Look What I Managed To Find At My Lfs!

[fatheadminnow]

Even if they discontinued the freshwater one, I guess some places still carry it, or at least what is left...lol.

-FHM

 

[kribensis12]

I don't believe in bottled/ packaged " Instant Cycles". It just doesnt make sense.

 

[fatheadminnow]

I don't believe in bottled/ packaged " Instant Cycles". It just doesnt make sense.

Well, this was the only thing that was proven to work, as the package is kept refrigerated, which slows down the bacterias metabolism which makes the bacteria "dormant" until used.

There has been a lot of controversial over these kinds of products, but this one actual works.

It has been proven many times to work, as it contains live bacteria in a "dormant" state until used!

-FHM

 

[Truck]

it does work but that looks like the marine version as they discontinued freshwater ages ago

ignore ^^^

 

[fatheadminnow]

it does work but that looks like the marine version as they discontinued freshwater ages ago

ignore ^^^

lol, yeah, they had this one there, only 2 left.

Then next to the freshwater ones, they had like 20 SW ones.

-FHM

 

[Amunet]

They really discontinued the freshwater one? Well that sucks. Wonder why?
Not that I need it or anything, just curious heh.

 

[LauraFrog]

Why did they discontinue it? That was really useful, didn't it cut cycle time to a few days?

I suppose it's on the pet stores now to have mature media for sale... I won't be holding my breath.

 

[saz326]

......dont shout at me please, but - I swear "Cycle" worked for me!

Used it on a very low stocked tank, and slowly added fish on a weekly basis. But it did work. Not instant cycling as the filter wasnt fully mature, but is was mature enough to deal with low volumes of fish waste. NitrIte and ammonia bearly ever read and the nitrate slowly raised until the tank was fully stocked.

I did keep my bottle in the fridge though. Wonder if that could be the trick to making these things work.

 

[backtotropical]

Bio Spira was discontinued or the ingredients were changed, I'm not sure which, because the guy at the forefront of the research which produced Bio Spira, Timothy Hovanec, left the company. Somehow he managed to have the patents in his own name I think, so now Marineland are not allowed to produce it.

Timothy Hovanec has however since started his own company manufacturing aquatic products, 'bacteria in a bottle' being one of them. I've not heard any reviews, but I imagine if any of these products are going to work, it would be that one.

See Here

I believe (again this is from what i've heard, not personal experience) that Bio Spira is no longer the product it used to be (ie. its now comparable to all the rest - it doesn't work).

BTT

 

[Craster]

JBL now do a refrigerated bacteria product.

 

[CKutz]

not doubting you backtotropical, but i've also heard that tetra bought out the company or something. i don't know..this is like the aquarists gossip column..

when i was at my lfs they had some ocean bio spira in a refrigerator next to it they had something from tetra. I thought this was unusual because most of the tetra stuff is just set out, but they actually went to the trouble of putting it in a small dark refrigerator were people probably wouldn't think to look for it unless they knew it had to be refrigerated (my point that they aren't blatantly trying to just sell you crap product). I believe it was this product:
http/www.thatpetplace.com/pet/group/5426/product.web
The lfs is also very reputable one. In the store index a few people commented on it's quality, and if you check out their site they have pretty good guides about fish and their keeping from what i noticed.

I have no idea if that product is any good or not, just thought i'd mention it.

 

[three-fingers]

Tetra safestart seems OK, at least better than nothing...though I'd like to see/do a proper test on it.
I always recommend it above Nutrafin Cycle and API Stress Zyme anyway...(I've tried Stress Zyme and it never worked for me).

I've used Safestart in tanks at the LFS that were going through mini cycles and it cleared up by the next day, could be coincidence though.

Most people are impatient, so I usually advise people to start off a fishless cycle using prawns/fish food boosted with half a bottle of Tetra Safestart and then finish it off with a big water change and a fish-in cycle using hardy fish and the other half of the bottle. Never had anyone complain about it not working, and I know loads of customers have had great success with it. I think it's a fantastic compromise basically. I sometimes give people some gravel from tanks with an undergravel filter too.

I think Safestart is supposed to be the same as Biospira, only they have somehow found a way to magically avoid the need for refrigeration. It has a relatively short shelf-life, which I think is a good sign.

 

[backtotropical]

CKutz, no problem. I've not heard that Tetra bought out the company, but that's not to say it didn't happen. I'm only going on what I have heard.

