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Bio Starters
I recently received this informatiom from Sera I hope this helps you know how it works, also the reasons to use biostarters.

Keith

biostarters make sense from at least two viewpoints:

After every filter maintenance, the number of filter bacteria is diminished and should be replenished as to ensure full performance. Every now and then, elevated nitrite levels (with all negative side effects) can be observed if people overdo filter maintenance and/or don't replenish the bacteria
- adding fresh (as an opposite to "old", not to "marine" water may affect bacteria (chlorine, chloramines, copper, etc.). Biostarters prevent bad side effects by replacing the bacteria lost due to these disinfectants (water disinfection is, of course, necessary for human hygienic requirements - but "disinfectant" is just another word for "something that kills bacteria or other micro organisms". However, disinfection varies according to geographic regions. We hardly ever have any chlorine in the water over here in Germany, but chlorine levels are, for example, very high in the south-western USA (sorry, I don't know about Australia

sera GmbH
Dr. Bodo Schnell




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HI Frank and all,
That is very interesting.... For some reason, and I don't really know why, I have always added asmall amount of NIC & Prime to my canesters whenever I clean them out. I also add asmall amount to the new water when ever I do a water change.

Now I know why.

I guess I always figgured that there would be some loss of bacteria and it would need to be replaced.


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Thanks for the information. I will get some bio start today. A heavy water change might have been what caused one of my tanks to go through a cycle.

If you have a Bio-wheel or a filter pad where your bacteria primarily live, then you should know to be more careful with your beneficial bacteria. That is, you know enough not to disrupt or damage the site of the good bacteria.

It is possible to be a little too aggressive when cleaning your undergravel fliter gravel bed, but with the bio-wheels and canister filters and so on, that should not be a problem.

Secondly, at the tropical temperatures, the bacteria will grow and duplicate very quickly. Normally, given sufficient food, the population will double in about 24 hours. So, you could even damage half your population and it will be back to it original concentration in one day. What tiny amount of damage may be done by cleaning will repair itself without the aid of any bacteria starter.

There are anecdotes by people who claim these starters help, and many more anecdotes by people who claim they do nothing. So, neither position is held in stone, but in general, I have observed that Marineland Labs' Bio-Spira is the only one to have reasonable success, and even then it is not perfect. I certainly do not see any reason to add some starter with each waterchange.

bah, ya don't need 'em.

I wonder how any fish keeper prior to about 10 years ago ever got along w/o bacteria in a bottle?! *gasp* How did thety make it?! * faint*

I gotta agree with Tim here, I think it's a spin just to make you buy more of the stuff.
If your tank is fully cycled then something is going wrong if you feel the need to be adding this stuff because a well cycled tank is already perfectly balanced.
I DO keep NIC on hand for times like power outages or filter failures that have put stress on the cycle but otherwise I don't believe in the need to use it like that.

Ten years ago? What about 100s of years ago?

The only chemical that I use is de-chlor, and only because I don't have the space to hold about 10 buckets, otherwise I would do that.

Sorry, but bio-stuff doesn't ever sound right to me. Some say, "Over doses the tank with billions of bacteria..." Well if you are overdosing the tank with bacteria, why is there ANY cycle at all?

The only bio-product that sounds right to me is Marineland's Biospira. I still wouldn't use it because I think there are better ways (and cheaper ways) to do the same thing.

Honestly, I think a lot of products are useless, or a waste of money, however, whatever people want, thats what they'll get.

~Jorge