calinb

I sent an email outlining my problems with nitrites after using Bio-Spira to Marineland customer support. Robert Huber, Senior Consumer Relations Specialist in the United Pet Group Aquatics Division, was kind enough to reply to my email. Robert advised against using any ammonia detoxifying agents with Bio-Spira, including Prime. He said these agents can hamper or kill the effectiveness of Bio-Spira because the bacteria can not process the NH4+ (ammonium) formed by the agent. In fact, if the pH is not low or a binding agent is not present, it will eventually return to NH3 (ammonia) anyway, usually after a couple of days.

I didn't use Prime until 30 days after my 1st Bio-spira usage when my nitrites failed to go away, so I think susitna-flower was right--it was my water changes that caused my tank to not fully cycle.

On my 2nd try, after nearly draining the tank and refilling it, Bio-Spira worked within 48 hours (no ammonia or nitrites). I didn't use Prime and I didn't do water changes. However, Robert's advice still seems applicable because I did a little experiment with 1/2 of the Bio-Spira 30 gal. packet in a new 7 gal mini-bow tank. The tank was completely new and it spiked with nitrites about 20 hours later and I added prime. Sure enough, this tank is now stalled in the cycle with nitrites--just as my 1st tank stalled with 50% daily water changes.
Stalled with Nitrites (use Prime?)


While it may be difficult to stand by with 1 ppm nitrites and not add Prime or change water, it seems that a few hours of less than perfect water must be tolerated in order for Bio-Spira to have a chance to completely cycle. Robert said nitrites are less toxic than ammonia and I shouldn't overly worry.

After three days, I removed the fish from the 7 gal mini bow and I'm trying to get it to cycle fishless. I added ammonia to about 5 ppm, as reported by API. My Seachem disc only reports about 0.05 ppm so the discrepancy may be indicating that Seachem only detects the "unbound" NH3 ammonia but API detects the NH4+ ammonium bound with the Prime too. I'm hoping there's enough alive bacteria remaining to process my newly added ammonia and cycle. Given the Seachem disc reading, I may need to add more ammonia.

Anyway, based on my limited experience with Bio-Spira and Mr. Huber's recommendations, I won't use Prime or do water changes with Bio-Spira in the future. I guess Bio-Spira should work fishless, as I'm attempting to do now with ammonia, and it should provide a way to cycle a tank quickly without exposing fish to nitrites. (In my cases, ammonia was never measurable using Bio-Spira.)

-Cal

Here's Robert Huber's email reply to my inquiry:

Hello,
I noticed many on the forum use prime with the product. You really should not use ammonia detoxifying agents with bio-spira. It can hamper it effectiveness or kill it. Dechlorinators like aquasafe that do not contain ammonia binders are fine. Ammonia detoxifiers bind up ammonia by converting it to ammonium, NH3 is ammonia NH4+ is ammonium. Ammonium is not toxic to fish but will only stay in this form when PH is low or when a binding agent is used. It will eventually turn back to ammonia, usually after a couple of days. This conversion makes break down by the bacteria in bio-spira impossible. This can starve out the bacteria. This is mentioned on the packaging and is the most often cause of poor performance.

Nitrites are less toxic then ammonia. They are still toxic, but you should not overly worry.

I will pass your other suggestions on. I hope you have a great day.
Regards,
Robert Huber
United Pet Group, Aquatics Div.
Senior Consumer Relations Specialist

susitna-flower

calinb, thank you for following through with this. Information can get passed on through this forum that is not 100% science, and more conjecture. That is my fault, and I will be more careful in the future to not just pass on what someone else tells me.

Glad your tank is doing getter.

MissMTS

Thanks so much for the info. I was having a similar problem. But I tried bio-spira on my new tank and it cycled fishless within 1.5 days. Super Fast! It's good that you let everyone know.

calinb

No--your advice is well-considered and I understand. We don't have time to check everything ourselves and we're better off, overall, leveraging the reports of others. There are so many factors in many of these questions. We very much appreciate your contributions here, susitna-flower and I would not have figured it out without your help, either

It was the water changes, as you suspected, the first time. When I retried it with new water and new Bio-Spira, also as you suggested, it worked great and the nitrite peak was almost nonexistent--perhaps because I had some bacteria from before and the tank just needed to finish the 2nd phase of the cycle and get past the nitrite peak. I had no reason to even use Prime the on the 2nd attempt.

