"SG" wrote in message
...
In article , Victor M. Martinez wrote:

I used Prime for conditioning water. I only made one water change around
day 3 or 4, IIRC. I also added Fluorish, Fluorish Excel, Fluorish Iron,
and Freshtrace (all by Seachem) when I setup the tank.
The tank has both bogwood and holey limestone and the substrate is pure
fluorite.

With all the additives there I am guessing that you have plants.

I am still not convinced that BioSpira and the like do anything
special. I saw similar numbers to yours when I cycled a 20gal with
household ammonia and two clumps of Java Fern. The only time that
ammonia was detectable was after adding the daily dose of 2-3 ppm
(mg/l) worth of household ammonia.

We need more tests I think. Does anyone have a $2000 grant handy :-)

--
sg


I'd tend to agree. My tank cycled in sub-14 days, without using anything
other than filterstart, and gravel that'd been in the tank (but not with a
filter, fish, or anything else other than some rather dodgy water) for a
couple of years. Everything got washed in chlorinated water thoroughly
before use, so I doubt any bacteria survived on the gravel.

That was a 3' tank. No plants initially, and about 8" of fish.

I was amazed, and very pleased. A year? down the line the tank is still
going strong - very healthy, no disease of fish and lots of healthy plants.
Much less hassle than it was before (with less fish and less plants).

Velvet