Seachem Stability Fish Tank Stabilizer - For Freshwater and Marine Aquariums, 16.9 Fl Oz (Pack of 1)

My stepson got a 55 gallon tank for christmas, and I had been trying to get it to cycle for some time before he moved his fish into it, using added ammonia. No luck, so the fish were moved over and we used Seachem Prime (another exellent product) and continuous water changes to keep the ammonia levels down. Two weeks and a couple of bacteria products later, we were still getting 2ppm ammonia and 0 nitrites and nitrates. I ended up getting Stability and the same day the ammonia went down to .25ppm and we finally got readings on the nitrites and nitrates. It has worked very well for us. WORD OF CAUTION: If you get this or any other live bacteria product, make sure you do one day shipping (at least if it is summer or winter). The temperature extremes during average shipping can kill off the bacteria, leading to this being as useful as a bottle of water.

Works well. My fish are happy.

Doing research on this product I knew going into it this would be very much a hit or miss outcome. For me, it was a miss, but a mild miss so far. I recently set up a 125 gallon aquarium. On a Sunday I filled it and added the initial dose of Stability. On Wednesday I added a large number of live plants (rooted, non-rooted, stem, and floating) in addition to a school of 10 Harlequin Rasboras. On Friday I did a water test and thought all was well, 0 ppm Ammonia, 0 ppm Nitrite, and 5 ppm Nitrate which is the lowest reading the API liquid test will show. I added a school of 6 Peppered Corys. On Saturday I did the last final dose of Stability, giving a full 7 days of use. By Monday however things went backwards with 0.25 ppm Ammonia, and zero for the rest. Tuesday up to 0.5 ppm Ammonia and again zero on the rest. So for me, this product only worked while I was using it and didnt sustain long afterwards. The directions confirm a theory of mine. I believe it may contain a bacteria that does do the nitrogen cycle, but is not able to reproduce in the aquarium. Thus it establishes at a certain level of ammonia production, and slowly dies off. It is the only way I can explain why the instructions direct the continued use of this product with a monthly dose, and a dose whenever any fish are added. I can see adding a dose with new fish, but the monthly maintenance has to be there for a reason... Without that initial small reading of Nitrates I would of said this product didnt work at all and my live plants are the reason Ammonia has stayed low. Since I do have live plants in this tank (and a lot of them) I cant say definitively that this product worked or didnt work so Im afraid this review may not be all that helpful. I just wanted to share my experience and state that using this product and following the directions, I did not get a cycled aquarium meaning constant 0 ppm Ammonia and Nitrite.

I have used all the other products on the market to cycle aquariums and I was just about to give up when someone told me to try this product! Follow the instructions to the T and you will see you should see amonia, nitrates and nitrites change for the better in about 4 days. I would do 50% water changes on my 90 gallon daily to keep the ammonia below 1PPM and treat the water. I switched from a 55 to 90 and lost ALL my beneficial bacteria and have about 25 community fish in the aquarium. This saved my tank and i have not lost one fish yet. In stores this size bottle is REALLY expensive. I have never seen even the smaller bottles go for anything over 14 bucks! Good buy, good savings, great product, if I could give it 6 stars I would! MAKE SURE IF YOU USE TAP WATER AT WATER CHANGES, THAT YOU TREAT YOUR WATER AND WAIT 15 MINUTES BEFORE ADDING THIS PRODUCT OR TURNING OUR FILTER BACK ON! Cheers!

Im sure Seachem Stability works well to stabilize and maintain a biofilter as its advertised, but dont believe the hype that it will instantly cycle your biofilter. Sure, it can help get things off the ground by seeding the filter media with bacteria, but dont expect a colony of nitrifying bacteria in 24 hours or something ridiculous. When used with Seachem Prime you could probably reasonably perform a fish-in cycle in 7-10 days, but Im in the camp that believes a fishless cycle with ammonium chloride and live plants is ideal. Having said that I found significantly better results using Fritz TurboStart 700 to kick off my nitrogen cycle. Stability didnt get me any results after a week using their recommended loading dose and maintenance dose. Im somewhat certain it actually gave me a surface biofilm that Ive never experienced before when using it to start a nitrogen cycle. Once the cycle has kicked off, Ive diligently used Stability to maintain my biofilter by adding it with water changes and stocking new animals. Its never given me problems, but its honestly difficult to gauge how well it performs as theres no water test that can be done to see what kind of impact it makes to an already established tank. I suppose if you have a catastrophic crash in your biofilter or perhaps overload it you could measure its before-and-after performance with ammonia and nitrite tests, but thankfully I havent experienced anything like that. Ill continue to use Stability, Prime, and Pristine in maintenance doses as suggested because as far as I know, its working as intended, and making changes to a stable environment is a recipe for disaster. I just havent had luck with it kick-starting the nitrogen cycle. For that Id put my faith in Fritz TurboStart (or FritzZyme)

