# Re-dosing of Tetra Safestart



## Princette (Sep 13, 2015)

So my Tetra Safestart initial dose failed because I didn't know that you need to let the water sit for 24 hours after dechlorination before adding in the safestart. 

So I've been doing 25% waterchanges every 3-7 days just till i know what to do for re-dosing. 

Right now I have another bottle of safestart, my last water change was ~2-3 days ago. Right now the ammonia is at about 0.25ppm. 

Should I do another 25% and wait 24 hours and then add the safe start, or should I just add it right now?


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

I have a tutorial on my site on how to use Tetra Safe Start, if you want to take a look.


http://subliminalconfusion.net/fish-care/aquarium-tip-4


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## Princette (Sep 13, 2015)

So, should in do a water change to reduce the ammonia, or should I add it in now?? Cause that doesnt answer my question


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## MikeG14 (May 31, 2014)

It depends on which water conditioner you are using. Tetra claims that if you are using their product, Aquasafe you should be fine. Prime on the other hand is said to cause problems, although I haven't experienced any myself.

I did my first fish-in cycle in just under three weeks without the use of bottled bacteria products. This included doing water changes whenever the ammonia reached 0.25-0.50ppm. It meant daily testing and doing water changes twice in one day on some occasions. 

Tetra expects your fish to go 14 days, _two weeks_ without a water change to get a tank to cycle using SafeStart? 

I think it's irresponsible for Tetra to expect us to do so. If this it what it takes to get Tetra SafeStart to work, I have a real issue in recommending this product.

I've seen people in "Diseases & Emergencies" who claimed to do water changes every two weeks practically get run off the forum.

My advice would be to change the water and keep the fish safe.

*CYCLING: the two-sentence tutorial*
http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=555434


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

Princette said:


> So, should in do a water change to reduce the ammonia, or should I add it in now?? Cause that doesnt answer my question



Sure it did. Add the TSS when the water parameters read 0 ppm for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. pH should be above 7. The only way to reduce ammonia is with a water change. After 24 hours test the water in the tank again. If there's ammonia then it's coming from the tap, then we need to figure out where to go from there.


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

MikeG14 said:


> Tetra expects your fish to go 14 days, _two weeks_ without a water change to get a tank to cycle using SafeStart?
> 
> I think it's irresponsible for Tetra to expect us to do so. If this it what it takes to get Tetra SafeStart to work, I have a real issue in recommending this product.



Tetra Safe Start is specifically designed to facilitate a safe cycle for the fish. It's not going to allow the parameters to stay toxic long enough to do any harm to the fish. Please, research before making statements like that.


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## dannifluff (Jul 5, 2015)

Princette... I would just do a 25% water change with Prime, allow to sit for 24 hours, then chuck in a whole bottle of Tetra Safestart. Keep an eye on your water parameters daily for the next week and do partial water changes of 25% if ammonia or nitrites get to 0.25ppm. I just did this for a fish-in cycle recently and the tank parameters were showing as cycled in around a week and a half. You can always chuck in another bit of Tetra Safestart later in the week if you're not showing any nitrates by then. You can't really overdose it, although you may get a slight bacterial bloom (cloudy water) which will go away in time as the bacteria settle in. I dosed daily with Prime too at 2 drops per gallon (as a kind of experiment) and it didn't seem to make much of a difference to the cycle. It may have been that you got a bit of a dud bottle of Safestart that had been allowed to sit in hot temperatures in transit or something. Shake well before adding and pour it directly around the filter


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## Princette (Sep 13, 2015)

Mousie said:


> Sure it did. Add the TSS when the water parameters read 0 ppm for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. pH should be above 7. The only way to reduce ammonia is with a water change. After 24 hours test the water in the tank again. If there's ammonia then it's coming from the tap, then we need to figure out where to go from there.


well theres already a fish, in the tank. this is my second dose, and oliver is already in the tank. I cant do a 100% because I don't have anything to move him into.


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## Princette (Sep 13, 2015)

Dannifluff im in the middle of a ~30% change right now just for Oliver's sake. I didn't use a gravel vacuum tho tho since i just did 3 days ago. I just used a small amount of extra airline tubing to slowly siphon out the water.


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## dannifluff (Jul 5, 2015)

That's fine. Just put in another bottle of Safestart tomorrow and hopefully you'll be on your way. You don't need to do a 100% change at all, since the small amount of ammonia left in the tank after your water change will be eaten up by the bacteria you are adding. I imagine you'll see results fairly quickly. If you had no results at all before I suspect it was more likely to be a dud bottle rather than the use of Prime. There's a bit of a debate on how much Prime affects TSS (as you can see) but I've not known it to render it completely useless.

