Tetra Safestart Test

[sevenyearnight]

Do I know how to party, or WHAT?

[DrKennethNoisewater]

haha! i love the look of that tank. i really like the moss covered wood. i am patiently awaiting the day when i have some spare moo-la to drop on some moss and grass!

[sevenyearnight]

Day 22

ph 7.4
KH 5°
Ammonia 0.0
Nitrite <0.25
Nitrate <10.0

Changes: This is the first time I have a positive nitrite reading. I will test the nitrite again when I get home to see if the reading changes. I did a 25% water change today, I will test the tap water when I get home, but considering I can smell the ammonia from the tap water running, I'm assuming it may be running on the higher than normal side. It regularly tests between 0.25 - 1.0. I didn't test directly after that water change, perhaps about an hour or 2 after. My car had to go to the shop yesterday so and I was gone all day and did not feed the snails yesterday.

[sevenyearnight]

haha! i love the look of that tank. i really like the moss covered wood. i am patiently awaiting the day when i have some spare moo-la to drop on some moss and grass!

Thank you
I will have to post an updated picture soon. The moss is starting to grow upwards and it looks pretty neato.
I'm going to be adding some Cardinal Tetras very soon, but I'm waiting until I'm sure my numbers stay consistent, and I'm also wanting to wait for the plants to grow in a bit too since I'm injecting DIY CO2, I don't want the oxygen levels to get too low. I'll probably also wait until I get a canister filter as well, the 2 HOB filters are kind of hokey!

[Puffer King]

sounds good .....here in the uk we've got nutrafin cycle , which does actually cycle the tank straight away .....i was a bit pessimistic about its claims , but i and other fish keepers i know have used it and it does exactly what it says , pretty impressive stuff .

[sevenyearnight]

We have that product here as well, except that is often the claim that it does not work at all.

[Puffer King]

the uk version seems to work fine. i gotta admit i was very duboius first time i used it , but i kept checking the levels day in day out and to my utter amazement everything was bang on !

[sevenyearnight]

Restested the nitrite at 0.0
I compared it to the vial earlier, the earlier test just has the slightest lavender hue to the light blue, but this test is definitely 0.0
It's possible that I didn't rinse the first vial thoroughly enough prior to the test.
I've fed the snails and I'll test again tomorrow.

[Pufferpunk]

PK, what were you using for an ammonia source to test this product? I can't imagine it is ANY different than the garbage, dead bacteria in a bottle, Nutrifin Cycle product sold here.

[Puffer King]

sorry but the product does work here in the UK , I don't know about the ' garbage, dead bacteria in a bottle, Nutrifin Cycle product sold in US' lol. I've used nutrafin cycle in tanks with ammonia and/or nitrite and its always eliminated them straight away . Maybe you got different formula over there ! , who knows ??

[J-P]

sorry but the product does work here in the UK , I don't know about the ' garbage, dead bacteria in a bottle, Nutrifin Cycle product sold in US' lol. I've used nutrafin cycle in tanks with ammonia and/or nitrite and its always eliminated them straight away . Maybe you got different formula over there ! , who knows ??

Having slightly different chemical properties wouldn't surprise me at all. I found out the hard way that name brand food product sold in different countries have different ingredients and levels. They claim it to be "regional acceptance". IDK... I think it is strange...

[Rocker]

There is no product AFAIK in the UK atm that can instantly cycle your tank. Many claim they can as with the one mentioned but only Bio spira came close but was hard to come by. Even that was questionable due to the way it was shipped and handled.

[Tim]

I have one these Nutrafin Cycle bottles, it came with the Fluval Edge. Apparently you must store it at a temperature between 0 and 500 degrees celsius.

It would appear that german laws are probably a bit more strict regarding what you can put on the bottle, marketeering wise. It's basicly void of any claims and only states its biological and that is it a product for water conditioning. And is says "Against ammonia and nitrite. For fresh and marine water." (as far as I understand german). And the mandatory keep out of reach of children.

[Tim]

I have not tried this Tetra Safestart or Nutrafin Cycle, as far as I can recall, but I have used something called "Aquavital nitrigon 1", which seemed to help.

[Pufferpunk]

The fact that it does not say "contains LIVE bacteria" & the bigger fact that it claims "for fresh & marine", proves it does not contain any live bacteria whatsoever to cycle wither type of system. FW & SW use 2 totally different bacteria!