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Bacteria in a bottle?

yellowpebble

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Has anyone hear of or tried the cycle starting bacteria in a bottle? I think you are meant to ad it into your filter and it helps it get established in no time. Is it axie safe? I'm going to get some today and check the ingredients to see if its safe and see how it works, it could possible be a real help to cycling tanks.

I have just upgraded to a bigger filter for my 4 foot instead of running 2 smaller ones. I've put some of the cycled filter media in it however the tank is doing a mini cycle again. The axies are in but i'm doing water changes and keeping the ammonia under 0.25 ppms. If the ingredients are safe i will test it out and carefully monitor the water parameters. Has anyone ever tried bottle bacteria?
 

Jennewt

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I think that adding the old filter media, as you did, is much more likely to be effective. The bacteria in that filter media is exactly the RIGHT mix of bacteria for your aquarium conditions. The reason you have a mini-cycle going on is not for lack of bacteria, it's because it takes time for the bacteria to get settled and make a biofilm. Until they form a film on the surfaces inside the tank, they aren't very active.

The Cycle product is a good product idea, but I have difficulty believing that it does what is claimed. We are expected to believe that the bacteria stay alive in a water-borne solution for the shelf life of the product (months or years). And we are expected to believe that the bacteria are all the right ones that will work under a wide variety of water/temperature conditions. I have a hard time believing all that. It's safe, but I doubt that it's effective under all kinds of conditions.
 

yellowpebble

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i agree, i dont understand how it works? The bacteria in the tank are so sensitive, how do they live in a bottle.

I think i will just for an experiment put some in my old filter in a tub and create a cycle with an amonia source, and see how it works.
 

blackdog

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I tried this to try to speed up the establishment of the nitrogrn cycle as i cycled the tank with my new axies in the tank.

It was a total waste of money.

You may as well take 15-20 bucks out of your wallet and light it, in fact, dont do that, i'll give my pay pal details for a "donation" :)

My tank still took as long to cycle as it might have (4-6 weeks)

If you have used established media in the new tank, it will ony be a mini cycle so it'll be back to normal fast.

Dont waste your money on the bacteria stuff

Bren
 

yellowpebble

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Thanks bren I wont.

The media fom the old filters is quite small compared to the other clean media in the large filter, i think it might take a while :( Its good that its established though, i just have to get it to multiply :D
 

carsona246

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tried using stability, it was a fail. Old media will work much quicker
 

yellowpebble

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Yep i'm not going to try it. If i did put it ontop of an already semi cultured filter, do you think would it harm the bacteria that was already there?
 

carsona246

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if you put the old media, or the bacteria in a bottle? Either way I can't imagine either hurting the established bacteria
 

Kal El

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Much like Jennewt, I am skeptical that these products are effective. In fact, I second Bren's notion that they are a waste of money.

If you do decide to purchase a bottle, would you be able to list the contents in this post? I suppose the things I would be looking out for are:

1). Phosphorous (possibly listed as a phosphate compound). Nitrificaition is a metabolic process that requires ATP (energy), so it would be interesting to see where the phosphorous is being sourced for ATP production. I'd imagine that over time nutrional phosphorous for metabolism in the bottle will deplete. Also, considering nitrifying bacteria use the majority of their energy to fix carbon dioxide, not much remains for reproduction.

2). Source of ammonia (probably ammonium hydroxide since ammonia can not be stored in its gaseous state in water). It may have that pungent smell. You know that hydrogen perioxide smell? Hard to miss!

3). Temperature to be stored. I'm guessing that it might say "Store below 30 degrees Celsius", or something to that effect. This may coincide with the optimal temperature range for growth (25-30 degrees Celsius), but how would one keep it at optimum?

4). Claim of pH level in the bottle. It would be great if you could test the pH of the bottle and see if the claim labeled on the bottle is correct. A hospitable pH for nitrifying bacteria would be between 7 and 8. I think the pH would steadily decrease as the nitrifying bacteria die. As it is, without nutrients such as phosphates and ammonia, the bacteria only have a small reserve within the cell cytoplasm to survive for finite time.

5). Expiry date. That just goes without saying. A capped bottle with zero oxygen input required for growth and metabolism only screams alarm bells.

In my opinion, I think it's a revenue raising scheme; albiet with great marketing. I believe all that is happening is that people are adding dead bacteria to a sterile tank (i.e. no ammonia reading). The next time they test their water they get an ammonia reading (which had come from the dead bacteria anyway!), and they are pleasantly surprised because it must mean that the cycling process has started.
 

Jennewt

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Do pet products in Australia actually list the exact ingredients? In the US, they are not required to, and most don't. So it's anybody's guess what's really in a product like Cycle, at least in this country.
 

yellowpebble

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there were no ingredients on the bottle at all. I cant find it on line anywhere either, how convenient
 
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