Does Bio-Spira Work?

[steelspy]

Stable

My tank is stable!

Nitrites are zero & Nitrates are 5.0 or less.

Been a week since my last water change.

I did run into an algae problem. scrubbed the whole tank and changed the water. I rinsed my filter material in the tank water I removed during the water change. The filter media was filthy. The water was cloudy for a few days, but no surface growth. I also went into "blackout" mode for three days. Kept the lights on for no more than three hours at a time. Read somewhere that algae needs 4 hours of continuous light to propogate.

Tank is crystal clear.

I've cut way back on the feeding too!

 

[dixienut]

have used bio-spira,and fritz-zyme on 4 tanks at same time bio-spira worked very well all tanks were fully to over stocked kept amonia to under 1 and nitrite to under 1 till it cycled in less than 4 weeks, the fritz-zyme kept amonia down to 1 but the nitrite would spike bad had to do water changes till cycled 6 weeks, didn't do water changes on bio-spira, every day the readings got better till done...

result bio-spira is the best.......

my tanks had all crashed over night due to routine water change ..but what i didn't know was my well water had gone down to 6 ph from the normal 7.8 ph the last time, killed all my bio filters.. so hence the test it was life or death...

 

[ghart999]

I used bio spira in a new tank (65G) with 15 fish. After 2 weeks I still had ammonia of .5 - .75, no nitrates or nitrites. I bought another batch with still no change for 2 weeks. In the 5th week I finally got nitrates and ammonia went to zero. 1 week later I was finally cycled. So it took 2 batches to cycle in 6 weeks. So for me it was a complete waste of money.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You folks need to learn to use Google Scholar.

In order to identify bacteria responsible for nitrite oxidation in aquaria, clone libraries of rRNA genes were developed from biofilms of several freshwater aquaria. Analysis of the rDNA libraries, along with results from denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) on frequently sampled biofilms, indicated the presence of putative nitrite-oxidizing bacteria closely related to other members of the genus Nitrospira. Nucleic acid hybridization experiments with rRNA from biofilms of freshwater aquaria demonstrated that Nitrospira-like rRNA comprised nearly 5% of the rRNA extracted from the biofilms during the establishment of nitrification. Nitrite-oxidizing bacteria belonging to the

subdivision of the class Proteobacteria (e.g., Nitrobacter spp.) were not detected in these samples. Aquaria which received a commercial preparation containing Nitrobacter species did not show evidence of Nitrobacter growth and development but did develop substantial populations of Nitrospira-like species.

The whole abstract can be viewed here: http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/64/1/258

Note: Timothy A. Hovanec is one of the 4 authors.

 

[bazil323]

BioSpira is the only product that actually works. BUT it must be stored properly all the way to your tank. That means in transport to the store, at the store, and on the way home. BioSpira actually instantly cycles the tank so that you can add a reasonable amount of fish right away. In fact, that is what you are supposed to do. You can add ammonia instead, if you're paranoid, until you are sure that it will maintain your tank.

BioSpira is actually temporarily discontinued until they re-release it next spring. They are working on putting it into a concentrated form so that you don't have to refridgerate it anymore. I wonder how well it will work then?

 

[excuzzzeme]

I don't use anything other than media, water, and a filter from a cycled tank. I keep a spare (or 2) filter running at all times)