Do These Really Help The Cycling Process?

[MBOU]

I once had a customer empty his bladder in his fish tank to cycle it

 He only admitted it when I had the delight of testing the water and the ammonia test pretty much went black before I even finished adding in all the drops... I have a photo of it somewhere... was pretty epic colour... I was horrified but not so much when he told me he'd peed in his tank and I had his tank water on my hands (trying to pour it from flask into test tubes... bah!....for that matter I hope he didn't use flask again!...)

 

[Ruskull]

LOL!  I would've slapped him a new face for making me handle his pee...............
 
On the scientific side, human urine only contains some ammonia, but other stuff as well.  How could you possibly add an exact amount of ammonia to monitor the results?  And Lord knows what else you'd be adding.............

 

[daizeUK]

Ley me leave you with this story.
 
"I recently bough a new 20 gal. aquarium and set it up. I went with a fishless cycle and dosed some ammonia I was told was safe to use. So I added ammonia and tested and it said I had 2 ppm. A couple of days later I added the ammonia again and now my levels were over 3 ppm. A few days later I dosed the ammonia again and now my ammonia was almost at 5 ppm, so I stopped adding any more. But my ammonia levels would not come down. By about day ten I was so frustrated by the ammonia not dropping that in a fit I spit into the tank. That evening when I tested the ammonia level and it was down to 4 ppm. So I spit into my tank again. The next day the ammonia levels were close to 2 ppm. So once again I spit into my tank and the next day my ammonia was close to zero. I do not know what was in my spit but I believe it must contain ammonia eating bacteria or something that makes them develop faster as it made my ammonia go away. Anybody who is experiencing ammonia problems during cycling should be spitting into their tank to help as I believe it worked for me. "

 
Lmao that sounds like my cycle.  Maybe I should have tried spitting in it!
None of your links tell me what ABIL contains; rather than getting too technical in this thread I've moved my questions to the scientific section http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/414863-the-science-of-bottled-bacteria-for-cycling-aquaria/
 
 

I once had a customer empty his bladder in his fish tank to cycle it

 He only admitted it when I had the delight of testing the water and the ammonia test pretty much went black before I even finished adding in all the drops... I have a photo of it somewhere... was pretty epic colour... I was horrified but not so much when he told me he'd peed in his tank and I had his tank water on my hands (trying to pour it from flask into test tubes... bah!....for that matter I hope he didn't use flask again!...)

 
That is truly gross... yeuch! 
 
My husband kept asking me why I was spending money on ammonia and said it would be cheaper to pee in the tank, I'm 95% sure he was joking though!  

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You all missed the point of my "story" It was made up. But if you think about what was reported, all the spitting did was to coincide with the time at which ammonia normally drops. The spitting was just coincidental in its timing and had no effect on the cycle. There is a big difference between cause and effect and coincidence.
 
Why I know Stability does not provide the desired long term ammonia oxidizing bacteria is found here http/www.drtimsaquatics.com/wp-content/files/scientificpapers/hovanecAEM_Dec01.pdf
 
Here are the two key quotes that make it obvious:

These findings implying a physiological difference be-tween the species of AOB responsible for ammonia oxidation in the two systems, which differ only in terms of salinity. The effect of salinity on the growth and physiology of AOB has been demonstrated, and it has been shown that some AOB require salt for growth while salt is inhibitory for others (9).

They are saying that different bacteria do the ammonia oxidation in sw vs fw. But Stability says it is good for both.
 

Culture enrichments and culture-independent molecular methods were employed to identify and confirm the presence of novel ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in nitrifying freshwater aquaria. Reactors were seeded with biomass from freshwater nitrifying systems and enriched for AOB under various conditions of ammonia concentration. Surveys of cloned rRNA genes from the enrichments revealed four major strains of AOB which were phylogenetically related to the Nitrosomonas marina cluster, the Nitrosospira cluster, or the Nitrosomonas
europaea-Nitrosococcus mobiliscluster of the subdivision of the class Proteobacteria. Ammonia concentration in the reactors determined which AOB strain dominated in an enrichment.

Those are all autotrophic bacteria- none form spores, so none are in Stability.
 
 
 

 

[daizeUK]

You all missed the point of my "story" It was made up. But if you think about what was reported, all the spitting did was to coincide with the time at which ammonia normally drops. The spitting was just coincidental in its timing and had no effect on the cycle. There is a big difference between cause and effect and coincidence.