There will also be some bacteria growing in your filter already, depending on how long you've had the tank set up, so hopefully your tank will be dealing adequately with ammonia fairly shortly, and nitrites/nitrates follow soon after that.


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## MikeG14 (May 31, 2014)

+1 to Danifluff 



Mousie said:


> Tetra Safe Start is specifically designed to facilitate a safe cycle for the fish. It's not going to allow the parameters to stay toxic long enough to do any harm to the fish. Please, research before making statements like that.


Two weeks without a water change really doesn't have to be researched in my opinion. If a single betta can produce .025ppm of ammonia in a 2.5 gallon tank in 24 hours, what are the ammonia levels going to look like after 14 days without a water change? What if you get a bad bottle of SafeStart which seems happens quite often and the tank doesn't cycle after 2 weeks? It's not something that I would be comfortable to subjecting my pet to.

I think there are safer, more humane alternatives than doing things by the book. It just might take you a few days longer.


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## Princette (Sep 13, 2015)

Well in a 10gal its not like the ammonia of a single betta in 2 weeks is going to get higher than 0.50 (Considering the first week w/o a water change it was still <0.50ppm) Of course if its a tiny tank with 1 betta, or a larger tank with more than a single fish the ammonia will rise quickly. 

I would have done a fishless cycle but when i went to petco I feel in love with my little boy and that was the same day i bought the tank. Even though I knew i should have just waited but I didn't want him in that cup longer than necessary.


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## MikeG14 (May 31, 2014)

Princette said:


> I would have done a fishless cycle but when i went to petco I feel in love with my little boy and that was the same day i bought the tank. Even though I knew i should have just waited but I didn't want him in that cup longer than necessary.


You'll be fine. There's nothing wrong with doing a fish-in cycle. Most of us have done it and as long as you stay on top of testing & water changes your fish will be in no danger.

It's true that there will be less ammonia build up in a larger tank over over a period of two weeks. Any amount of ammonia is bad for your fish and needs to be removed or detoxified as soon as you can. Most people on the forum who are just getting into bettas are putting them in tanks 5 gallons or less where that build up can happen at a much faster rate.


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

Princette said:


> I cant do a 100% because I don't have anything to move him into.


I'm really confused by the comments you've made to me thus far. You're replies have suggested I said things in the howto that I didn't.

I would never suggest to do a 100% water change unless a disinfection needed to take place, and I would never ever suggest to remove a fish for a water change.

It's almost as if you were reading a completely different page. I checked my link to make sure I didn't do something silly like past the wrong link... I pasted the right one.



MikeG14 said:


> +1 to Danifluff
> Two weeks without a water change really doesn't have to be researched in my opinion. If a single betta can produce .025ppm of ammonia in a 2.5 gallon tank in 24 hours, what are the ammonia levels going to look like after 14 days without a water change? What if you get a bad bottle of SafeStart which seems happens quite often and the tank doesn't cycle after 2 weeks? It's not something that I would be comfortable to subjecting my pet to.
> 
> I think there are safer, more humane alternatives than doing things by the book. It just might take you a few days longer.


That's the way Dr Tim designed the bacteria and other proprietary ingredients to work. Safely while fish are in the tank. It's quite rare that TSS doesn't work due to those circumstances. 

I see people repeatedly tell others to dose their tanks every day with Prime to keep the toxicity at bay. Using that method you could effectively go for a 2 week stretch without a water change. If people on the forums can advise this with Prime, why can't TSS do something similar while cycling the tank at the same time?


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

dannifluff said:


> I imagine you'll see results fairly quickly. If you had no results at all before I suspect it was more likely to be a dud bottle rather than the use of Prime. There's a bit of a debate on how much Prime affects TSS (as you can see) but I've not known it to render it completely useless.


On one of the other forums I frequent (I'm on a lot) one of the moderators did a Q&A with Tetra about TSS. The TSS technician specifically states you cannot use dechlorinator because it kills the bacteria in the TSS. I think it's also stated somewhere on the official Tetra Q&A site, too. Since we're not allowed to link to other competing forums I cannot link it, but if you're good with Google you can find it in just a few seconds.


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## dannifluff (Jul 5, 2015)

Mousie said:


> On one of the other forums I frequent (I'm on a lot) one of the moderators did a Q&A with Tetra about TSS. The TSS technician specifically states you cannot use dechlorinator because it kills the bacteria in the TSS. I think it's also stated somewhere on the official Tetra Q&A site, too. Since we're not allowed to link to other competing forums I cannot link it, but if you're good with Google you can find it in just a few seconds.


