Waterlife Biomature Review

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daizeUK

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Waterlife BioMature
 
Summary
"BioMature is a scientifically formulated mixture of those bacterial nutrients, vitamins and mineral salts necessary for the rapid maturation of a bacterial filter." - Waterlife
 
Essentially this product is ammonia in a bottle.  It is specifically designed for fishless cycling. 
 
It sounds like a better option than using household cleaners and I thought that the added vitamins and salts might make a fishless cycle easier or faster so I attempted to use it to cycle my first tank.
 
Unfortunately despite several attempts with this product the cycle failed and I believe this was due to the ease of accidental overdosing and incompatibility with my API test kit.
 
Directions
BioMature safely starts filters by feeding filter bacteria.  Use in initial set up of aquaria or to keep mature an empty quarantine/hospital tank.  For use in marine, tropical and coldwater aquariums. 
N.B. Do not use if fish, invertebrates or plants are present. 
Dosage: 1ml per 30 Litres.  Allow for water displaced by rocks etc.  Do not overdose.
Tighten cap & shake bottle.  Use the cup to measure the correct dose.

Frequency of treatment: Use BioMature once a day.  Test with Waterlife's Ammonia and Nitrite Test Kits. When a reading of 5-10ppm is reached on either test kit, stop the addition of BioMature.  At this point you may add Waterlife's Bacterlife to speed up the maturation process.  After the Ammonia and Nitrite readings drop to zero, you are ready to add the first few hardy fishes.  Always stock tanks gradually over the longest possible period of time and do not exceed stocking densities.
Add 1ml of BioMature per 30 litres (6.6 imp. galls) every 7 days whenever a filtered hospital aquaria/ quarantine tank is empty of livestock.
Once opened this product should be use within 12 months.
BioMature contains: Ammonium salts, vitamins & minerals.
Irritant.
 
My Experience
As per instructions, I dosed 2ml of BioMature every day for my 64L tank until my API kit was reading 4ppm.  This took about 6 or 7 days of dosing.  I continued testing for the next 50 days but the ammonia levels never fell, even after a water change in an attempt to kickstart the cycle.
 
Eventually I gave up on BioMature and started a new cycle using a different ammonia source and bacterial starter which completed successfully.  The new ammonia source was different because it included concentration dosage instructions so that I knew exactly how much of the product to add.  In contrast BioMature does not tell you how much to add but requires you to use a test kit to know when to stop.  After following instructions to dose to 5ppm with the new ammonia source I noticed that my API test was only reading 1ppm.
 
In hindsight I believe that the API test kit was failing to read the correct ammonia concentration levels for some reason which caused me to overdose and this is why BioMature failed to cycle my tank.  (Incidentally, other people have reported similar problems with API test kits and these ammonia sources but API did not think their product was at fault when I contacted them).
 
The BioMature directions do state that BioMature should be used in conjunction with Waterlife test kits so this might have given better results.
 
 
Pros
•Designed for aquarium use so no nasty surfactants
•Contains extra nutrients to help filter bacteria thrive
•Much nicer and safer to handle than household ammonia; less smelly!
 
Cons
•Does not provide information about concentration of ammonia in the bottle which forces you to rely on a test kit.
•Daily adding method leads easily to overdosing
•Advice to dose up to 5-10ppm ammonia is too high and likely to stall cycle
•Did not seem to work in conjunction with my API test kit
 
Rating
Would not recommend
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