The Puffer Forum

hey does anyone know if this contains live bacteria?

i couldnt find biospira and the people at the fish store said they use this to cycle their tanks.

it says on the bottle that it contains 'dual action live bacteria' so between that and what the fish store people say i would believe it does but it seems people on here are ademate about the fact that only 'biospira' works.

anyways, if you know, thanks for clearing that up.

It does not. It is bunk, like all the other products that are not biospira. It's dry on a shelf. Whats keeping the bacteria alive? They need O2, and food, they are getting neither. So the claim it is live bacteria is already a lie on the packaging, at absolute BEST, it's dormant bacteria. As far as I know, nitrifying bacteria do not go dormant, or do not last long in a dormant state unless refrigerated(like Biospira). So either it's DEAD bacteria from the start, or dormant bacteria that died sometime shortly after packaging. Don't buy it.

Stresszyme is useless. If you can't get the elusive to the UK Bio-spira then the only way to cycle a tank is with good old fashioned patience and time

patience and time?? what do you mean by that?

Starting with a tank with no livestock and waiting a good few weeks before you add fish

Read the Fishless Cycling article in our Library.

Funny i used stresszyme to test cycle a tank and it worked. I did nothing but add the zyme as per instructions, and tested the water every 2-3 days. Eventually it did cycle.

Having said that id use pure ammonia for anything i was actually going to add fish too.

Were there fish in there too? There's no way a tank can cycle on it's own, even with Bio-Spira, without some source of ammonia.

Just threw in flake food twice a week...it did have a pile of plants floating in ti though until i could get time to plant the real tanks.

The StressZyme didn't cycle the tank, the flake food did. Common way of cycling a tank.

yer realised that once i remember the flake

well actually my good lady, mumbled it

My local fish store owner tried to tell me the same thing. BUNK. I was doimg 33% water changes every day to keep the nitrites down. I finally drove 30 miles to get some Biospira. He also told me the ghost shrimp I wanted were pure junk food for puffers, like that was all I would feed em. So far I've learned a lot from this site and if they say so it is probably right.