The Puffer Forum

it stated to have 2 specific types of bacterial spores or something like that

Yeah, dead bacteria. It can't possibly live in powder form in a jar on a shelf.

Not all bacteria are nitrification bacteria. Even among the true nitrification bacteria (there are lots of these), not all will establish permanent colonies in our FW or SW tanks - many need quite different conditions. Very, very few species will eatablish permanent colonies in our tanks.

The real tank bacteria have no dormant or spore form - so dry preps by definition are not suitable for our purposes.

HTH

thnx for the explenation RTR, well it seems all of this has been t much for my gsp. he just passed away. the rest of the fish in the tank are very hardy and i beleive will make it (platies, a molly, and a coupl guppies.) this was my first attempt at keeping a gsp and all was fine untill this incedent. it wont be my last puffer but ima have to wait till my tank is reastablished to pick up another one.

You should probably wait until you have another tank. You have a range of salinity requirements/tolerance levels, and GSPs tend not to get along with the tankmates you've listed, especially when they hit puffer puberty and get really aggressive.

im not to concerned about the other tank mates. they are feeder fish for my cichlid tank. the adults especially the platty will hold there own against a small gsp i had allways had plans for relocating my breeding feeders as soon as the fry start to disapear.

also my puffer was about 3 1/2 inches growing the last 1/2 inch in the last 5 months. so i beleive he had already started fish puberty. i know that gsp's differ alot in temperment from fish to fish.

biozyme is hetotrophic bacteria, does the same as nitrifying through beta oxidation it says on the label...
The main thing about it is if I can remember right "nitro's that do the nitrification, will be more efficient in the presence of elevated hetotrophic bacterias/enzymes"....

I was wondering if it worked too, but I stumbled across that tidbit in a research article speculating different strains of nitro's and growth rates...

Made sense then re-reading the biozyme label that says "will jump start the biological cycle"..

Ya sorry, here it is, totally worth a read...
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4250625?cookieSet=1

Quote:
"Nitrosomonas conversion rate were increased by as much as 150% and 50% when grown in the presence of two heterotrophs from the same environment"
"It is well recognized, but not well documented that nitrifying bacteria exhibit better growth and increased nitrification when heterotrophs are present in the culture"

This was research done in an estuarine bay, so not a farmland observation, which I've seen as well, and those experiements yielded basically the same conclusions...

/shrug
Good luck with the crash