira

I can speak from experience, the product works as advertised.

Your mileage may vary.

I setup an old 30 Gallon High tank, an Emperor 280 filter, undergravel filter, and 26 fish (!) consisting of twelve Neons, four Leopard Dainos, six Gouramies (three Three Spot and three Sunset), two Cory Cats and two Red Eye Tetras on 12/22/02. I added 3oz of Bio-Spira four days after the fish were added on 12/26/02.

Tank Log:
PH: 7.0

12/22/02 - New setup NH3 - 0, NO2 - 0

12/26/02 - Added Bio-Spira (3oz) NH3 - 3.0, NO2 - 0.3

12/27/02 - 5 gallon H2O change, NH3 - 3.0, NO2 - 0.3 (before H2O change)

12/29/02 - 5 gallon H2O change, NH3 - 1.5, NO2 - 0.3, NO3 - 12.5(before H2O change)

12/30/02 - NH3 - 0.25, NO2 - 1.6

12/31/02 - 5 gallon H2O change, NH3 - 0, NO2 - 1.6 (before H2O change)

1/5/03 - NH3 - 0, NO2 - 0, NO3 - 12.5

Considering the fish load, the accumulated NH3 and NO2 present before adding the Bio-Spira, it worked better than I could have hoped. I estimate the tank fully cycled in one week, with a four day full fish load in place when the Bio-Spira was added. The tank is clean as a whistle, and the fish are all happy and healthy.

I lost 4 Neons during the process, but I chalk that up to buying six fish at one store and six more at another store that were not as healthy or large. I did loose one Sunset Gourami about 10 days ago, well after the tank was cycled. I also chalk up his demise to him being rather timid and potentially diseased when he was purchased.
 
OKay....the sales rep told me that it cycled the tank completely in 24 hours....What the packet says however is that it speeds the process up considerably. Thats a much different claim then what the sales rep said. With the claim on the packet stating it like that I will most likely get this product in my store, it seems to me it is the best biological filtration supplement....so why not?? I just doubting ANYTHING being able to cope with the addition of 12 fish or so the same night the chemical was added, get my drift?

Keep the comments coming I want to hear what EVERYONE has to say.

Caleb
 
The body of evidence is not conclusive at this time but it looks promising. I believe Deleung added 18 fish the same day as the BioSpira without losing fish or experience a disease outbreak. There was a short period of detectable nitrite...maybe a mini-cycle as the tank adjusted to the heavier fish load. That could also happen with a fish or fishless cycle. Anyway, more cases need to be reported where people have immediately added fish without encountering "new tank syndrome."

I think a certain amount of skepticism is warranted given the number of years that ineffective cycling products have been marketed. As we all know, these didn't do squat except part fishkeepers from their money. But I don't know about criticizing the technical merits of a new product because you can't get a free sample. BioSpira claims to incorporate new research to eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) new tank syndrome. How many free samples should the manufacturer give away assuming that once people have an existing tank they may never (or only rarely) have need to use it again. Even if BioSpira is 100% effective, it will be considerably more expensive than using gravel, media, or water from an established tank.

As people use this product, successfully or not, I hope they post their results on this forum.
 
I think it would be great if it did work, but if it contains live cultures of the nitrifying bacteria, I would expect there to ALWAYS be some negative results. It's hard to imagine any distribution and handling chain that won't occasionally have some slips (e.g., a case of the stuff left in the sun by mistake). If BioSpira does work as advertised -- even 9 times out of ten -- it would probably help a lot of people stay in the hobby instead of being driven out by tankful after tankful of fish dying from "unknown causes" (i.e., ammonia poisoning).

What will be really interesting, though, is what it does LFS business in selling all the junk they load onto people whose tanks are cycling. Maybe LFSs won't want it to succeed...?

Jim
 
Hello:


No ammonia or nitrite detected after adding the 8-9 inch arowana and 4-inch ( body only)red parrot cichlid.

I decided to spend 8 bucks 2 days ago to test nitrates for fellow members here. Nitrates were 10 ppm 2 days ago and heading
towards 20 ppm tonight. I also have not lost any fish ! Nor have
I had any diseases pop up yet.


I need to remind members here that my 72 gallon setup was from
scratch. New gravel and 2 new power filters. No water, media
or gravel from an established tank.


How about one of the moderators here plunking down 12 bucks
to test on a 20-30 gallon tank ? Put 6-9 messy feeder goldfish and check daily over a 2 week period ?




Daniel
 
If I could find some locally, I'd buy some and cycle a bare tank using ammonia. No need to get fish to test whether BioSpira acually works.

If only it was carried locally...