I think I know the forum you mean 

I only say that because I was really interested and so did a little 'non-scientific' experiment myself.

With my first fish I followed the TSS instructions to the letter... no problems, and I have to say the fish seems fine quite a few months on. So I wouldn't exactly 'de-recommend' that method. At no point during that process did ammonia or nitrites go above 0.25ppm.

With my recent new fish, Prince, since I didn't have a pre-cycled tank, I thought I'd try out Prime +TSS to see what happened. And I have to say... I didn't actually notice any time difference in how long it took TSS to work while I was also dosing Prime/doing water changes. The only difference was the parameters were a little more unstable (i.e. more prone to random spikes, none of which I would have considered serious... neither got above 0.25ppm the whole time) than when I did it the first time, but the overall length of time it took for the tank to cycle was about a week and a half, the same as when I followed the instructions to the letter. Both were significantly quicker than when I did a fishless cycle in my third tank without a bacteria starter. I'm still dosing daily with Prime for the next few weeks, in addition to my regular water change schedule, just in case the cycle collapses. In which case I'll report back!

So, yeah. Who knows, lol? Ultimately, tanks will cycle whether we use TSS or not. I'm of the opinion (I think) that TSS gives it a very useful initial helping hand by flooding the system with bacteria, however if it doesn't work perfectly it's not like the Prime/water change method is doing any harm. It'll happen eventually, right?

One thing I will say for the TSS by-the-book method is that after two weeks my first tank looked disgusting, full of diatoms etc. By following a water change schedule, I was able to prevent this.

P.S. Mike, Mousie... the three of us should totally buy some new fish and run some experiments, since we always seem to get into this debate, LOL!


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## MikeG14 (May 31, 2014)

Mousie said:


> I see people repeatedly tell others to dose their tanks every day with Prime to keep the toxicity at bay. Using that method you could effectively go for a 2 week stretch without a water change. If people on the forums can advise this with Prime, why can't TSS do something similar while cycling the tank at the same time?


I don't see it that way. If you were to go to a pet store that may not be taking the best care of their bettas and put a daily drop of Prime in the cups to detoxify the build up of ammonia, I think we would see the word "purchase" in the place of "rescue" on the forum a lot more. Doing the same thing with SafeStart? Not so much. The use of Prime in this fashion is to be used as and emergency measure until a water change can be performed or the tank is fully cycled. 

The thing that really bugs me about SafeStart is the directions (or lack of them) on the bottle. No where does it say to go 14 days without a water change. It says to shake well and dump in the entire bottle, the aquarium is ready for fish. It also says to consult your retailer for advice on the type and number of fish appropriate for your aquarium. So I'm going to ask the same dude at Petsmart I saw sell a common pleco as an algae eater to some kid with a 10 gallon tank for stocking advice and what should I do with this little yellow bottle?

I need to go to Tetra Tech support or stumble on to your blog (which is very good BTW) to find out the proper way to use SafeStart? 

Right now Princette is into SafeStart for about 25 bucks and it doesn't seem to be working for her. The one thing they do offer is a money back guarantee. So I would mail your label barcode & original receipt because the way I see it you have some cash coming back to you.



dannifluff said:


> I think I know the forum you mean
> 
> P.S. Mike, Mousie... the three of us should totally buy some new fish and run some experiments, since we always seem to get into this debate, LOL!


I'm game but I think there is something up with my water. I find cycling incredibly easy without the use of products, so my results may be skewed. Philadelphia after all is considered the birthplace of the fishkeeping hobby. I think they had a leg up around here back in the early days because of the water. So many incredible Angelfish & Discus breeder started in my area back in the day just over the bridges in New Jersey. 

And I hope this _is_ seen as a friendly debate, I like all youse guys!


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

MikeG14 said:


> I don't see it that way. If you were to go to a pet store that may not be taking the best care of their bettas and put a daily drop of Prime in the cups to detoxify the build up of ammonia, I think we would see the word "purchase" in the place of "rescue" on the forum a lot more. Doing the same thing with SafeStart? Not so much. The use of Prime in this fashion is to be used as and emergency measure until a water change can be performed or the tank is fully cycled.
> 
> The thing that really bugs me about SafeStart is the directions (or lack of them) on the bottle. No where does it say to go 14 days without a water change. It says to shake well and dump in the entire bottle, the aquarium is ready for fish. It also says to consult your retailer for advice on the type and number of fish appropriate for your aquarium. So I'm going to ask the same dude at Petsmart I saw sell a common pleco as an algae eater to some kid with a 10 gallon tank for stocking advice and what should I do with this little yellow bottle?
> 
> I need to go to Tetra Tech support or stumble on to your blog (which is very good BTW) to find out the proper way to use SafeStart?