 
Nah we didn't miss the point - it was just funny
 
 
With regards to Stability - obviously it doesn't contain the same bacteria that you would find in Dr Tim's or other competing products (Seachem state this boldly on their website and in fact even boast about it as a selling point!) but does this necessarily mean it is useless?
 
We know that heterotrophic and anaerobic bacteria are capable of performing nitrification, perhaps not as efficiently as autotrophic bacteria but is it possible that the Stability bacteria might help to quickly set up a filter and avoid New Tank Syndrome (as they claim it does)?
 
I do agree with you that these bacteria would not be effective long-term and would be naturally replaced with the correct autotrophic bacteria over time.  That might not necessarily matter if all you want to do is get some bacteria processing ammonia quickly.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Yes- but if you can start with the desired long term bacteria at the outset, why wouldn't you do that?
 
Oh yes, where are the instructions for how to do a fishless cycle using Stability? All I can find was this:

Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 40 L (10 gallons*) on the first day with a new aquarium. Then use 1 capful for each 80 L (20 gallons*) daily for 7 days. Fish and other aquatic  species may be introduced at any time as long as dosage is maintained for 7 days. For optimum biofilter performance use 1 capful for each 40 L (10 gallons*) once a month or with each water change and whenever introducing new fish or whenever medicating an aquarium.

 
What happens if for some reason you miss a daily dose the first week? Can you overdose it? What happens if you want to cycle a tank but not add fish, can you dose ammonia? With the live nitrifyers, if you dose and add fish accordingly there is nothing to forget. With DrTims I can use it at half or 1/4 strength on multiple tanks and then use ammonia to rapidly complete a fishless cycle, can I do this with Stability? And here is the biggie- I can find [ublic aquariums and aquaculture facilities using DrTims and ABIL, wgu can't I find them using Stability? Especially since retail Stability costs about  $7 to use on a 120 gal tank while DrTim's would cost about $20 to use on a 60 gal tank. Stability is under 6 cents/gal and DrTim's is over 33 cents. I mean if all things were equal would anybody spend 500% more for the same result, especially what talking about treating 100,000 gal. and up size tanks and ponds.

 

[daizeUK]

Yes- but if you can start with the desired long term bacteria at the outset, why wouldn't you do that?

 
A possible advantage that crosses the mind is that heterotrophic bacteria multiply faster than autotrophs, so it could potentially get the tank into a cycled state even faster than using the 'correct' stuff at the start.
 
It really depends on how efficient the heterotrophs are at processing ammonia and nitrite; can they handle the same bioload as autotrophs?  From what I've read they're nowhere near being even close to the same league so the answer would be no, unless Seachem have discovered some miracle strains of heterotrophic bacteria.

 

[Nicholas1]

Hello all.
This is for twotankamin.
I will state firstly i have got nothing to do with this company nor do i repersent them in any way or form only by buying there product Evolution Aqua Pure Aquarium balls.
The products what i have used to cycle my 35 litre and my 100 litre tanks was api and nutrafin cycle and with a mature filter squeeze which these took a slow process of cycling which mine took 3 week's.
Last year i had a 100 gallon tank gave me which was a ex marine, i used api bacteria after it all cycled and waited 4 week's i added 7 guppys to my tank which has got 2 fluval 406 5000 litre per hour trickle filter and 700 litre internal filter.
After after a few days i put the fish in i noticed that the tank was again in a big cycle which i was puzzled due to 7 guppys in 100 gallon would not give a big cycle which api test kit was off the stale.
I went to my local lfs to get some products to try and save the fish and doing 70% water changes a day and still would not bring it down, i brought api, nutrafin you name it i spent over £150 to try and save them.
I went on the internet i found Evolution Aqua Pure Aquarium balls which i noticed there was lfs by me who was selling them.
I paid £7.99 for 50 balls i took them home and by this point i had enough of water changes so i decided just to add 20 balls to the tank and in a matter of hours ammonia came down to 0 nitrite came down to 0 and nitrite 5.
To be honest with you before i found Evolution Aqua Pure Aquarium balls i used seachem products which people get good and bad reviews from all products.
Since i have used Evolution Aqua Pure Aquarium balls i have never had no problems with ammonia nor nitrite nor nitrate i will now recommend this product to any one who is having water clarity issues and ammonia and nitrite.
Since i have found this product i will no longer be using any other products other than Evolution Aqua Pure Aquarium balls.
 
I hope this helps if you decide to buy a box let me know how you get on, you wont be disapointed.


i forgot to add i did use ammonia to cycle

 

[Ruskull]

Why are you yelling at me?  LOL