Anyone have experience with Bio-Spira

Hey All,

Has anyone here had a good experience using either Bio-Spira or EasyStart by a company called Easy-Life? I tried Dr. Tim's One and Only but I'm fairly certain the bottle got frozen in transit (I wish I ordered it directly from him but instead ordered it from an Amazon distributer and being that it shipped from PA to MA in frozen weather in bloth places that week...).

Just wondering if anyone had any success using either of the other two products mentioned as I can easily obtain those from my LFS and if you used them in conjunction with either a fish or fishless cycling method?

Ideally it would be great to get one and cycle the tank with a hardy fish, but I also want to make sure the tank is safer for a fish and if these will not make things safer for a fish to cycle the tank, I do not want to torture a fish.

 

I used bio-spiral for my FW tank so I would wonder if they have a salt version? I can tell you what I know from experience. I have 2 tanks, I cycled the first with a product like you mentioned above purchased at a LFS. I It took about 6 weeks to complete the cycle with 15lbs of live rock and "live" sand. When I set up my second tank I used dry sand and 15lbs of live rock and simply tossed in a cocktail shrimp. It took about 6 weeks. I am sure there are better products out there then what I used, but I think the best product is patience. It is cheap too =-)

 

honestly I prefer to use live sand and live fully cured rock to cycle my tank. I usually add a handful of "used" sand from another tank to help colonize the sand that I added. Usually if i have a cycle it is very brief, less than a week. Ask your LFS for a handful of their sand.

I have found from an old LFS store that i used to work for that used "instant cycle" stuff that it just doesnt seem to be all that it is cracked up to be.

I also would not recommend adding anything live to your tank while it is cycling, regardless of how hardy it is.

 

I quickly abandoned the live cycle with product idea. I'm sure there are some bacteria in a bottle products that work well (I've heard amazing things about Dr. Tim and his products and he even took the time to respond to me in one of his threads, which I thought was amazing).

I did this for two reasons:

First Reason: Those products need to be kept in ideal conditions and most of the local fish stores near me either don't keep it, or their bottles had dust on them. I purchased a bottle of Dr. Tim's at what probably was not a reputable vendor and I'm 99.9% sure the bottle froze in transit (killing all the live bacteria). In the end, I can't control what happens to any bottle before it gets to me and I would think that it isn't fair to drop a fish in the tank hoping that a product was kept in the optimal storage conditions. I definitely am going to use Dr. Tim's product to cycle a tank, but the next time I do, I will order the product directly from his site! To be 100% fair, his product can withstand a ton more conditions than most of the other products, and freezing the product is about the only limitation and to be honest, I wouldn't expect most things to reanimate after being frozen.

Second Reason: At the end of the day, I could have tried one of those bacteria in a bottle products and simulated a fish being in the water to see if it actually worked and the bottle was good, but from what I've heard, in this hobby, patience is very important as well as rewarding. How would I ever fully understand the cycle and how it works if I got an abbreviated version? I actually started a new thread in the newbie section going over my trials and errors using pure ammonia to cycle the tank.