Nitromax For A Fish-In Cycle--Anybody Used It?

[Aquarium]

I know fishless cycling is in vogue...read a billion posts...but in my neck of the woods (pardon the colloquial expression--this is East Tennessee ), we have a really great LFS with repeat customers with multiple tanks that use Nitromax to start their aquariums. In fact, customers use it to start secondary aquariums--even with established bacteria they could use from current tanks, they still find it easier to use this product. The only negative online feedback I can find online is from someone who was trying to use it like ammonia...which is hilarious...would have responded had the post not been years old...

So, I do trust this LFS, it's been in business for 25 years, etc, etc...

I've read up on the science of it, too--it provides nitrosomonas and nitrobacter, so if you add a few fish, add the prescribed mL of Nitromax (assuming it's a good batch--which you will know quickly if it is or isn't), and you check your water every other day, continuing to add the Nitromax according to certain ammonia and nitrite testing parameters, you can do a fish-in cycle humanely in the same time (or less) than a fishless cycle and without excessive water changes as needed in a normal fish-in cycle. It's not very expensive, either (for a 20 gallon tank, anyways). I really can't find anything concretely negative about it online. Most forums dissing these products start with, "I think..." Some seem to think that because it's introducing bacteria that didn't develop in response to ammonia the fish's waste put off, it's not the finely tuned strains of nitrosomonas and nitrobacter needed for an aquarium's particular stock of fish...if that argument were true, then fishless cycling wouldn't work--and it obviously does. Others refer to vague stories of newbies having problems down the road--but this could be because a plethora of reasons--maybe they didn't properly wean their tanks off the product, for one--they probably stopped abruptly once their tank was stocked and tests were steady for several days. Grant it, most of the products neglect to tell you that unless you want to use it forever, you are going to need to slowly lower the amount you add to each partial water change...of course they want you to keep using it forever! I think most newbies don't want to take the time to really understand the science...probably the cause of many new tank failures, with or without bacteria starters added...

Thanks to anyone who responds! (Oh, and not that it matters, but the reason I'm trying not to do a fishless cycle is because I have a 2.5-year-old who will expect to see "3 fishies" in the water as soon as it's up and running...just glad her initial expectations aren't higher )

 

[waterdrop]

Nitrobacter is no longer thought to be the correct species. WD

 

[Aquarium]

I did read one article that said some think that Nitrosomonas is responsible for both conversions, which I don't see the big deal--if Nitrobacter isn't needed, I would think it would die off if its not provided with whatever food it actually "eats." I guess what I'm saying is that I've not heard negative feedback on these products when these 2 conditions are met: 1) person is using a good product with bacteria that has been kept properly in a hibernation mode of sorts and 2) the person actually used the product properly. When both those conditions are met, the only feedback I find/hear is positive. But I'm not fully convinced...hence the forum post...thanks.

 

[Aquarium]

Realized that since this is U.K.-based forum, I probably should post this question in a U.S.-based forum. (Cause Nitromax seems to be fairly common here.)Will post any results I get here in case it's helpful to anyone.

 

[waterdrop]

The N-Bacs are Nitrospira spp., not Nitrobacter. We -have- had members post their cycling attempts with various bacteria-in-a-bottle products. The vast majority of times there is simply nothing that happens, but a few times they've seemed to be working and caused some excitement, only for everyone to realize later that the cycle seemed to take about exactly the same amount of time as an ammonia cycle (but invariably the product cost a lot more than the doller/pound cost of the simple ammonia.)

Quite a number of years back there were two products that were getting some positive reports. On of them went out of business and the other was a refrigerated product and the members finally figured out that the success cases were only coming from one particular shop who was working with a good driver who help them ensure there were no points in the distrubution where the product could thaw out. I think there were a lot of threads about these in 2008 but they dwindled out as there were only a few who could get the products and just the tiny subset of that where the product seemed to help.

One of the other frustrations we've encountered pretty often are bacteria-in-a-bottle products which, upon closer examination, turn out to be designed to be supplements to a fish-in cycle, rather than a way to fishless cycle. All of the cases of these where I've seem members keep shared logs have not been really any different than a standard fish-in cycle. It stands to reason though that we should all be open to the fact that some among these attempts may turn out to be good at some point!

~~waterdrop~~