Best Bacteria Booster For New Tank?

[xamy_valox]

Hi there,
I am planning to upgrade to a bigger tank in the next couple of weeks, and was advised by the shop that I bought my tank from (Juwel Rekord 700) that I should get some Tetra Safe Start to help quicken up the cycling process.
However, when I mentioned this to my friend who has a 280 litre tank he said he had some issues with the Safe Start and wouldn't reccommend!
I was just wondering a) Is API's Stress Zyme is the same thing, as I already have some of this.
and b) if not, what else would people reccommend?

I am also planning on converting the sponge filter media from my Fluval Edge into the new filter, however it is obviously much smaller, and there is no specific space for it. Will I be doing more harm than good if I try and squeeze it in somewhere?

Thanks, Amy.

 

[anon02]

Your filter needs to be able to handle the bioload of the tank irrespective of the water volume so you have a few options. Assuming you keep the same number of fish you could run your mature and new filters together for a few weeks, you could take the media out of your mature filter and replace some of the media in the new filter with it, in either case you could add stock straight away so long as you are sensible and dont add too many fish at once
The filter aids available in the UK are not held in high esteem by a lot of fishkeepers

 

[xamy_valox]

Your filter needs to be able to handle the bioload of the tank irrespective of the water volume so you have a few options. Assuming you keep the same number of fish you could run your mature and new filters together for a few weeks, you could take the media out of your mature filter and replace some of the media in the new filter with it, in either case you could add stock straight away so long as you are sensible and dont add too many fish at once
The filter aids available in the UK are not held in high esteem by a lot of fishkeepers

Hi anon02, thanks for your reply.
I am hoping to eventually put all the fish from my current tank into the bigger tank. I was at first going to do this bit by bit. Firts introducing my cherry barbs as they seem to be the hardiest of all my fish.
However, others have said I will be fine to add all my fish at once. I think this will be too much too soon, am I correct?
My current stocking is 1 Betta, 4 Harlequin Rasboras, 4 Neon Tetras and 4 Cherry Barbs. I REALLY don't want to loose any of them if this can be helped =[

Amy xx

 

[anon02]

You can transfer the mature filter and all the fish to the new tank

 

[MBOU]

The filter aids available in the UK are not held in high esteem by a lot of fishkeepers

Which is a huge shame because there are a lot of good products out there if you bother looking around and doing some research amd experimenting other than relying 100% on what other people think and write online...

I have had to use loads of different 'biological bacteria boosters' or whatever naff name they get and i hear a lot of first hand reports and see the test results and getto see what works and what doesnt.

Its still my opinion but at least its a opinin based on experience...

Personally.. I dont rally rate the Tetra products, safestart doesn seem to do much an tbh i hate the company purely for their Easy Balance. The label stes "drastically reduces your need for waterchanges" like heck does it. I am so sick of people wit 5 fancy goldfish in a 19 Liter spongebob tank using easybalance and wondering why they ae on their tenth group of goldfish (not bought from us!) in as many weeks... when they have never done a water change. ts actually not a bad product to use midweek if keeping big fish or heavily stocked tanks like malawis!! but that int who they aim the product at.

Stress Coat and Stress Zyme are vry good, considerin ho much i wish Aquarian foods were just taken off the market, their conditioners are pretty good... Though i would say stress zyme is great for regular maintenance, use it when you do a water change etc its good, if yo have a massive nitrite spike.... it doesnt do anything in a hurry...

Cycle... Cycle is an odd one, they changed their ingredients in it about 6-8 months ago, the old formula worked great (personally... it works great as a regular maintenance but not if you have a problem but colleagues dissagree). Their new formula is nowhere near as effective (i forget what it is they changed). But MAs own brand of bacteria booster is the OLD style cycle, the beter one that worked ok.

Interpets "Bioactive Tapsafe" is fantastic, for a cheap product (compared to the others) we have ALLhad far better effects with customers with any tank, small ones in particular and cycling. Far less problems. (not to be confused with their normal/goldfish tapsafe).

Also Aquadistri/Colombo do a fantastic start up bacteria supplement called Bactuur Gel (its very good in 60 - 300L tanks but in smaller tanks its unreliable and bigger tanks you need loads of it! But they also do a Pond form called "Nitrate Gel" which is the same but seriously concentrated and works bloody well!

I have used this on my cousins malawi tank when she had an amonia spike. I have photos of the tests somewhere...

But when tested hourly... the Amonia dropped from being off the scale to 0 in 12 hours and with the Nitrite, on the JBL Freshwater Master Test Kit (deffo one of the best if you have money to spare LOL) went down one on the chart every hour. There were 8 shades between worst and 0 on the chart and within 8 hours it hit 0.

