How can Cycle be harmful to my aquarium experience?

BJP · 12-31-2006, 01:10 PM

As I've mentioned before Cycle contains excessive amounts of nitrate. I had to run to Petsmart for other reasons today so while I was there I picked up a 4 ounce bottle of Cycle for $6.19 not counting tax.

The bottle clearly staes and I quote directly from the bottle "It is impossible to overdose."

Literally that means any amount of Cycle should be safe to add to your aquarium.

It's been six years or more since i tried this so I figure I better put a little money where my mouth is so that I'm not relaying false information due to a change in the products formula in the last 5 years or so.

I filled a clean bucket with five gallons of water. I shook the bottle of Cycle well as instructed and poured in the entire bottle. I stirred the bucket for a couple minutes and left it to sit. After 10 minutes or so I used my Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kit for nitrate to sample the results.

Nitrate level reading between 20-40ppm as near as I can tell by the color chart.

Please feel free to waste $6 and duplicate this at home if you doubt me. I've had the exact same results 3 times now in the last 8 years or so.

The first question is why would they intentionally add excessively high amounts of nitrate to a product intended to help Cycle an aquarium and produce such? The only logical response is a shifty if not outright crooked attempt to give the customer the results they expect. If you add enough Cycle, over time you'll get a nitrate reading. If you add a little more than the dosage reccomended, you'll get in immediately. To the unknowing there's your proof you'll be testing for to believe Cycle has helped.

How is this harmful? At the very best it would mask your test results making it difficult to tell when the aquarium is really cycled. At worst, it could lead to you adding fish prematurely and we all know what the results of adding fish to uncycled aquariums can be.

Sniperelite8243 · 12-31-2006, 01:16 PM

if you want a way to cycle your tank and know 100% it will work
-buy a bottle of pure ammonia
-add about 1/2 to the tank
-wait 1 month

now your tank is cycled

- as for your question. all of the things are harmfull to fish in high levels, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. im just guesing here but.. if you add it to the tank it could possibly cycle two things at once. ammonia and nitrates. this is just a guess though. im proboly wrong. but i will recomend a fishless cycle to anyone. you only have to cycle a tank once so whats the hurry.

Tommy Gun · 12-31-2006, 01:31 PM

BJP · 12-31-2006, 01:58 PM

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First, what are/were the nitrate levels of your tap water?

Tap water has zero nitrate, oversight on my part not mentioning it.

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Here is the thing I think you are not considering. First, both products are full of nitrifying bacteria...

First of all I'm not discussing two products, just one.

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.meaning that they are going to eat an ammonia source and turn it into nitrates. So, your test does nothing but prove that there was, at very least, a time in which bacteria was in the solution and they had an ammonia source to eat, and the biproduct was nitrates.

I disagree, if they were going to consume the ammonia and eventually convert it to nitrite then nitrate, then there should be no ammonia reading in the solution at all. It should have all been consumed. Also in a sealed bottle with no oxygen supply there would be no oxygen availible to support the bacteria while they converted that much nitrate. Keep in mind the solution was dilluted by over 1 to 100 to achieve a testible reading. If you multiply the nitrate numbers out you'll find they translate into a nitrate reading for the actual solution in excess of 2,000 to 4,000 ppm. That would be quite an achievement for a supply of bacteria in a sealed bottle with limited or no oxygen and imagine how much ammonia they would have had to add to supply enough to accumulate to that high of a reading.

In addition, it has been shown that high ammonia can stunt nitrifying bacteria. If the low levels we see accomplish that in an aquarium can do that, imagine how the affect of enough ammonia added to produce that much nitrate would be.

My first two tests included a ph test and showed extremely high ph for the solution. I believe we can agree that the higher the PH is, the more lethal ammonia becomes.

My first two tests included an ammonia test and there was ammonia detected in the solution but not in outrageously high levels like with the nitrate.

The solution was left expossed to the air in an open container where it proceeded to take over 45 days to get the ammonia out of itself from even that low level that was testible. At the same time no nitrite was ever detectible so we assume it gassed off into the atmosphere gradually. That basically meant it took Cycle a lot longer to cycle itself, than anyone would reasonably expect an aquarium to remove a small amount of ammonia.

I'll be happy to aquire a couple 16 ounce bottles and redo the original experiments if desired.

The original point is simply, if you use Cycle, you can't neccesarily trust your nitrate readings. Doing so could lead to harming real fish by placing them in tanks prematurely.

Tommy Gun · 12-31-2006, 02:22 PM

Tommy Gun · 12-31-2006, 02:29 PM

Tommy Gun · 12-31-2006, 02:33 PM

BJP · 12-31-2006, 02:42 PM

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You did not state that there you did any ammonia tests and so what were/are the ammonia levels, or are you assuming that is some?

I didn't take an ammonia test this time although I took many on the first two batches and had readings mid range on the API single bottle test kit for ammonia. I'll be happy to aquire more Cycle and redo the first two tests if you feel the results may be different this time. The results of the nitrate test were not different than the previous tests. I would quote an exact number for the ammonia but the message boards in place at that time containing the threads no longer exist.

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From my research on BioSpira, they must be feeding the bacteria, or trying to culture it, before bottling and so it would make sense that they feed ammonia to the nitrosomona bacteria (the ammonia to nitrite type) and the resulting nitrites are then the food source for Nitrobactor, or Nitrospira bacteria (the nitrite to nitrate type). This has to result in a tank full of nitrates then...correct? The product is probrably bottled in the same solution because it would be nearly impossible to seperate the bacteria from the solution (water?) that they are grown in and place them in a package. Hence, the nitrates must also come along is some level or another.

Nitrate is fairly easy to remove in a variety of ways. Like I said earlier, there is no reason for nitrate to be left in other than to give the customer what they expect to find. To leave it in, in quantity sufficient to alter test results in aquaria is deceitful at best. To have a solution contain enough ammonia at PH levels over 8, to produce nitrate readings in excess of 2,000 to 4,000ppm is unimaginable knowing the stunting affects of ammonia on nitrifying bacteria in quantities as low as 4 ppm.

As to testing other products to see if they add nitrate to aquaria feel free to. Any product adding nitrate in doses high enough to achieve instant nitrate readings in uncycled aquariums should be avoided or at least warned against. Just remember if you try to compare another one to Cycle to dillute it by 1 to 100 so the numbers can be matched up accurately.

BJP · 12-31-2006, 02:48 PM

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In the end, you point is somewhat mute until we can get perform the exact same test using BioSpira and other products to have something to compare to rather than to just state that Cycle is 'bad' based upon your nitrate test results. You have to agree with that at least.

Think about it for a minute. What good is a nitrate test if you can't have faith in the results? We know this one product gives you readings on nitrate that the uneducated might assume came from something alive right now. That assumption could lead to death by expossing fish to an uncycled tank. If you find other products with similar results feel free to start a thread and warn people. I'll be happy to spend some money and verify your findings.

BJP · 12-31-2006, 02:54 PM

Pardon me while I correct my math. Since we're going to compare other products to the numbers I posted, there's appoximately 128 ounces to a gallon, times five gallons, divided by the 4 ounces added so the actual numbers should be dillute 1 part product to 140 parts water making the actual nitrate readings in solution 2,800ppm to 5,600ppm of nitrate in Cycle.