Tetra Safe Start

[tenohfive]

That must be an expensive way to run a shop

 

[drobbyb]

That must be an expensive way to run a shop

He's a responsible shop owner. If disease breaks out in 1 tank, he's only gotta treat 1 tank. If you are on a centralized system all your fish could potentially come down with it.

 

[rabbut]

^^ not so, and no Depending on shop set-up, individual tanks may be cheaper than a certralised system Secondly, get a UV steriliser on your centralised system, and maintain it correctly, and you have a system where disease remains isolaated to individual tanks if it outbreaks With clever design, you could then isolate the infected tank from the main system to reduce treatment costs while you treated the infection, having pulled a filter from the sump, that is thus cycled and ready to go for the isolated tank

I am still sceptical of the test. This is not one you personally carried out. You may trust this guy, but others may not, as they simply don't know him. Secondly, there still isn't enough information in your posts to see why the product worked for him, but not others

TBH I suspect a fast once my be being pulled here due to the circumstances of the test, with all due respect to the LFS owner concerned. It is in his own benefit to boost sales of this product, as he makes money out of doing so. Considering this chap is an LFS owner, sorry here drobbyb, but you have to question his motives. Why would he spend £ on a bacteria in the bottle product, when he could clone filters and fully stock off the bat FOC? Nobody would do it in a business "just as an experiment" To me there has to be another motive at play to justify the cost of the product to him, when there is a more proven, reliable and cheaper method available to him...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[drobbyb]

This might have happened that way. I didn't carry out said test. It's not really the issue of would he, but rather he could. That does kinda skew the results a bit.

 

[vinylman]

When PFK tested SafeStart, they said it still exposes fish to high levels of Ammonia and Nitrite. Just because the fish are alive, doesn't mean they're fine. ANY Ammonia will damage a fish. I'd rather use some mature filter media than risk bottled miracles.

 

[minxfishy]

Tried this stuff back in February(ish) time on a tank, I will give ya it seems to work pretty well on ammonia, but left the tank with a pretty serious nitrIte spike several weeks into its use. I wouldnt use it again, waste of money.

The test tanks have been up for 4 weeks. How long until the nitrite spike?

It was roughly 5-6 weeks in, never reached over 1ppm but then I was into 50% water changes daily to keep it down so I dont know it what have risen to had I left it, after about 2 weeks it finally went to 0 and remained that way. So in one way it worked as I never saw ammonia but had it been someone who wasnt aware of what to look for I think they would have had seriously fish loss.

 

[henryfg]

This is only a theory, I have no idea if this is true, but it's based on 3 things I know. 1) there are variable reports of the success of these products, 2) there are 2 different bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate, and 3) as far as I know all these products contain either 1 or the other of these, but not both.

I think the nitrite problem with safestart and similar products is due to confusion over strains of nitrifying bacteria. Some sources will say that nitrobacter species are responsible for the nitrite-> nitrate conversion, and other say nitrospira. Now I know that both these groups of bacteria are capable of making this conversion, but I expect that some thrive well in certain water conditions and some in other water conditions. What this would mean is that in one tank in one location the nitrite-> nitrate conversion is due to nitrobacter, but a tank in another location (with different water conditions) may be populated by nitrospira. Most of these products contain only nitrosomonas (for ammonia to nitrite conversion) and nitrobacter (from some research), and some nitrospira (and nitrosomonas) and so my guess at the root of this problem is that they work well in an area with water conditions appropriate to the bacteria they contain only.

Of course a product with nitrospira in rather than nitrobacter would show a the opposite pattern of efficacy. Presumably the ideal product(if what I guess is, indeed, true) would contan nitrosomonas (ammonia -> nitrite), nitrobacter AND nitrospira (nitrite-> nitrate for a broad range of water conditions).