Just a few words of warning to anybody who is thinking of using 'Tetra Safe Start' live bacteria. This product can not process locked up ammonia which is the case when you use 'API's Ammo Lock' or similar. I decided to give 'Safe Start' a try a couple of weeks ago to cycle a new aquarium. The ammonia peaked at 2-3ppm using an 'API' test kit which according to Tetra is normal. But because it remained at that level for over a week I checked on a chart that I have that shows ammonia toxicity in relation to ph and worked out that there was 0.05ppm of toxic ammonia so I decided it wouldn't do any harm to use half a dose of 'Ammo Lock' to safeguard the fish. To my horror after 48hrs the ammonia reading shot up off the scale proving that Tetra's 'Safe Start' can't process locked up ammonia. I have now switched to my usual bacterial product, 'King British Safe Water' which will fully cycle the aquarium in 5-6 weeks and which CAN handle locked up ammonia. BEWARE!
Hi there
.
I'm afraid you may have kinda got the wrong end of the stick here.
You need to understand that you are currently
cycling your aquarium (read here: http
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/ ), and that this entails growing certain species of bacteria on your filter media.
Tetra Safestart
does contain the right bacteria, so it can process the ammonium ("locked up" ammonia), however most often IME the bacteria in the bottle are dead so the product makes no differance. Even if the bacteria were alive, all adding the product would do is speed up the "cycling" process slightly, not bypass it and give you an instant healthy aquarium.
Buying King British Safe Water was essentially a waste of money, it contains different species of bacteria than usually found on aquarium filter media, so it will not speed up the cycling process. It can help a little (if you add enough of it, you may notice ammonia levels going down) but it wont cycle fully your filter for you.
All the different bacterial products on the market can be confusing and misleading, and while often genuinely trying to help, a lot of LFS workers are also misled by the marketing.
Seeing your ammonia levels dropping has most likely just been a result of time passing and the proper bacteria on the filter reproducing (these come from the tap water and basically anything introduced from a mature tank - like the ones at the lfs), and nothing to do with the King British Safe Water.
In fact, the Tetra Safestart has probably done you more good than the Safe Water - just not nearly as good as it says on the bottle.
I strongly reccomend you read up on cycling, so you can understand the process your tank is going through right now.
If you have any Tetra Safestart left, I would personally dump it all into the tank.
Discontinue using the King British Safe Water until your tank is cycled fully. Now that you have bought the bottle, you may as well use it later on (products like this can have some use in organic waste control), but for now all it is going to do is complicate your cycling process, potentially competing with the proper filter bacteria species.