Thanks! And I completely agree. There is a huge huge need for proper instructions for TSS. Although I'm not quite sure how they would get that much information on the back of the bottle. They would need to completely redesign the packaging and place the bottles inside of a box with paperwork inside that contained directions. Sometimes big companies look at their profit margin before anything else (in this case, lack of directions). Have you noticed with almost everything you buy that the instruction text is so tiny that you cannot even see it? No joke, I have magnifying glasses all over the house. Especially in the kitchen so I can see cooking directions. Don't get me started... that small text annoys the hell out of me lol.




MikeG14 said:


> I'm game but I think there is something up with my water. I find cycling incredibly easy without the use of products, so my results may be skewed. Philadelphia after all is considered the birthplace of the fishkeeping hobby. I think they had a leg up around here back in the early days because of the water. So many incredible Angelfish & Discus breeder started in my area back in the day just over the bridges in New Jersey.
> 
> And I hope this _is_ seen as a friendly debate, I like all youse guys!


I have an empty 15 gallon tank, but Doug would be very annoyed with me if I got more fish. (He'd let me, but he'd be annoyed. He hates saying no, and I hate taking advantage... it's love I think lol.)

I'm always up for friendly debates. Neither of you are the type for personal attacks, so I always look forward to discussions with the two of you. Besides, you two seem to understand my straight forward way of talking, and never see it as anything more than what it is.


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## dannifluff (Jul 5, 2015)

MikeG14 said:


> I'm game but I think there is something up with my water. I find cycling incredibly easy without the use of products, so my results may be skewed. Philadelphia after all is considered the birthplace of the fishkeeping hobby. I think they had a leg up around here back in the early days because of the water. So many incredible Angelfish & Discus breeder started in my area back in the day just over the bridges in New Jersey.
> 
> And I hope this _is_ seen as a friendly debate, I like all youse guys!


Oh Mike, stop making me jealous, hehe 

Most people round my way keep African Lake Cichlids so that tells you all you need to know about my tap water!

Yeah I'm probably in the same position as you two, in that I would happily get more fish but it would be somewhat frowned upon by the other half.

It's definitely a friendly debate though. It's great that we all have different experiences/opinions, because in a way it shows that some things in the fish keeping hobby are not always certain, and I think that's a good thing to be reminded of sometimes.

Agree with the tiny instructions. I have an astigmatism so basically can't read anything without glasses that are thicker than my aquariums anyway.


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## jelrod330 (Aug 23, 2015)

I've enjoyed this thread....and the friendly debate!

I have a question to add about Tetra SafeStart (TSS) - though I can start a new thread if anyone feels its warranted.

I'm planning on starting up 2 new 5.5g tanks....tomorrow. I have the tanks (after going to 3!!!! Petcos!), gravel, silk plants, decor, etc. The only thing I'm waiting for are the sponge filters (and air pump and things), and the 2nd heater. Those items should arrive tomorrow via UPS.

I am very interested in cycling my tanks...officially that is. As in starting out for the get-go with water testing and water changes and the like.

I have Prime and I also have some Aqueon water conditioner. I did pick up a bottle of TSS as well (the 20g size one....seems that I can split that between 2 different 5.5g tanks as long as I'm using the whole bottle at once....I could be wrong, but seemed like a money making gimmick to have to get 2 of the bottles, doing the math, that would make 40g worth of treatment for 11g of tank) But I digress.

I was planning on the 2 sentence tutorial, but wondered if it would be beneficial to add the TSS to get a potential boost of bacteria in the tanks. What would the steps be for this process if its doable? I see that Prime can potentially "cancel out" the TSS.

Thoughts?

Also, one last tidbit....I currently only have 1 fish....so one tank will have a fish (or he could hang out in his current 2.5g for a little longer). I haven't even considered getting the second yet, since I didn't have a tank set up.

Thanks!


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## Mousie (Feb 16, 2015)

You can go either route, but if you choose to go the TSS route then the link for it is up in post #2. I've found that some tend to miss the meat of the tutorial (either from skimming or what have you), so I recommend reading through it several times before beginning. Most find that their questions are already answered right in the tutorial. It's fairly thorough.


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