I tried Bio-Spira in the new 7 gal mini bow tank, mostly out of curiosity, but also to attempt to do something useful with the extra Bio-Spira. I saw the nitrites, as before, and I used 2 drops of Prime / gal. Granted, two case studies isn't much (one with water changes and one with prime) but my problems and results are consistent with Mr. Huber's advice.

Yes, Oscar and Felix (a comet and Japanese/American shubunkin) are doing well in their fully cycled tank but they didn't like being separated for the 48 hours or so that Oscar lived in the mini-bow before I went fishless. My next project is a 6' x 2' x 15" (~112 gal) tank for them. Together, they total about 5" in length and they'll get much bigger so I need to get a large tank built for them
Great! I was wondering if adding ammonia (or other fishless source of ammonia) would work with Bio-Spira. It seems like it should work and thanks for reporting that it worked fishless for you. Did you use ammonia drops or an indirect source of ammonia? I'm attempting to salvage any remaining bacteria in my mini-bow (now fishless) with ammonia. I'll report the results, but I did use Prime in the mini-bow so I may not get it to cycle quickly.
.

-Cal

MissMTS

I actually just used dechlorinated water (with aquaclear) and my pack of bio-spira, and that's it. I was amazed at how fast it worked. Did you have fish in your tank when you used bio-spira?

susitna-flower

A project?

Building it yourself? Have you ever done this?

Two links you might enjoy... the first you plug in your dimentions and it calculates just what you need for the project, and building instructions.

www.garf.org/tank/buildtank.asp

Next a virtual tank planting and decorating program..

www.gorillot.com/aquatools/php/index.php?select=7

You are just the kind of die hard it is fun to have posting here!

Tell us about your projects...

calinb

Yes--I did, but now I'm trying to get a 2nd tank to finish cycling without any fish. It started to cycle with Bio-Spira, but the Prime iinterfered with it, similar to my water changes a month ago on my first attempt.

When I used Bio-Spira without any water changes or Prime, ammonia and nitrites were zero after only 48 hours (with fish).


I built a much smaller tank when I was a kid. Now I'm interested in a large tank with high surface area / volume--hence the 15" height. It also has the benefit of requiring only 1/4" glass (lighter weight) rather than 3/8" or more for taller dimensions. Although tall tanks look nice, I think 15" is adequate for most plants and it's better to provide surface area for the (soon to be big) goldfish!

Thanks for the links. They will be useful. I've also setup a spreadsheet with glass thickness calculations, volume, number of fish supported, etc.

I'm always building something! My last project was a carbon fiber mount for a disc front brake for my electric bicycle. (I was too cheap to buy new forks with disc brake mounts.) Actually, that bike turned out to be a bit of a project too. I'll definitely keep you up to date on my fish project progress.

-Cal

sirdarksol

All of this just makes me thankful for tanks that I can borrow filter media from.

Good information, though. It's great that you're passing it on.

And Susitna, you're right that some of the information we pass on is incorrect. For example, I just found out that one of the articles I've been referring people to regarding curing Ich has information that is no longer considered correct.
However, in addition to being a hobby-based community, we mimic a scientific community. We pass ideas that are, in the end, theory, amongst ourselves, test, retest, adjust, accept or deny them, and then repeat the process.
So don't feel bad if you passed some incorrect information along. It's not like we've got a monopoly on bad information. We've heard from about corporations, even the makers of products, giving incorrect information regarding this hobby.

calinb

Good observation and analogy! We can't test everything ourselves. In fact, I tried to verify what Robert Huber told me, but my "tests" or case studies are far from exhaustive and well-controlled experiments. Nevertheless, my experiences are consistent with the advice in his email, which I added to my top post, with his permission.

calinb

Yup--the Prime stalled it at the nitrites stage--same as before with water changes in my 10 gal. (The 10 gal now appears to be fully cycled. )

Rather than buy a 3rd packet of Bio-Spira, I'm trying the added ammonia and fishless technique. After adding some gravel from my cycled 10 gal tank to the Mini-Bow 7, I found some clear ammonia. Don't believe the bottle--shake the stuff. Surfectants/sufactants foam. I had one bottle labeled that it had sufactants and it didn't foam. Another bottle said it was pure/clear ammonia and it foamed like crazy when I shook it!