Thats as fast as anything can work. It instantly neautralised everything, cleared the ammonia and then set to work on the nitrite. Good water change needed afterwards. (though not as thorough as the one that caused the spike )

http/www.aquadistri.com/en/detail/05050100/bactoplus-1-ltr (quickest link i could find to i think the right product, i've been using old style packaging)

-------

That said... i take peoples opinions on cycling tanks on this forum lightly becaus so many people go on and on about cycling with neat ammonia or fish in cycling etc when tbh, it can easily be done with the right products which are made right for that reason and in reality... like 80% of fishkeepers use a branded biological bacteria supplement to cycle their tank which works just as well if you do it properly as messing around with ammonia.

I just think hat you are made to feel a bit inferior sometimes for using a shop brought product rather than doing a DIY job and buying ammonia. I have had customers come in realy confused and ashamed to ask for help because i directed them to this forum and they got slated for asking which products people advised them to use.

Such a minority of fishkeepers care to use forums and that isnt just the dedicated fishkeepers that use the forums, a lot of the more dedicated fishkeepers avoid forums like the plague to aboid conflicts, stupid advise, daft questions and arrogant fishkeepers who think their way is best.

I just think people need to think more before they type.

EDIT: sorry for the typos and lack of spaces, myspace bar doesntwant towork tonight!!!

 

[anon02]

The original poster didn`t have a problem with high toxicity levels and they weren`t starting a cycle from scratch, they were setting up a larger tank for which the existing mature filter would be perfectly adequate, wouldn`t you agree ?
I apologise to the original poster if it seems that my advice was not thought out, but I can assure you it was

 

[xamy_valox]

Hi Guys,
No I can see where both answers have come from. Anon02 your advice was great and I will get to work probably next week on setting up the tank, knowing that I can safely put my fish straight in with (hopefully) no casualties.
Also, thanks MBOU, I will have a look at some of those products you mentioned to help my filter along. At present I dont have any issues with toxicity levels, but with the setting up of the new tank, I imagine they could be very likely.

Thanks, I'm sure I'll be back with more questions soon!
Amy xx

 

[Tizer]

I generally dont believe in any bottled product because i always do fish in cycle When you look at the prices of some of these products, its quite insane, i'd rather keep the money and spend it down the pub ;D Not that i get out that often

 

[xamy_valox]

I generally dont believe in any bottled product because i always do fish in cycle When you look at the prices of some of these products, its quite insane, i'd rather keep the money and spend it down the pub ;D Not that i get out that often

Hi Tizer,
I will be doing a fish in cycle as I am putting in the fish from my previous tank.
I just thought these products may help may things a bit quicker, is this the case or are they unnessecary?
I already have stress zyme as I use it in my current tank every now and again, and was just thinking of adding a small amount in the first few weeks of setting up my new tank.
Amy xx

 

[Tizer]

I cant really comment about them working or not really, i did have a bottle of JBL Denitrol that came with my 240 Litre tank, and half way through the cycle (about 3 weeks in) i added some to the water. Didnt really speed anything up though, the tank still took 5 weeks to cycle properly.

There are just so many products to pick from i find it easier to just not to go there. So i cycle my tanks with fish and im very careful not to let the water get toxic with ammonia and nitrite. So as long as you have a test kit to measure these and do it at least once a day (and a water change if necessary) anyone can get their filter matured for free.

 

[xamy_valox]

Yeah I have an API Test Kit which I use quit often to keep ontop of ammonia build up.
I just hope I don't end up with any casualties as I am doing this to give them a more spacious habitat aswell as for my own pleasure, so I would hate it to go the other way and end up killing them off!!

Amy xx

 

[Tolak]

If you already have a mature and reasonably sized & stocked tank running you should never have to mess with ammonia, cycling products, & cycling again. Take some of the media from the mature tank, use it on the new tank. This is called cloning.

 

[Tizer]

I actually find the water changes quite enjoyable im sad

 

[xamy_valox]

If you already have a mature and reasonably sized & stocked tank running you should never have to mess with ammonia, cycling products, & cycling again. Take some of the media from the mature tank, use it on the new tank. This is called cloning.

Hi Tolak,
Yeah I am planning on doing this.
My only issue is that the filter media I am going to use is from a 23 litre Fluval Edge tank, and is going into a 70 litre huge filter and I dont know if it will have as much of an effect as others would =\

I know it will be better than nothing, but I just didnt think it would be enough to fully cycle the tank.
Amy xx

 

[Tolak]

The media will support the bio load it is currently supporting regardless of tank size. You could take a small filter, on a 10 gallon, with a trio of guppys that is mature, and move the filter & three fish to a 55, being assured there would be no cycling issues. Your only problem there would be the lack of mechanical filtration, as well as water flow on the larger tank with an undersized filter. Cycling would not be an issue.