gagaliya said:
be VERY wary if nitrite is at 0 and ammonia is >= 0.25. In my case, it meant the cycle did not even start yet. If you didnt overfeed and it's a whole tank of brand new water, you may not get a lot of initial ammonia. Again it doesnt mean biospira is working, it could simply mean the cycle didnt start...
The appearance of ammonia means that the cycle HAS started. The point to adding the fish in with the Bio Spira is so that ammonia is produced to feed the bacteria in the Bio Spira.
IME and IMO, you must have done something contrary to the instructions on the package. What you have said above does not make sense at all.
For me bio spira did not work, even though i thought it did initially with such low readings - the 0.25 ammonia 0 nitrite. Ammonia climbed up gradually, then nitrite spiked, etc. The tank was cycled after 1+ month, so essentially biospira didnt do anythign and i cycled it with fish...
I have never had this happen with Bio Spira when the instructions have been followed EXACTLY and I've used it at least 13 times. Either you had a very bad batch of bacteria or you changed the water out too soon or did something else that interrupted the cycle.
edit: here's probably the best article on instant cycling. Although the author uses something called Turbo Start instead of Bio Spira.
Again, the ONLY product available on the market today that can instantly cycle a tank IS Bio Spira.
Oh boy, it's Fritz-Zyme again. You know, I emailed them about this stuff a few months ago asking them why they thought FW aquariums needed nitrobacters and a few other questions. They didn't bother to respond. Wonder why? Did you know that most of the bacteria in the bottle are nitrobacters? Wrong bacteria for FW aquariums.
Right from their web site:
"Fritz-Zyme #7 has a cell count of 30 million bacteria per ounce, 50% of which is Nitrosomonas and 50% Nitrobacter. To obtain the same ammonia conversion rate, a competitive product composed of heterotrophic “nitrifiers” would require the addition of 15 trillion bacteria. This would probably require several gallons of another product. No quantity of heterotrophic “nitrifiers” would reduce the generated nitrites."
The product only contains nitrosomonas for FW, which doesn't surprise me since Marineland has a patent on their product.
I like the claim they make that: "The Choice of Professional Aquaculture Facilities and Public Aquaria for Over 20 Years." Talk about misleading advertising. Bio Spira was the first to come out with the proper bacteria, it's also patented, so tell me how they were able to do this 20 years ago?
It does require refridgeration, according to the web site, so I will grant that it may help jump-start a cycle, but this product definitely does NOT contain all the bacteria required for a FW aquarium and I highly doubt it's going to cycle a tank in 24 hours as Bio Spira does.
I don't have enough background to smash their advertising spiel all to hell. I know this product does not work the way they want you to think it does. I'm pretty sure that this stuff will cause some massive ammonia and nitrite spikes, and if the proper ammonia eaters do not establish in time, the whole cycle will go down the drain. However, I cannot explain exactly what the process is and why, ergo I'm not going to try. I'll leave something like this to RTR and happychem.
Roan