Concentrations vary a lot in household ammonia. I found that 1 1/4 tsp of my stuff brought my ammonia level up to about 5ppm. I'm following the revised "recipe" here: http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Fishlesscycle.htm

-Cal

Update: household ammonia strength varies greatly in bottling and age. After many dosage and measuring cycles, I determined that something closer to 4 teaspoons of MY ammonia was needed to go from 0 ppm to 5 ppm in my Mini-Box 7. Measure ammonia levels using you own ammonia (a little at a time) to find out how much you need. You may need only drops of it rather than teaspoons! It varies that much.

susitna-flower

Calinb, you just blow me away!

calinb

Thanks, susitna-flower. The ammonia and gravel from my 10 gal seem to be bringing the Mini-Bow 7 around. 24 hours after adding the ammonia and gravel, the ammonia levels have dropped from the 5 ppm I started with to about 2 ppm. I have higher nitrite than before--now up to over 2 ppm and nitrates are showing up--about 10 ppm.

calinb

It only took about a week. I modified the above "recipe" even further; throughout the week, I attempted to re-dose to 5 ppm ammonia as soon as I noticed the ammonia levels had returned to zero. Given my work schedule, this was about twice a day. A Seachem ammonia alert indicator kept me continuously informed--but be aware that the instructions that came with my indicator were off by an order of magnitude, as verified by an API test kit.

My correlations suggest the Seachem indicator levels are 0.0, 0.5, 2, and 5 ppm for yellow, green, turquoise, and purple, respectively--NOT 0.0 0.05, 0.2, and 0.5 ppm as documented in the Seachem instructions. Perhaps the API kit is off, but I rather think the Seachem instructions are in error because 0.05 ppm of ammonia is a VERY small amount of ammonia (the very first step in the API test is 5 times greater at 0.25 ppm) and the Seachem indicator failed to detect extremely small doses of ammonia. API and Seachem agree when I multiply the Seachem numbers by 10.

But I digress. Back to my testimony: It turned out that that it took about 4 tsp of my weak ammonia to get the tank up to 5 ppm during each dosing and it took less than 12 hours for the tank to return to 0 ppm ammonia. Accordingly, I dosed 2 times per day for most of the week to bring the tank from 0 ppm back up to 5 ppm as often as possible and the nitrites finally dropped to 0 ppm last night. I say I did a twice daily dosage schedule for MOST of the week because, a couple of times, I went back to a daily dosage to give the tank 24 hours to process nitrites. I suspected that, while 5 ppm ammonia is eliminated in under 12 hours, the nitrite eating NOBs might take longer and, if I never waited long enough before adding ammonia, I'd never see the nitrites drop. I've not tested this theory but my observations support it. This morning, after waiting close to 24 hours since I last added ammonia, the nitrites measured zero so it seems likely that the NOBs needed 24 hours to process all the nitrites--at least in these early days with a freshly cycled tank. With a high ammonia dosage recipe, the nitrites quickly zoom off the API scale, making it difficult to resolve and track nitrites during a 12 hour period (the nitrites remain "off the scale").

So, in summary, I think the ammonia fishless process works very well and cycling can be accelerated even further by dosing with ammonia whenever the ammonia levels return to zero--perhaps even more often than 2 times per day. However, to check for tank cycling, it is necessary to stop ammonia dosing for 24 hours to give the NOBs enough time to process all the nitrites.

My nitrAtes are off the scale now, of course, but a full water change (just water--no gravel vacuuming yet) should set the tank up for fish.

I think it may be possible to optimize the recipe further, with careful monitoring:

1. Dose to 5 ppm ammonia whenever the ammonia levels fall to zero, which requires constant monitoring that may interfere with job obligations, sleeping, etc.

2. After the nitrites climb "off the scale," dilute the test sample with a known amount of nitrite-free water to keep the readings "on the scale." When the nitrites start to fall solidly, switch to a 5 ppm every 24 hours schedule (some might advise less than 5 ppm here, but I found 5 ppm to still work okay).

3. When the nitrites AND ammonia both reach zero within 24 hours, the tank is cycled (and full of nitrates).

4. Change the water but don't disturb the gravel and filters.

5. Add fish. The bacteria should be able to handle a full stock of fish, if you don't delay long. (If there's a delay, keep dosing with ammonia, but I have no idea how much ammonia is needed to keep a colony of bacteria alive that's sufficiently large to support a full stock of fish.)

The above is based on my experiences and findings. As with anything involving risk and life, it's best to proceed from the known to the unknown gradually. Don't blame me if my suggestions and speculations backfire. I'm just a humble investigator doing a most unstructured investigation (I won't even call it an "experiment.")

-Cal

susitna-flower

Calinb, I would like to ask Mike to sticky this thread, I think it is well worth having in the permanent file for folks to read.

