Beneficial bacteria in a bottle

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carsona246

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 12, 2009
553
2
18
Arkansas
I've never trusted anything that claims to have beneficial bacteria in a bottle, but after using amquel as a dechlorinator and not realizing it has "ammonia neutralizer's" in it, my two tanks have become uncycled. It's been about 2-3 weeks of water changes every other day, and still no nitrite. I started cycling in a bucket to allow my ammonia levels to go over 2 ppm's as I'm thinking this is why it's taking so long for my tanks to cycle, but I'm getting fed up with the waterchanges. Anyone have any good results with bottled beneficial bacteria, and if so what was the product? I'm assuming the only products that actually work are the ones that you have to order online, and have shipped to you, or do the bottles at petsmart actually help with the cycling process?
I've never looked into anything like stability, or similar products so some advise would be greatly appreciated.
 
that's good to hear, I'll probably go out to check petsmart. I've been doing some research, and I can't really sort through to find which actually works. From what I've read stability is the least expensive, but I've also read it doesn't work. Just trying to see what's worked for other people
 
just bought some, about to stick it right into my canister filter like JK47 did. I'm not trying to set this up as a scientific experiment, because my tank has been running for 4 or so months, and only became uncycled as of 2-3 weeks ago, but if my tank becomes cycled within a week I'll consider stability to be a success
 
carsona246;4915671; said:
just bought some, about to stick it right into my canister filter like JK47 did. I'm not trying to set this up as a scientific experiment, because my tank has been running for 4 or so months, and only became uncycled as of 2-3 weeks ago, but if my tank becomes cycled within a week I'll consider stability to be a success
Click to expand...

Just wondering how did your tank become uncycled
 
still not 100% certain, but I would bet a limb that it was the amquel dechlorinator I used that had ammonia neutralizer in it. I didn't check the bottle when I picked up a dechlorinator, and wasn't aware it had ammonia neutralizers in it till I had used the whole bottle. I've been told amquel's ammonia neutralizers allow the beneficial bacteria to use the ammonia after it's been "neutralized" by the dechlorinator, but I wasn't doing anything different in either of my two tanks, and they both became uncycled. I didn't notice until I had a bacteria bloom in one tank, and a planaria outbreak at the same time in the other tank, and decided to test ammonia because I thought something was up. I have plants in both my tanks, so the low nitrate readings on my tanks didn't register that something was up until I noticed the bacteria bloom.
 
I don't think your tank became uncycled for that reason. I use Stress Coat (has a ammonia neutralizer in it) and I use Prime (neutralizes everything) and I have not had a tank uncycle....
 
that's why i'm not certain it was the amquel. However it was the only thing that was new to both tanks and as far as I'm aware they've been cycled for 4+ months until now. I usually don't check ammonia unless I think somethings up, so I guess they could have become uncycled sometime before, but I didn't notice any strange behavior/signs of an uncycled tank. And I was getting consistant nitrate readings throughout the time, which makes the possibility of the tanks becoming uncycled before I used the amquel unlikely.
 
I've cycle many, many tanks with Stability. Anyone who claims it doesn't work either hasnt tried it, didn't follow dosing instructions, or somehow got a bad batch (although I doubt it...).
 
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