Cycling

[Jrid1997]

How do you use products like bio spira do you just fill the tank add bio spira and test the water for a few days? How does this work?

 

[GimpyFin]

Bio spira is basically bacteria in a bottle. It shortcuts cycling your tank normally by adding the necessary bacteria to break down waste/ammonia rather than waiting. Once your tank is setup with sand/rock/water, you can add the appropriate amount and your tank will be ready to add a fish or two almost immediately. You still want to take it slow and not add too many fish at once.

 

[zelie_dad]

You will also need a source of ammonia, be it a fish (not recommended), phantom feeding, raw table shrimp(stinks IMO), or dosing ammonia to the tank.

I started my cycle about 3 weeks ago using the raw shrimp method. At first I just threw it in, but the next day I took it out, chopped it up, and threw it back in. The day after that, I couldn't find it anymore. I was testing and my ammonia spiked at .5 ppm, not high enough for me. So, I went out and got a bottle of Bio-spira, and 10% ammonia, and started dosing. I was dosing my tank to 2 ppm every day for about a week. Over the course of the last few days, I've been letting the ammonia and nitrite drop to 0, and dose it back to 2 ppm. I dosed 5 ml's(amount needed for my tank to get it to 2ppm) on Tuesday , and tested yesterday.

Results:
Ammonia at .5 ppm
Nitrites at 1 ppm

I'm not cycled. I'm going to keep this up until both are 0 after 24 hours.

 

[vashawn]

Bio spira is basically bacteria in a bottle. It shortcuts cycling your tank normally by adding the necessary bacteria to break down waste/ammonia rather than waiting. Once your tank is setup with sand/rock/water, you can add the appropriate amount and your tank will be ready to add a fish or two almost immediately. You still want to take it slow and not add too many fish at once.

what he said but start out with adding adding a cheap fish like a damsel.
test your par

 

[CStrickland]

The directions on the bottle of biospira are accurate.
I wouldn't continually dose ammonia because of how high the nitrates can get. The denitrifying bacteria establish more slowly, so you can get top heavy on their food if you overdo it.
I wouldn't add a damsel first because of how territorial they are. They can kill any fish you add after, and be hard to catch.
Idk what PAR has to do with bacteria