So many people want to rush their cycle, but without realizing they have to keep feeding the ammonia bacteria, they in effect slow their cycle down. As you kept feeding THAT bacteria, it continued to reproduce, didn't die out as it might have if you had just concentrated on the fact that your nitrites came up.

Make a long story short, you nailed it!

calinb

Thanks, Susitna-flower! I'm pretty happy to get my second tank to cycle in about a week. It's difficult to account for absolutely everything one's done in writing such testimonials (for me as well as the other cycle "diaries" I've read) but I noticed in my online reading that the fastest fishless cycle times seem to correlate to dosing daily with high amounts of ammonia. I also noticed that it took far less than a day for all of the ammonia to get processed in my Mini-Bow 7 and I wondered if it might be best to not permit the ammonia levels to drop to zero for long or even drop at all. My thinking was that frequent ammonia doses would provide a growing supply of nitrite to quickly build the persnickety NOB colony and the constant ammonia would ensure the, already active, ammonia munchers would never starve out or decline in numbers, as you pointed out.

The NOB/nitrite phase seems to be where many tanks stall or slow way down in cycling so I hope my experiences may help others and also help to set realistic expectations. From what I've seen, cycling a tank without fish and without Bio-spira takes at least a week and requires frequent attention to dose, monitor the results, and adjust the ammonia dose quantity and schedule. Cycling with Bio-spira and fish takes a day or two and it's best if you don't do anything to the water after adding the Bio-spira and fish. With Bio-spira, you shouldn't need to do anything until that first partial water change to reduce nitrates--maybe a week later or even longer. With a freshly cycled tank, my gut feeling is to avoid doing anything but changing some water--even after a week and it's probably best to let the tank age a month or so, if possible, before performing any major gravel vacuuming or filter changes. (Then try to do only 1/2 the gravel or 1/2 the filter media at a time.) I'm sure others here in the forum have a better feel for keeping newly cycled tanks cycling than I.

seamonkey

My concern is the effect of Ammo-Lock on Bio-Spira. A bit if history first...

Day 1: I setup a 29 g freshwater tank with Stress Coat and an Emperor 280. I added 6 zebras, a green cory and 10 ghost shrimp + 30 mL of API Stress Zyme.

Day 8: I added 30 mL Stress Zyme; API Freshwater Master Kit: Ammonia 0.5-1.0; Nitrite 0.0; Nitrate 0.0; pH 7.8

Tap water: Ammonia 1-2 (ouch); Nitrite 0.0; Nitrate 5.0

Day 16: Added 30 mL Ammo-Lock + 6 more zebras + 3 more corys - Ammonia 0.5-1.0; Nitrite 0.5-1.0; Nitrate 5

Day 20: Added 30 mL Ammo-Lock + 30 mL Stress Zyme - Ammonia 2.0; Nitrite 1.0; Nitrate 5

Day 21: I am stressing but the fish and inverts are doing fine! Water parameters the same. I add 1 oz Bio-Spira. Discontinue using Ammo-Lock and Stress Zyme.

Day 22: Testing pretty much evey 6-8 hours: Ammonia 2.0; Nitrite 1.0; Nitrate 10
Thinking that my test kit might not be working properly, I take a water sample to the LFS and was told to give the Bio-Spira more time: Ammonia 4.0; Nitrite 2.0; Nitrate 20

Day 24: Me: stressing; fish: fine; some female shrimp are now carrying eggs. Water conditions not changing.

At this point I am questioning the lingering effect of the Ammo-Lock on the Bio-Spira or perhaps the effectiveness of this particular batch of Bio-Spira. No water changes yet; only some topping off. Just waiting for the ammonia to drop! Should I do a massive water change and start over with more Bio-Spira or wait it out? The fish should be sick or dying but they are colorful, active, and eating well.

calinb

Yes--understandably! Mr. Huber advised, in general, against any binding agents as follows, "You really should not use ammonia detoxifying agents with bio-spira."

I've not used Ammo-Lock but, based on my experience using Prime after BIO-Spira, you may have to wait a very long time for your tank to cycle, if you don't change out nearly all your water and "start over." There's no telling how much Ammo-Lock remains unbound, "ready," and available to continue to bind with newly formed ammonia, unless you flush it all out. Then there's the problem of even determining how much toxic ammonia or nitrite actually exists in your tank because some tests report only toxic (unbound) compounds/ions and others report both the toxic and non-toxic (bound) components. At least from what I've seen.

