Is This Product Good

[grimmy]

it stress coat and stress zyme the zye 1 says in 1 teaspoon it has 300million benafecial bacterail to speed up cycling

 

[kribensis12]

what you need is either, a 3 dollar thing of freeze dried bacteria, 18 dollar bag of live bacteria, or the product called cycle, or just wait it out.

 

[afishdude]

nothing will cycle your tank for you, just speeds it up a bit.
IMO stress coat and stress zyme is a wast of money.

 

[rdd1952]

No product that claims to have bacteria in a bottle is worth the money. That includes Stress Zyme (Stress Coat is a good dechlorinator) and Cycle. I have tried them both and couldn't tell any difference from cycling with nothing at all. Studies have shown that the bacteria supposedly in these products aren't the proper ones to cycle the tank even if they are there. Freeze dried products won't work either as nitrifying bacteria can't live in a dried state. Bio Spira and Bactinettes (contains the wrong nitrite oxidizing bacteria) are the only 2 products that seem to work.

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

I mean Kribensis12, that was really bad information...

rdd1952 is right, and Stress Coat is a good product.

 

[Bignose]

Depends on what you mean by "good product" I guess. I think it is fine as water conditioner, it neutralizes heavy metals and chlorine. But, some of it's claims are just silly. Fish regenerate their own slime coats very quickly and don't need synthetic slime coatings at all. Not only that, but what is the point of putting aloe vera in Stress Coat? Aloe vera is a mild pain reducer and helps keeps damaged tissues moist. Fish, living in water, have no problems keeping their tissues moist! And, unless they are hurt, why would they need a pain reducer? I really think that the only reason Aloe Vera is added is because people read it and think "oh! that's natural! it has to be better than some chemical!" But, then again, Stress Coat says is makes a synthetic slime coat (does anyone even know what the synthetic coat is?) and that is about as far from natural as you can get. I'm sorry, but like I said, it all seems silly.

Not that Stress Coat is super expensive, but a plain jane dechlorinator and heavy metal detoxifier is good enough for me.

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

I guess so. I personally like the Aloe in it.

 

[grimmy]

they work for me

 

[indigoj]

From what I can gather nothing available in the UK is a replacement for time and patience when cycling. I did use some 'Safestart' when due to a disease outbreak in one tank I had to add fish to my cycling tank a few days earlier than I'd have liked (to free up my q-tank)

I used it purely for the 'well it can't hurt' factor and because it made me feel like I was helping the fish. It probably did nothing and the huge water changes were what kept my ammonia and nitrite at bay but it made me feel like I was doing everything I could.

Luckily that tank is all fine but products like that, Cycle, Bacterlife, Stresszyme etc are no replacement for a proper cycle.

 

[rdd1952]

they work for me

I don't want to sound like a smart*** but how do you know they work? I don't doubt that the Stress Coat does it's job as a dechlorinator. It's the only dechlor I've ever used. I doubt that the aloe does any good either but I'm sure it also doesn't hurt. But the Stress Zyme, how do you know it's working? If you're cycling and there is truely that many live bacteria in every spoonful, the tank should almost instantly cycle for just the 3 or 4 fish that you start with. But if you just add it and don't do any water changes for a week, you will see the ammonia sky rocket and by the end of the week, the nitrite will start to climb. As the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is and any product that makes the claim that it can cycle a tank in 3 to 7 days sounds too good to be true to me.