One product fish stores dont sell and should

[isu_guy]

With so many people needing to worry about cycling and so few having access to someone elses bacteria to get it kickstarted, I wonder why fishstores dont have some filters running for the sole purpose of selling that media as a way to kickstart a tank.

Do any of your lfs do this?

I would think that they could make an easy profit on this, they know exactly what they sell their media for, so take that price and double it or something.
I know I would have paid a couple bucks to jumpstart my cycling.
thoughts?

 

[BobK]

I've seen one or two stores in the Chicago area that have bioballs floating in their tanks and they do sell them for like $1 a piece or so.

 

[CatLover]

That's a good idea. I have never seen a store do anything like that, but it's something they should think about.
Of course there are probably some stores that would ask why in the world you would need bacteria in your tank Ah well

 

[Paul_MTS]

there is a downside to this, the customers might interprat (sp) that you can stock your tank straight away by doing this, then when they come back afer killing there fish by overloading there filter the shop is liable.

appraently the shop i work at used to have a bacteria balls machine and to some extent it worked for a while.

it was like a vending machine and it would coat balls in bacteria which you then had to follw careful steps for and in the end place directly in your filter and it would allow you to fully stock your tank. the only problem is sometimes the machine would gve out just the ball or not ball and all bacteria liquid.

in the end they stopped using it.

 

[a1wonder]

I don't know about you but petland around my place has bottels of benifical bateria that you add to the tank at the beggining of a cycle. On the back it has instruction on how to do a fishless or a fish cycle. I used this product and it was wonderful I think the name of it was Stress Free. In about a week the entire tank went through a proper cycle and I've never had an amonia spike since then. Very very good product!

 

[isu_guy]

There are products out there that are supposedly "bacteria in a bottle" and they've gotten mixed reviews from people. The thing I worry about is the shelf life. If bacteria don't have an ammo source shouldn't they die off? I know there is a product that ships live bacteria to you and you can immediately fully stock a tank.

The main point of what I was getting at is- fish stores can produce plenty of extra bacteria, and they wouldn't have to pay for it like they do the bacteria in a bottle.

Given a choice, I would definitely trust a nice dripping wet filter pad that had lots of visible growth on it than a bottle that has the possibility of being just dead bacteria.

As for the whose liable for killing fish for overstocking (as someone brought up), If the store isn't liable for selling the new tank, gravel, fake plant, filter, and fish all at once (or within a few days of each other) I don't see how they would be liable for giving you one more leg up on the process. I would hope (but doubt it would happen 100% of the time) that any lfs employee that would be asked for media with bacteria on it would inquire about the situation a little bit to help advise the customer. Or if nothing else, I'm sure they could put some umbrella clause to remove all liability.

anyway, I was just thinking that if I were to start all over again, it would have been nice to be able to "seed" my tank with bacteria (at the time I didn't know anyone else near me who I could have taken bacteria from)

 

[gale]

I don't know about you but petland around my place has bottels of benifical bateria that you add to the tank at the beggining of a cycle. On the back it has instruction on how to do a fishless or a fish cycle. I used this product and it was wonderful I think the name of it was Stress Free. In about a week the entire tank went through a proper cycle and I've never had an amonia spike since then. Very very good product!

Was it stress-zyme? I've seen that at the stores but read that it doesn't work well. Maybe you got lucky that it worked for you.

I bought some bio spira by mail order but it's still in my fridge. I've been sick and not in the mood to set up my tank so I hope the bio spira is good for a while longer.