waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
The problem here is that you just haven't been around long enough to have followed all the history of this. It was still being kicked around a lot in "New to the Hobby" in 2007 and 2008 but its worked its way out of our discussions of late. In 2008 it was very common when helping beginners with fishless cycling to have to explain that yes, there was a difference between the different "bottled bacteria" products in that there were two "Bio-Spira" and "Bactinettes" (probably spelling that wrong) that had a higher chance of working and working correctly. These were "refridgerated and refridgerated all the way from production to you" type products, trying to keep a significant percentage of the bacteria in the product alive during all the transport and storage. The rough story (I'm rushing it) is that these products (at least the biospira) came out of research done by Timothy Hovanec (one and same the scientist whose published papers we water nerds like to read) while he was getting his PhD and was paid for my MarineLand. Afterwards both Tim and MarineLand carried away the bits and pieces of knowledge about Tim's newly discovered Nitrospira speces that he had discovered were the true "N-Bacs." Time went by and the Bio-Spira and Bactinettes products died out but MarineLand's parent company acquired Tetra and the TetraSafe product came out of the MarineLand info, its supposedly the rightful successor to the good BioSpira/Bactinette stuff. Meanwhile Tim started Dr.Tims and produced it as DrTims One and Only out near Los Angeles.Oh how I don't wanna say this.The stupid stuff worked. In TWO tanks. I've got the two 5.5 gallons set up for a betta each, and one was brand new so was in the middle of a cycle (ammonia had gone up a bit, then down [but never to 0], and nitrite was up a bit - remember, only 1 fish, so nothing went super high). The other tank was new but I moved over a small bit of what I could salvage of the stupid Eclipse's filter floss (from the cartridge). So there was a BIT of "mature" media there. But it was still cycling - ammonia about .25 and nitrite about that or a TAD higher.
I added the SafeStart to the 1st tank mentioned above first. I added it in the evening. By morning, nitrite was 0. Ammonia was still there - but barely. Just SLIGHTLY discoloring the test, but no where near the light green of the .25 result. Just slightly tinged green if you kwim - the color that makes you look at it 5000 times trying to decide if it's green-tinged or not. Ammonia has now dropped to definitely yellow (but not as pale as it is when you first shake it). I waited a couple days, then added the rest of the bottle to the second tank. (I used half a bottle for each tank - it says to use the whole thing, but it says use the whole thing for up to 75 gallons. These are small 5.5 gallon tanks - I figured half a bottle was fine for each, plus I didn't expect it to work ANYhow.) The ammonia and nitrites were (before adding) JUST under .25 - just enough to make me try to decide whether a small water change was in order. I decided not to do the water change, but to dump the rest of the bottle in and see if the other tank was a fluke or just great timing (maybe the tank was right at the end of its cycle or something ANYhow and it was a big ol' coincidence). Poured it in in the morning. Tested at night, and as with the first tank, nitrites were now 0 and ammonia was absolutely negligible (no green, just a medium yellow - though not as pale as when first put in).
I don't get it. I'm really, really surprised. (Happy!, but surprised.) The only thing I can say is that my friend bought it from a shop that kept it refrigerated, and she says they told her that they request it be shipped the same way TO them. She said they even gave her an ice pack for the trip home to keep it cold. (85-90F here lately.) I dunno. Perhaps it's a fluke, and you can bet I'll be testing 1-2x daily for the next week or more, but thought I'd let you know how this one APPEARS to have turned out.
I still don't trust it, and will be doing mature media in the 55 gallon. I think most of the time it doesn't work, and I can't see how it possibly CAN work if bought off a shelf.
Dunno!
Now the thing with BioSpira and Bactinettes was that IF you lucked into a distributor/retailer pathway where the folks really cared (a big IF) enough to keep it stored and transported frozen then you might actually recieve a little frozen packet that had live nitrospira in it and really worked! Only some people had good distributors/retailers like that and it created a love/hate discussion fuss on many, many tropical fish hobby sites. When getting these things kind of died out, the discussions died down. Now its slowly coming back. Its always been a very hit or miss type thing because, as you can imagine, in the back rooms of these distributors and retailers there are just way too many employees who couldn't give a d#!@mn whether that box over there sat on a hot loading dock for a couple hours or not! Anyway I suspect what you got was one of the rare "cold ones" that really was the "real thing."
~~waterdrop~~
). So I'll pick one up along with the Safestart tomorrow, if funds permit (need to pay for a 5'x2'x2' this week and I've not been great at saving so far... 
). If funds don't permit I'll just test at work.
