The Puffer Forum

Are there different types for fresh and salt water and if so which should i use? Setting up a 75 gal. brackish for my gsp gonna cycle it first with biospira and some mollies.

Rosie

There are different types of Biospira for FW and SW. You can use the FW for lowend BW but I'm not sure how high of a SG you can use it on. I'm assuming not much more then 1.004 or so. Are your fish currently in FW or are they in a BW environment? If so what is the SG that they are currently in?

Yes there are 2 different variety's of bio spira, and if you use it you can put your puffer straight in the tank. I would check out the LFS to see what type of water they keep your required fish in first as most keep brackish fish in freshwater tanks, When i got my F8 i added the FW bio spira and the fish the same day and then over the next few weeks gradually increased the SG as to not shock the fish or the bacteria, all went well I am very pleased to report
If your LFS keeps the fish in brackish water already then I think freshwater Bio Spira is OK up to lowish brackish conditions but I am sure someone more knowledgeable than me can give you more accurate figures
Sue

Yes bacteria for salt and fresh water are very different. GSP's need a higher salinity than what the bacteria in biospira has. I can't buy biospira here though so I don't know if they make one for salt water or not. However there is a company that does make a dry bacteria thing called Biozyme which has dormant bacteria and enzymes. They make it for fresh and salt water. By Aquarium Products.

as stated above low end brackish may be able to use biospira. But my guess is you want higher salinity than that for the gsps.

My gsp is in brackish water with an sg of about 1.010 right now. We've been slowly increasing it over the last however many weeks from what the LFS had her in.
She's in a small 10 gallon hex right now, but we just got home with a beautiful 75 gallon tank that she'll soon be "queen" of. After much reading (and much debate) we decided to use about 1" of crushed coral for a substrate.
The LFS told us to use FW Biospira for our setup, but we wanted to "ask the experts" first...

The other way of course is fish-less cycling with ammonia, I did another of my tanks that way and with a sponge from my other tank to seed it, i had a complete cycle in less than 2 weeks , and that way you know for sure that you are completely cycled

At your SG, this is a tougher question than it first appeared. Yes, there is a SW version of Bio-spira, but you may be "betwixt & between" the FW & SW bio-spira, especially as you are still increasing salinity.

A SG of 1.010 would indicate a salinity of 15.3 ppt at 24.5C. This is nearly 50% sea water (34-35ppt).

I might be tempted to do a packet of FW and another packet of SW Bio-spira. If you calculate your water volume, you may be closer to 60 gals of water in a 75 tank, so one 30 gal pack of each? Has anybody here used both at once ?

a dry bacteria thing called Biozyme which has dormant bacteria and enzymes

Sorry but there is no such thing as "dormant" bacteria. Dead bacteria is more like it--another rip-off. According to Marineland, FW B-S should be good up to 1.012.

According to Dr. Hovanec, Chief Science Officer,
The Aquaria Group
(Marineland Aquarium Products, Perfecto, Aquarium Systems)

I was forwarded your question regarding BioSpira and specific gravity.

Freshwater Biospira will work fine over the SP range of 1.000 to 1.010 (0 to about 14 ppt salinity).

BioSpira Marine will work fine over the SP range of 1.008 to 1.040 (about 11 to 50 ppt salinity).

If you were ask me which of one to choose, I would say use BioSpira Marine over any SP over 1.008 (about 10-11 ppt).

I hope this answers your questions.

Best Regards,

Dr. T.A. Hovanec

Oops, I thought he said 1.012. My memory isn't what it used to be... oldie

I would be lost if I had to remember details like this. Heck, I still read the directions for each test when checking water parameters! Let's see, was that 10 drops and wait one minute or 1 drop and wait 10 minutes? Oh wait, maybe it was 5 drops and...

Pufferpunk wrote:

a dry bacteria thing called Biozyme which has dormant bacteria and enzymes

Sorry but there is no such thing as "dormant" bacteria. Dead bacteria is more like it--another rip-off. According to Marineland, FW B-S should be good up to 1.012.

I thought I had replied but I guess I'm going crazy

Basically I bought this stuff not expecting much. It was cheap. My friend gave a good write up on how it works. The "dried" bacteria is supposed to form cysts(similar to Brine shrimp I guess?). It also contains emzymes that are supposed to speed the process up cycling/add to the efficiency of established tanks. I've been testing on some danio tanks at it seems to work allright. I have not noticed any spikes or problems. Of course you don't want to stock the tank to the brink anyway.

Biospira is much better but that's because it's live bacteria . I believe it needs to be kept in the fridge though.

I' think I'll leave the explaination to RTR, our resident scientest here.

I'd be happy to hear an explanation on why exactly it doesn't work. Always open to new things hehe ^^

Some bacteria form spores, a dormant form for when times/living conditions are becoming unsuitable for any of multiple reasons. Those bacteria may be stored for varying periods in that dormant form and with proper storage can be reactived and will grow and multiply. Some bacteria do not and cannot form spores, they have no dormant form.

The bacteria responsible for bionitification in fresh and saltwater tanks do not have a dornmant form, so cannot be bottled and shelf stored. Products claiming to the contrary do not have bacteria which will establish and perform nitrification indefinitely in our tanks, so are worthless to us. The only thing that they do is add to the bioload. Save your money.

Chilled live bacteria in the right storage media can be cooled down and held inactive but not really dormant for some period of time (they will always have an expiration date) and so long as not warmed up and rechilled, will provide bacteria which do establish in our tanks and produce permanent colonies (so long as we keep them "fed" and do not kill them with meds). BioSpira is the only product which has been shown to do this.