BIO SPIRA experiences ?

[Ryan Rioux]

I was planning a tank move due to a house sale over a decade ago... someone mentioned this stuff to me. I dismissed it to at first, but then started to research it a bit, and found that a lot of folks had great results with it.

I purchased the stuff with the intent of an orderly transition from our temporary housing (condo) to the new house. That didn't happen because the ****** landlord shut off the electricity one day after we took out our main belongings (a few things remained, including the still operating reef tank).

Fortunately, I had the new tank set up (just salt water and nothing else) and the temp at the condo hadn't got too cold yet.

So, that cold early February night I rushed through the process of bringing over to the new tank. I added the BioSpira and literally just put everything in... rock, fish Corals. Floated them and nothing else. No cycle time for the tank.

The results were pleasing... 100% survival of fish and coral, including LPS and SPS. The advantage was that I added livestock with no wait for a cycle.... and in this case any wait would have been fatal.

I will add that this was in February 2005... have not used the product since. Also, just for the record, tank has remained up and running since then, and at least 3 of those fish are still with me.

Pretty awesome ! I’m really waiting for nitrites to drop already .

 

[Brian W]

Ive used Bio-Spira on my first tank. It worked. I still let it cycle for 2 months.
I did not want to take a chance and kill a fish or coral.
I have since read about fritz turbo start and am going to try that on my next build.
nothing wrong with bio-spira. Its been around for a while.

 

[kinetic]

I got a question for ya, sooo let’s say last night at 6 pm I dosed 3ml of ammonia which came out to 2ppm after testing . This morning when measuring ammonia is gone but nitrites were in between 1-5ppm . After work I just checked and there still 1-5 ppm. When should I dose ammonia again? If I continue to dose ammonia it will continuously build up nitrites .

Wait for the nitrites to drop below 1ppm, and dose 2ppm again. If it takes a week for nitrites to drop, you've probably have a weird stalled cycle. At that point, just dose a tiny bit of ammonium chloride to get ammonia levels up a little to keep that bacteria going. You can also just do a 50% - 100% water change and start again with the ammonia at 2ppm and see what happens. But I'd give it a week at least.

 

[pjr]

Pretty awesome ! I’m really waiting for nitrites to drop already .

i will add that I used the version that came as refrigerated packets...

 

[Ryan Rioux]

Wait for the nitrites to drop below 1ppm, and dose 2ppm again. If it takes a week for nitrites to drop, you've probably have a weird stalled cycle. At that point, just dose a tiny bit of ammonium chloride to get ammonia levels up a little to keep that bacteria going. You can also just do a 50% - 100% water change and start again with the ammonia at 2ppm and see what happens. But I'd give it a week at least.

I’m going to actually dose another whole bottle of biospira tonight , bring ammonia to 2 ppm. Go from there . I’ll just have to dose ammonia everyday backup to 2 ppm . Nitrites will end up being sky high but will come down eventually .

 

[kinetic]

I’m going to actually dose another whole bottle of biospira tonight , bring ammonia to 2 ppm. Go from there . I’ll just have to dose ammonia everyday backup to 2 ppm . Nitrites will end up being sky high but will come down eventually .

OK, but you'll risk overdosing nitrites and stalling a cycle.

 

[WWIII]

Luckily your tank isn't huge, otherwise getting rid of all those nitrates at the end of your experiment would be a major pain in the you know what. It's not neccessary to keep dosing ammonia.

 

[Ryan Rioux]

OK, but you'll risk overdosing nitrites and stalling a cycle.

So what you mean is only dose ammonia to 2ppm when both nitrites and ammonia are down to 0? I was never fully down to 0 with nitrites even after 2 days!

 

[Ryan Rioux]

Luckily your tank isn't huge, otherwise getting rid of all those nitrates at the end of your experiment would be a major pain in the you know what. It's not neccessary to keep dosing ammonia.

Getting rid of the nitrates still sucks haha . Luckily I placed the tank right next to my living room window , so when I drain tank ! I run the python out the window into the mulch bed below lol

 

[Ryan Rioux]

OK, but you'll risk overdosing nitrites and stalling a cycle.

After testing this morning , after about 14-15 hours this was test results .

 

[Ryan Rioux]

OK, but you'll risk overdosing nitrites and stalling a cycle.