It is strange that we had reports here on TFF that Bio-Spira wasn't working right about the time that Doc Tim released his product. I don't know the full story though. I'm speculating at best.

Whilst searching for some further info, I managed to find Timothy Hovanec's patent on using Nitrospira in a product to avoid nitrite build up in an aquarium.

http/www.patentstorm.us/patents/6265206/fulltext.html

It's a very interesting (if intense) read. It seems that the patent was assigned to Aquaria Inc. which is the same company as Marineland who make Bio-Spira...

Three-Fingers et alia may be particularly interested in this bit regarding the effectiveness of Nutrafin Cycle

Bacterial Additive Test. Six all-glass aquaria were established with an airlift undergravel filtration system (Model KF720, Neptune Products, Moorpark, Calif.) in a temperature controlled laboratory (mean air temperature 26.0° C.±1.5° C.). The aquaria were covered with glass lids but not illuminated other than room ceiling lights which were on a 14hr:10hr light:dark cycle. 6.8 kg of natural aquarium gravel (Kaytee Products, Irwindale, Calif.) was placed on top of the filtration plate. 30 l of city tap water, passed through activated carbon, was added to each aquarium. Filtered air was supplied to each aquarium from a common air source. 6 fish (Danio aequipinnatus) were placed in each aquarium and fed 0.5 g fish feed (Aquarian, Kal Kan Foods, Vernon, Calif.) daily over two feedings. Three of the aquaria (the treatment group) were each dosed with 8 ml of bacterial additive (Cycle.RTM., Rolf C. Hagen Inc., Mansfield, Mass.) on the first day and once every 7 days afterwards for an additional 3 weeks. The other three aquaria were the control group and did not receive an additive.

Results

Commercial Additive. The addition of a commercial bacterial mixture (CYCLE.RTM.) which contained Nitrobacter sp., but not Nitrospira sp., did not result in the detection Nitrobacter species by oligonucleotide probe hybridization experiments (FIG. 8). However, a band which co-migrated with a control derived from pure Nitrobacter DNA could be detected in the original commercial mixture by DGGE analysis. Nitrospira-like rRNA was readily detected in the aquarium. Nitrospira group specific probes indicated that the tank which received the additive had a significantly greater percentage of the Nitrospira species rRNA (FIG. 8). By day 16, approximately 5% of the eubacterial rRNA hybridized with the general Nitrospira group-specific probe, compared to only 0.33% of the eubacterial rRNA in the tank which did not receive an additive (FIG. 8). By day 50, the values were 3.39% and 1.52% for the additive and non-additive aquaria, respectively (FIG. 8). From these results it can be concluded that the commercial mixture does not promote the growth of N. winogradskyi, which it contains, but instead slightly promotes the growth of the Nitrospira-like bacteria by having some type of fertilization effect.

Hovanec seems to conclude that whilst Cycle doesn't promote the growth of the bacteria it contains (nitrobacter - the wrong one), it does have some measurable beneficial effect, by acting as a fertiliser for the correct bacteria, Nitrospira.

So far from being useless as previously thought, it actually appears that it is beneficial to a cycling tank after all. I must assume though that it has nowhere near as much benefit as a solution which actually contains the correct bacteria (nitrospira), and that is what the patent is all about.

I would like to see such tests done on others such as Tetra SafeStart and API Stress Zyme, but I don't believe such tests have ever been carried out, at least not with results made available to the general public........

Food for thought.

BTT

 

[three-fingers]

Very interesting, and in line with something I remember reading ages ago about people reporting sped-up fishless cycles when a whole bottle of cycle was dumped into the tank.

 

[CKutz]

wow that's pretty interesting..

it's a shame these companies won't be more straightforward and honest...guess it would result in quite a loss of profit
("yeaaa..our product doesn't really work too well. there's nothing we can do about it though since the good stuff is patented to someone else...buuttt we're gonna tell people this stuff works so we don't lose all our customers") haha..wouldn't it be nice.

I don't get it though, if Aquaria Inc is also marinehead, then why doesn't marineland make it anymore?

has anyone tried that Doc Tim stuff? i've never heard of it prior to this post...not that that's saying much.

I wonder if any fish died in either of the tanks. maybe danios would make it either way? maybe none died since he didn't comment on it.