Ive been using Seachem for years and they have never failed me. Their products are great and the stabilizer definitely does its job well. My fish are alive and healthy!

Pros: -Fast-acting. I rely on it often during emergencies, and its potent. For example, I recently used 3 caps on a terribly neglected 3-gallon tank of water with ammonia readings as high as 8ppm (-In other words, ultimately lethal to most any fish that dont have the ability to draw oxygen from the water surface like bettas and gouramis. And even they will eventually chemically burn their gills by breathing it in, anyway), and 8 hours later the ammonia readings came back at 0ppm. Cons: -Make no mistake; ammonia concentrations over .50ppm WILL kill the beneficial bacteria colony youre trying to estabilish from your bottle of Stability. If you really cant do a full water change and need to use this on an already highly polluted setup, use a generous amount of Seachem Prime to temporarily detoxify said ammonia so that the beneficial bacteria have time to eat it before it kills them. -It is not uncommon for a fresh bottle of Stability to arrive carrying pollution of its own. I would suggest immediately using an ammonia test kit (-Do NOT use tests in the form of strips if youre new to aquarium keeping) on the contents of the bottle. If concentrations are higher than 1ppm you will likely only be adding dead microbes to your tank, and as they decay they will make things even worse for your fish. -Although harmless, large quantities of Stability can cloud your water. If you experience this and it really bothers you, take it as a sign that you need to cut back on the size of your doses. -Although it does have a decent life expectancy, do not assume your Stability will last until the purported use-by date. I would not recommend buying large bottles of it unless you know, for certain, that youll be using it within a few months.

I couldn’t get my tanks beneficial bacteria to stabilize and the day we added this changed everything! Stability and Prime are all you need!

I was having a hard time getting my tank to cycle before the fish I ordered arrived in the mail. Because I was running out of time I ordered this product, started it on a Tuesday, put my fish in on a Saturday, and was done by the Monday. I just tested my water and have no ammonia or nitrates and between 5 and 10 ppm nitrates. You need to use the Prime with it every other day during the cycle (1 mL per 10 gallons) to bind any ammonia to make the tank safe for the fish while the tank is getting started. I would not have known this if I had not called Seachem support. Seachem support is AMAZING. So helpful. They explained how the products worked together and answered every single one of my questions, which there were many as this was my first fish. I recommend this product, but more I recommend this brand.

I used this to help cycle a new tank, and it worked well. It still took 2-3 weeks to fully cycle. The directions say theres no need to add more stability after seven days, but I kept adding the maintenance dose daily until cycling was complete. Be sure to keep testing your water if you have livestock in the aquarium, and dont just assume all is well after seven days. Do the first heavy dose based on the instructions and your aquarium volume. Then test every day for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Ammonia will rise first. Once enough bacteria are eating ammonia, nitrite will start to rise. The next event will be ammonia falling to zero, but nitrite remaining high. Once enough bacteria are eating nitrite, it will fall to zero, and youll start getting nitrate. Once you have zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and start detecting nitrate, your aquarium is cycled. If you have livestock in the aquarium during this process, treat the water daily with Seachem Prime. Ammonia and nitrite are very poisonous. Prime de-toxifies them for livestock, but the bacteria will still eat them, so dont worry about Prime stalling your cycle. Also dose Seachem StressGuard daily until cycling is complete to preserve the fish slime coat. Do a 25-50% water change at least every other day while you have significant ammonia and/or nitrite levels. This will not stall your cycle since most bacteria attach to the filter media and aquarium objects, and it will help reduce the toxins while the bacteria colonies are too small to consume them all. I also use the maintenance dose of stability every time I do a water change, replace/clean filter media, or add livestock. In addition, I add StressGuard and Seachem Pristine, another form of bacteria that helps manage waste removal.