Cycling with Seachem Stability

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I am on Day 15 and I am finally seeing Nitrites at .25 ppm. Ammonia is still at .25 ppm and Nitrates are 5 ppm. I added my last of what I bought of my Stability. I now only have Prime to continue my cycle. I dosed with Prime yesterday, so if my levels are still at a toxic level tomorrow, I will use it again.
 
Yesterday I got .5 ammonia, .5 nitrite, and 5 nitrate. I did a water change and ended up with .25 ammonia and .25 nitrite. I dosed it with Prime twice. Once an hour or two before the water change and once after.
 
bjbass;4283139; said:
Wouldn't that make my levels worse?
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Yes and no. (yes now, no later) Yes it would make the bioload increase (your levels worse) on the tank but that should have been day one when you started adding stability. Now your not using stability and once you establish a colony with such a small bioload then add larger fish, the baterial colony won't be able to keep up, not by a long shot. You'll be still doing WC's and going through another cycle, it may be mini and only last a few days or could be weeks waiting for the colony to multiply. IMO you should add more fish (bioload) and dose another round with stability since the majority of it went to waste. You basically want the bacterial colony to multiply to as close to the size, as can consume your planned stocking bioload. Does that make sense?
 
JK47;4285084; said:
Yes and no. (yes now, no later) Yes it would make the bioload increase (your levels worse) on the tank but that should have been day one when you started adding stability. Now your not using stability and once you establish a colony with such a small bioload then add larger fish, the baterial colony won't be able to keep up, not by a long shot. You'll be still doing WC's and going through another cycle, it may be mini and only last a few days or could be weeks waiting for the colony to multiply. IMO you should add more fish (bioload) and dose another round with stability since the majority of it went to waste. You basically want the bacterial colony to multiply to as close to the size, as can consume your planned stocking bioload. Does that make sense?
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This makes absolute sense. I wish I would have known when I started. The thing that bothers me are the directions on the bottle. They say you can add fish if you want to, but you do not have to. Then tech support told me that I needed a bioload. I have dropped a bunch of money on this stuff. I wish I would have known that I would need to dose for so long and I would have saved money by just buying the two liter bottle right away. I wrote them a letter to see if there is a warranty. I feel like I should continue with it, but I would have not burned through a 2 liter bottle by now.
 
Yesterday my ammonia was .25 and the nitrite spiked through the roof. I can't tell for sure, but I believe it topped out on the darkest purple nitrite with my API test kit. My nitrates went up to 10ppm. I dosed the whole system with Prime again.
 
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