If you test without an ammonia source (fish) your readings shouldn't change much. If anything I'd put the TSS in the tank then add the straight ammonia, see if the ammonia level drops down fast. If it does that stuff might just be pure awesome.
product safe start any good?
- Thread starter Flamfish
- Start date
I still think testing with pure ammonia is better. But if you use fish, monitor params.
Tetra claims to have gone beyond what Dr. Tim did with Bio-spira, although generally all of these products are the same...
Test
I likely know less than anyone else posting here, but...
Assuming that this product does work, and you do grow a colony of the type of bacteria that you need. Then you should be able to see it work without fish by substituting amonia w/o fish. Then when you do have the bacteria you should be able to add a little amonia and see it consumed as part of the ongoing cycle.
Mark
I likely know less than anyone else posting here, but...
Assuming that this product does work, and you do grow a colony of the type of bacteria that you need. Then you should be able to see it work without fish by substituting amonia w/o fish. Then when you do have the bacteria you should be able to add a little amonia and see it consumed as part of the ongoing cycle.
Mark
JPappy is right in what he was trying to say. Ammonia is ammonia and the bottle of stuff does not know the difference. If it won't process bottled ammonia, it won't process what the fish produce either. Where you end up if you don't test and make sure things are OK is you either get lucky and your fish live or you don't and your fish die. Before all these test kits became available and the concept of fishless cycling was invented, we all killed lots of fish trying to establish new tanks. With our improved knowledge, there is really no excuse for those high fish death rates any longer. Nobody here can force you to cycle the tank in a particular way but refusing to test because you are afraid the snake oil will not work is ludicrous. That is exactly what it sounds like Tetra wants you to do which is my first red flag about their product. If I had read instructions not to check how well a product is doing its job, my first reaction would have been to leave the stuff on the fish store shelf and find another way to cycle my tank.
That does sound like good advice OM. the only way I see that it would mess with the reading but not harm the fish is if they were using some type of alternative sustenance for the nitrates that doesn't harm the fish that might read as ammonia or nitrates and if that were the case that substitute itself would likely be a big selling product itself.