And even then, without re-dosing with BIO-Spira, the entire cycling problem is a real conflict of goals when you have fish, I think. By the time you remove enough water (daily, in all likelihood) to keep the toxicity from harming your fish, you also remove or disturb much of the newly forming bacteria and delay their growth. If you don't do a lot of water changes, you'll harm or kill your fish. My first BIO-Spira tank remained stalled with nitrites for weeks from all the water changes or residual Prime, but my 2nd, fishless tank fully cycled in a week, without dosing with BIO-Spira, because I pumped it full of ammonia and, hence, nitrites too.

After weeks of trying to flush the nitrites and Prime with frequent 50% water changes with that first tank, I finally gave up and bought some more BIO-Spira. I then removed most of the water, put my fish in the bucket with the old water, and then I removed nearly all the rest of the water---all but the water in the gravel. After refilling the tank with de-chlorinated water, BIO-Spira, and fish, my tank was ammonia free within 24 hours and nitrite free within 48 hours of re-dosing with BIO-Spira. The toxic ammonia and nitrite levels never got very high at all. The big mistake using BIO-Spira is when we see a little, short-lived toxins, freak out, and add Prime (or other detox agent).

If you decide to re-dose with BIO-Spira, I recommend removing as much water as possible first, which is what I did after Susitna-flower suggested, essentially, starting over. If you can find BIO-Spira easily, my recommendation is to change out as much water as possible, re-dose, and don't worry about ammonia or nitrite levels for at least 48 hours. If they don't drop shortly after that, you can reconsider worrying .
I, personally, don't believe you're now waiting for the BIO-Spira to work. It's gone! Again, in my experience, if BIO-Spira is working correctly, cycling takes only hours or a couple of days--not weeks!

In general, I now view the detox agents as emergency, fish shipping, and "new fish bag" water treatment. I think the detoxifying agents can mess up a tank, if creating or maintaining a cycled tank is your goal. That's just my opinion but, in the future, I plan to either cycle all my tanks with BIO-Spira and fish or take only a few more days and go fishless with frequent and massive ammonia doses, as I described in this thread. However, considering all the time and monitoring involved with the fast track fishless ammonia dosing option, I know I'm working very cheap, compared to the BIO-Spira costs.

BTW, my 2nd tank (the Mini-Bow 7 that I cycled fishless) has been populated with three happy glowlight rasboras in it for about a week. I'm thinking about adding another three of these little fish soon. They are really active and perfect for a Mini-Bow; they have wonderful color and markings when viewed through the Mini-Bow magnifier glass. The tank remains ammonia and nitrite free and my nitrates are still around 10 ppm since my initial post-cycling, nitrate-purging massive water change.

Good luck and please let us know what finally works for you.

Edit:

Ooh-I just re-read the LFS numbers on your water:
Susitna-flower and others in the forum are better qualified to sound an alarm when it comes to fish toxicity than I, but 4 ppm ammonia is quite high, if that's all unbound ammonia. Again, some tests also report the bound ammonia component too, which is not toxic. I'd consider it high enough for emergency use of a detoxifying agent followed by that big water change and BIO-Spira ASAP.

You could also try a Seachem ammonia disc (see my posting above) and see what it reads. Seachem appears to only report the toxic ammonia whereas my API kit reported the toxic plus the non-toxic ammonia components. See my notes about the Sechem disc instruction sheet being off by a factor of 10x too. My correlations suggest the Seachem indicator levels are 0.0, 0.5, 2, and 5 ppm for yellow, green, turquoise, and purple, respectively--NOT 0.0 0.05, 0.2, and 0.5 ppm as documented in the Seachem instructions.

seamonkey

I bought more Bio-Spira at the LFS. I explained the situation with the dealer and he suggested that the cause for the high ammonia and nitrites was due to a high bio-load and over feeding (actually, I tend to agree with that). He suggested a series of daily 25% water changes and the use of Ammo-chips in the filter. I told him that I had both API Stress Coat and API Ammo-Lock and he suggested the latter for water conditioning (I did not mention the aforementioned effects of ammonia detoxifying agents on Bio-Spira).

I performed a complete water change and used Stress Coat as the water conditioner. I had some concerns about the use of Stress Coat because it states on the product label “neutralizes chloramines and detoxifies heavy metals”. I went to the API website and looked up the ingredients listed on the MSDS (they provide one for every product) and found aloe extracts and sodium thiosulfate. Unless I am wrong, no ammonia detoxifying agents present. The fish were re-introduced and the Bio-Spira was added a few hours later. I tested the water: Ammonia 1.0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5. These results are consistent with the local tap water.

I will continue to monitor the water conditions and post the results shortly. Of course, I will monitor the feeding as well.