That’s after dosing 3ml ammonia last night , which equals about 2 ppm. Now I just wait for nitrites to drop before dosing ammonia backup to 2ppm , but what if nitrites aren’t fully back at 0 by tomorrow .

 

[kinetic]

Wait for at least a week before dosing anything else. Let your nitrites drop to at least 0.5ppm. They don't need to drop to 0, just to 0.5. you're at 2ppm, risking stalling your cycle pretty badly. In fact, I don't know, it might be even more than 2ppm already. It's really strange to have nitrites still so high when your ammonia can easily drop. I'm going to say you officially have a stalled cycle. It might be more difficult to get your nitrites built up. If this persists further than a week (where nitrites aren't dropping down to 0.5ppm) do a 100% water change (or as close to that as you can), then dose 2ppm equivalent of ammonia. It won't totally restart, but it will greatly help a stalled cycle. That's what I had to do. I had overdosed ammonia and stalled out my cycle. I did a 100% water change, then switched from Dr. Tim's One and Only to Bio Spira, and everything cycled within a week. I gave it an extra couple weeks before introducing any animals, but it overall took almost 6 weeks before I decided to restart with a 100% water change.

 

[Ryan Rioux]

Wait for at least a week before dosing anything else. Let your nitrites drop to at least 0.5ppm. They don't need to drop to 0, just to 0.5. you're at 2ppm, risking stalling your cycle pretty badly. In fact, I don't know, it might be even more than 2ppm already. It's really strange to have nitrites still so high when your ammonia can easily drop. I'm going to say you officially have a stalled cycle. It might be more difficult to get your nitrites built up. If this persists further than a week (where nitrites aren't dropping down to 0.5ppm) do a 100% water change (or as close to that as you can), then dose 2ppm equivalent of ammonia. It won't totally restart, but it will greatly help a stalled cycle. That's what I had to do. I had overdosed ammonia and stalled out my cycle. I did a 100% water change, then switched from Dr. Tim's One and Only to Bio Spira, and everything cycled within a week. I gave it an extra couple weeks before introducing any animals, but it overall took almost 6 weeks before I decided to restart with a 100% water change.

So even thought nitrites are dropping in 2 days , still can mean stalled cycle? They’re dropping just not in one day!

 

[kinetic]

So even thought nitrites are dropping in 2 days , still can mean stalled cycle? They’re dropping just not in one day!

Well that's good. Just stop dosing ammonia until nitrites drop to 0.5ppm.

 

[Hunter Lang]

I used bio spira when I initially set up my first cube. I just dumped it in, waited a week and added a clean up crew and two clowns on days 6 and 7. I never tested anything and still have 1 of the two clowns 4.5yrs later, the other died during a power outage.

Did you use live rock or dry live rock

 

[Pntbll687]

Did you use live rock or dry live rock

I used live rock. It was transported with just wet newspaper for about a day, so I bet there was some die of on there.

 

[Hunter Lang]

I used live rock. It was transported with just wet newspaper for about a day, so I bet there was some die of on there.

Just put 10lbs it live rock in my 10 gallon, the bio spira is getting delivered in a couple hours. Do u think after I put that in there how long until it’s cycled?

 

[Hunter Lang]

I used live rock. It was transported with just wet newspaper for about a day, so I bet there was some die of on there.

How much bio spira did you use?

 

[Pntbll687]

I just dumped a whole bottle in.

In hindsight I would dose according to the instructions. Just cause you don't the bottle in doesn't mean there's enough ammonia to feed all the bacteria, and some will end up dying.

I didn't test anything either, just waited a week and added fish. THIS WAS THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT!

I would add the bacteria, and either a dead shrimp or ghost feed flakes as an ammonia source. And then test to see when the ammonia rises and falls.

 

[Hunter Lang]

I just dumped a whole bottle in.

In hindsight I would dose according to the instructions. Just cause you don't the bottle in doesn't mean there's enough ammonia to feed all the bacteria, and some will end up dying.

I didn't test anything either, just waited a week and added fish. THIS WAS THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT!

I would add the bacteria, and either a dead shrimp or ghost feed flakes as an ammonia source. And then test to see when the ammonia rises and falls.

Okay I dumped in the whole bottle last night, is it too late to go get some fish flakes to dump in? Or would I need to do it all over again