Bio Spira

[ramsey]

Yes, I'm a fanboy when it comes to this stuff. I'm sure some of the other bacteria products work as well though I don't have much experience with them. I've used this stuff to quickly cycle tanks and after I've moved live stock into another tank (probably six times in the past few years). Over the past 6 months I've cycled 3 tanks with it. The first two had some seed rock in it but the most recent only had dry rock. On the first two, I never tested for ammonia or anything else (I know, shame on me!). I added a small piece of seed rock, bio spira, than added some hardy frags and hermits from another tank. I never had any issues with the corals or hermits and within a few days I had a diatom bloom followed by an algae bloom. I was able to cycle in less than a week. The directions say you can add fish right away but I never felt comfortable with that. This latest tank, I used only dry rock and dosed ammonia. After a couple of days of testing ammonia and getting about 1PPM, I added the bio spira. Yesterday (the next day), I tested and had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and about 10 PPM nitrate. I threw a couple of hermits in there after the good reading. I tested again today and had the same results.

After my experience, I think all my tanks will be started this way. I'd gladly pay a little to not have to wait a month or more. Also, I'm going to keep a bottle on hand for emergencies since I have a 12g tank and a 3G tank and one death could cause a chain reaction ammonia spike.

Long story short, I highly recommend this stuff if you're impatient or you have an ammonia issue. I know that prime and other products remove ammonia by binding it, but I think adding live bacteria would attack the root of the problem.