Jim
 
My LFS says that they have used BioSpira on setting up "business"tanks around town that they also perform weekly maintenance on. They told me that they have put a full load of fish in many brand spankin' new tanks with no die off and no spikes.

I read the research papers on NitroSpira and it was very illuminating. It would appear, by Dr. Hovanec's viewpoint, that NitroSpira is the actual oxidizing bacteria, not nitrosomonas or nitrobacter as we have been taught. He states that yes, Nitrosomonas do oxidize ammonia and Nitrobacter do oxidize nitrite. However, they are not the principle oxidizers in an aquarium environment.

One of his experiments was to place nitrosomonas and nitrobacter into a new tank's filter. What he found was that cultures of these two bacteria would completely die out and disappear after a 3 week period of time. This would account for why bacteria additives have not done any appreciable good in tanks thus far.

Finally, he extracted the bacteria from cycled tanks and through DNA extraction from the biofilm, DNA sequencing, PCR, molecular probing, etc. and found that the oxidizing bacteria in our filters is not related to nitrobacter winogradskyi or it's family. Instead it is very closely related to Nitrospira marina and Nitrospira moscoviensis. The DNA sequence is very different from the Nitrobacter family.

He also probed the substrate of multiple aquariums and found the same results - no nitrobacter or nitrosomonas. He did find strains of Nitrospira-like bacteria though.
Additionally and more importantly, it would seem that most of his research was more focused on the oxidation of ammonia, not nitrite. It would appear that science has been studying the wrong bacterium and this is why bacterial additives were inneffective - because they were of the wrong strain of bacteria.
The article was in the April 1999 edition of Aquarium Fish Magazine. Written by Timothy A. Hovanec entitled "Nitrospira, not nitrobacter."

In any case, I used it when I started my planted 55 gal. Granted, I put plants in the tank as well. I put a low fish load (ten 1" tetras and 1 dwarf gourami) and have had no ammonia spike or nitrite spike. Readings are consistently 0. Perhaps some of the nitrospira bacteria on the plants assisted the increased population of NitroSpira in the tank from the Bio-Spira (nitrospira) injection. In any case, Bio-Spira may not completely cycle the tank, but it would appear that it significantly shortens the cycle time and/or reduces spikes because it is apparently the right bacterial cultures. To me, that is worth investigating further.

One other thing, I think that it is a bit hasty to say that this additive does not work because of a small spike in nitrite. I would argue that a very small spike is better than a large one. For those that do not choose to cycle their tank fishless, it is a more humane way to cycle a tank with fish.

Research takes time and I'm willing to be optimistic. :)

Respectfully submitted,
John
 
Sorry--bad phrasing on my part. I should have said that the presence of nitrites indicates that fully established bacteria colonies aren't present, and that additional testing should be done to verify that the ammonia is NOT being converted to ammonia but is actually being processed into nitrites.

Sorry. I apologize for using statements that aren't supported by facts. If I can find this product locally, I am willing to setup a spare tank and dose it with ammonia, and test it. Will let you know if I can do so.
 
Well, I'm skeptical, but I am also willing to acknowledge a good product when I see one. When I first saw this my first thing was, great another useless additive. I'm willing to go out and try and find a fish store and buy it for my own research. My opinion is it greatly helps but doesn't completely cycle the tank in 24 hours. And my opinion of the sales rep.....well, if its such a great product and you want me to sell it without ever having heard or read anything about it besides a basic description, your pitch, and various things in magazines that never seemed fully conclusive, then you better provide me with a sample to test it and come to my own conclusion.....thats just the way I feel business should be. Heck, the aquarium Pharmaceuticals guy came in and gave me a filstar since we don't carry them and said try it on a tank and see if you like it. I don't know, maybe I just like being bribed with free things....

Caleb
 
Originally posted by JeffP
But I don't know about criticizing the technical merits of a new product because you can't get a free sample. BioSpira claims to incorporate new research to eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) new tank syndrome. How many free samples should the manufacturer give away assuming that once people have an existing tank they may never (or only rarely) have need to use it again.
Click to expand...

JeffP - I think you missed the point that the person who asked for the free sample was Caleb - who manages the local fish department in his area. The Salesperson was trying to get him to carry BioSpira - he noted he was skeptical as to the effectiveness of the product - and he asked the sales rep for a sample. I see nothing wrong with that.

I agree they shouldn't / couldn't apply free samples to the general public - but shoot, if I owned a LFS and cared enough to do things the right way like Caleb - and some sales rep wanted me to carry a product that I was leery about or unfamiliar with, asking for a sample to try makes perfect sense.

Shoot, in this case - whats a sample large enough to get a new 10 gallon tank gonna cost them? Not much at all - and when you compare it to their other sales and marketing costs, well not providing a LFS store a small sample is ludicrous and bad business
 
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