Bottled cycle liquid?

[seantheprawn]

hi all

i was at a lfs before, and i saw this small bottle, called cycle or something like that, i cant remember the brand name.

well on the back of the bottle, it says it contains micro bacteria which eradicates ammonia and nitrites.

so is this the stuff you try to cultivate when your cycling?

so if i add this stuff, will it go into my filter and cultivate, or just eradicate ammonia etc and die off? will i still need to cycle?

i just want to know if its worth buying, and i want to kow what it does exactly.

thanx for any advice.

 

[Tropjunky]

i think u'll find that it's made by hagen or something.

It should kick-start ur cycle but it's not worth it. I'd personally put water in a tank and then add fish flakes to provide waste and let it do it's thing for about 1-2weeks.

cycling is just building up some bacteria and products like cycle are gd but not reliable. transporting live bacteria isn't always a gd thing to do considering 90% of it dies by the time it gets to you.

If u need to use these products then u shouldn't be keeping fish this hobby requires time and lots of it and patance

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I heard from alot of people it doens't work at all unless its been refrigerated at the lfs/store, i mean how else is bacteria going to survive long in a bottle with no oxygen or water movement?
As Tropjunky said though its pretty much a waste of money- so far the only way to cycle a tank is with fish or to do a fishless cycle but there is no cycle-your-tank-in-a-day or whatever solution yet unless you clone a tank, but even then its not that effective all the time. Sorry to say but you'll most likely have to cycle the tank the normal ways, i suggest you do a fishless cycle.

 

[seantheprawn]

well it does say on the bottle, that the bacteria is laying ina dormant state , waiting to be released into the tank.

but how do we know that, could be a load of codswollop

so i think ill just save my money for sand, and cycle it the good old fashioned 6 week way

thanx for the info guys

 

[rdd1952]

To the best of my knowledge, the only cycling product that works is Bio Spira and that only works if it has been properly handled and refrigerated. Bacteria can't live in the extreme temperatures that unrefrigerated products endure. Products hauled on enclosed trucks like that stuff is probably reach temperatures of 150° or more.

 

[mlee0332]

i've also heard cycle don't work .

Bio spira is made by marineland, and you should always trust marineland (so i've been told) I am going to try that stuff soon I hope. The reason it is much better is that it has to stay refridge. and marineland sends it directly to the dealer so that it won't have to go through warehousing with the risk of no refridge.

I have to disagree with Tropjunky's comment about, "If u need to use these products then u shouldn't be keeping fish this hobby requires time and lots of it and patance ." Sometimes you HAVE to try everything you can to save your fish. Like my situation. I had to sterilize EVERYTHING and lost ALL of my bene bacteria. This left me with 7 fish and an uncycled tank. With seven fish, ammonia can build up VERY quickly, and cause you to need to do atleast 2-3 water changes PER DAY to keep ammonia levels okay. Luckily, before the dreaded parasite hit my tank, I had just purchased a 29g to move them to. I had tried to start a fishless, but with an uncycled 10 that they would be going in, I had to drain ALL the water from my 29 (that had only sat for 4-5 days with 5.0ppm ammonia) and refill it with fresh clean water to help get rid of all the ammonia and put them in that to help save their lives. It only took them 3 days to bring ammonia levels to the "watch it" zone and I now have to do 1 water change per day, but am afraid that won't be enough after a few more days


Edit: meye speeling sux

 

[basia]

I have used Cycle and Stress Zyme which is a similar product. I know a lot of people on here think they are rubbish, but I set up two new tanks and they both cycled very quickly, I don't know whether the products helped or not but I'm sure they didn't do any harm.

 

[mlee0332]

about how fast did they cycle? What size were the 2 tanks?

 

[Torrean]

I used stress zyme and my tank cycled in 1 1/2 months with HEAVY BIOLOAD. so it may help. I will not be using it again though. Mainly because I have a cycled tank now to seed with but I don't think it did much anyway. I still lost 7 fish during the cycle. I say do a fishless cycle or get something that has been proven to work.

BTW I have a question. What if you use ammo lock and nI lock. Then does it really matter if you do a fishy cycle? I haven't heard anyone mention this method yet.

 

[xanthianacid]

I find that if you have another tank going or multiple then you can 'steal' a bit of media from the other tanks and kick start your cycle that way. Fast, efficient, free and you know exactly what you put into your own tanks, and how your other tanks are going anyway. HTH

 

[skyharbor]

I have used Bio-Spira and had excellent results with it.

 

[basia]

Sorry mlee0302 - missed your question.
I set up a 5 gallon for a male betta on the 17th April and a 30 gallon community tank on the 1st May. Both tanks took under 3 weeks to read 0 amonia and nitrite and to get a low nitrate reading. My nitrate is now consistent at 10 on my test kit. I did cycle with fish in for 2 of those weeks but just the betta in the 5 gall and 6 tetras in the community. Once my readings were 0 I started to gradually add fish week by week.
I used the full doses of 'Cycle' recommended for new tanks.
Hope that helps.

 

[mlee0332]

well, that's how long it takes to cycle a tank without it... Poo. I cant get spira!!!!! I would have to order like 250 bottles that would cost around 1000 dollars, and I cant afford it. After waiting to hear that bad news, my bacteria started, so I dont need it...