Stability???

[jetajockey]

ahhh..nothing like buying your way to self gratification.....

I completely understand and respect your position on this, but in reality many fishkeepers walk out of the LPS with a tank under one arm and a bag of fish under the other.

If there are products (there are only a few, I've tested many and very few actually produce real tested results), that can speed the process along, and people are willing to pay for it, then they should be able to. However, I think its important to make sure that people aren't being ripped off by snake oil salesman that have been very prevalent in the last several years.

This is why it is important to have the science behind exactly what a product is, and why it works, along with examples.

How is this method any different than getting some established gravel or filter media from a LFS?

It's easy to tell people just to be patient, but having been in the position of a new tank owner and seeing your tank full of fish die off one by one can really put you in a position of helplessness.

And finally, does this make people who use water conditioners to remove chlorine/chloramine impatient as well?


No offense intended by this post, I just hope you can see a different angle to the situation.

Take care!

 

[DocTim]

jetajockey - you have pretty much nailed it. For a new tank owner, especially if this is their first aquarium, they want to have some fish in it soon. That's why they bought it and its human nature. To tell them to wait 6 weeks etc is impractical - they'll probably just go to another source. It would be better to at least set up the day on one day and add fish the next and then proceed slowly which many stores do tell people.

I don't think it's instant gratification - why not get the process going. The fish will be less stressed by high ammonia/nitrite, the tank owner will be less stressed by dead/dying fish and constant water changes. Where's the problem?

As for snake oil products - there are a lot but some have been around for a long time which still doesn't mean they actually work.

 

[Jspigs]

opcorn:

 

[GoldLenny]

I completely understand and respect your position on this, but in reality many fishkeepers walk out of the LPS with a tank under one arm and a bag of fish under the other.

If there are products (there are only a few, I've tested many and very few actually produce real tested results), that can speed the process along, and people are willing to pay for it, then they should be able to. However, I think its important to make sure that people aren't being ripped off by snake oil salesman that have been very prevalent in the last several years.

This is why it is important to have the science behind exactly what a product is, and why it works, along with examples.

How is this method any different than getting some established gravel or filter media from a LFS?

It's easy to tell people just to be patient, but having been in the position of a new tank owner and seeing your tank full of fish die off one by one can really put you in a position of helplessness.

And finally, does this make people who use water conditioners to remove chlorine/chloramine impatient as well?

No offense intended by this post, I just hope you can see a different angle to the situation.

Take care!

Dittos!!!

Of course, for those who still have ONLY chlorine treated water, it's only a day or two to let the chlorine outgas so that's more feasible, but for those with chloramine, it is one to two weeks and I don't want 10 1/2 full 5G buckets sitting aound my house for two weeks.... oh wait.. I would need 20 1/2 full 5G buckets since I do weekly PWC's.

 

[Rbishop]

How is this method any different than getting some established gravel or filter media from a LFS?

Time.

 

[jetajockey]

Time.

Could you elaborate? I've used the established media method and it's actually faster because for me it has given an instant cycle, at least in the sense that there was never a noticeable ammonia or nitrite spike.

Of course then again it depends on the source of the media and how established it was, as well as what bioload it is going up against.

Gravel seems to be much less effective than actual filter media, I speculate because gravel tends to have less surface area and less o2 supply so it is less concentrated there.

The angelsplus active sponge filter provided an instant cycle both times I tested it. Even after shipping it's only a dollar or two more than the smallest bottle of tetra safestart or the big bottle of stability, and at the end of the day whether it does anything or not, you still have a good working sponge filter.

I bought them with the intention of testing, but I needed some extra sponge filters, so I bought some of their regular sponge filters also, and ran them side by side for 2 weeks. At that point I put them in their own tanks and they've all been going strong for months now.