Fritz Turbo Start 700 Freshwater (4 oz)

At first I bought the non turbo, which wasn't enough for my fat fish with their fat bioloads. Then I ordered this (4oz) for my 50 gallon. It came in packaged SUPER well with an ice pack, and was still cold even though my mailman left it without alerting me, so it sat outside for a long while. I poured the whole bottle into my tank, and boooy it was stinky and clouded everything up, but the paper it comes with warns you about that. Well, I tested after one day and one night and THE TANK IS ALREADY CYCLED! Even faster than I ever expected. Testing 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and just a little nitrates (I have plants). I missed the nitrite spike it was over so fast (good thing I dosed prime last night anyway). I'm shocked at how fast it worked, even faster than the fastest estimates on the paper. I can only assume the normal version bacteria I put in last week had started to establish, and this kicked it into high gear or something? Or maybe it's just that good. All in all, great product and a total lifesaver. Would highly recommend.

I started a new tank put ammonia in it to start the cycle I added this product in less than 24 hours later nitrites and nitrates started showing up my tank is cycling amazingly fast I would recommend this product when setting up a new tank.

Worth every penny. Cycles tank super fast. Just don't forget to add dechlorinator first or your bacteria will die

Man I'm actually impressed. Pretty much all "starters" are snake oil....except this one. You can smell right away this will work lol. In one day it made a slight turkey tank crystal clear. It may be more expenive than other starters, sure...but if the other ones don't work, is it really less "expensive"?

I wish I would have gotten this on time, it would have saved me so much stress and hard work.I ordered this mid November with a shipment of fish scheduled for the end of the month. The shipment was a bit unexpected but I had been waiting for these particular fish to come on the market and I didn't want to lose my chance. The fish needed a quarantine tank and I used a bunch of media from my other established tanks to avoid massive water changes and lots of work on my part. Despite all of that I wanted to play things as safe as I could so I sprang for this. Well for whatever reason the ship date on my Turbo Start order kept getting moved and I had to cancel the order twice as amazon was advertising a ship date weeks ahead of the final date they kept giving me. To my ire the Turbo Start didn't arrive until the first week in December, a full three days after the fish arrived and two days after it was scheduled to show up.I was stuck trying to make do with Fluval (didn't have enough phosphates in the water to kick start their bacteria strains) and seachem (hardly made a dent). Those were such a waste, I think I spent around 50 on those products alone. In the end I was throwing those products away because of the massive water changes I was having to do.Once the Turbo Start finally arrived, I was hesitant to use it as it was shipped during a cold snap and almost certainly froze in shipping. Not only that but it was shipped via USPS and got put in the mail box which I don't check every day. Day time temps where well above 60's in the mailbox and froze again over night. After all the work I was having to put into the quarantine tanks my heart broke. The directions say not to freeze the product and it sat in my mailbox over night twice.After another few days of fighting high nitrites (ammonia is way easier to remove with big water changes) I decided to try this, it was either going to work and I wouldn't have to do as big a water change or it wasn't going to work and I was going to end up dumping it with water changes anyway. I really had nothing to loose. I added this to my tank and eight hours later I tested my water and BOOM! nitrites were somewhere between .05pmm and .1ppm!! Not perfect but much less stressful! With the addition of salt, I was greeted by active happy hungry fish.I did spend some time checking the fish after adding the damaged Turbo Start. Fritz recommends not to let the product freeze but I couldn't find any information on their site or anywhere else on what would happen if a damaged product was used. So with some new water on stand by, I added Turbo Start and checked in on the fish every 15 min to half hour and they seamed fine. After a long night of worrying I went to bed. Next morning fish were fine and the water was great!I still don't know if using Turbo start after it had been out of refrigeration and completely froze was a good idea, it smelled like a rotting animal when I opened the bottle (not the surfer smell some people describe), but it worked and I am esthetic!Now that my water is down to .05ppm nitrites I can back off water changes until the ammonia or nitrites rise again and then I will hopefully only have to do small water changes and add a smaller amount of Turbo Start so as not to back slide the establishing bacteria colonies.I highly recommend this product, highly don't recommend not having it on hand before you need it, and defiantly don't recommend in fish cycling. Yes there are the YouTubers who say, "Look! I just set up my tank! In goes Fritz, everything is fine!!". Even if you know what you are doing, in tank cycling is a risk and a time sink. You have to be willing to check on your fish and test your water through out the day and change it at a moment's notice! Don't do it folks, even if you are like, "I got time to do water changes 3x a day!! I have vacation time and am going to do a stay-cation keeping an eye on my new fish!!" Just don't do it... Despite the fish being better off I still have to monitor of fungal infection as result of these last few stressful days. Also don't trust that this product will be fine if it freezes, yeah it worked for me but I won't be rolling that dice twice.Don't bother with others products, this might look expensive but compared to the dosing direction on other products, a little bit of this goes a loooonnngg way and its the only one out of four products from two different companies that worked and helped fix my almost disastrous nitrite levels.

I just transferred my African dwarf frogs to a 20 long from a 10 gallon. I ran the new pump in the old tank for a week before the transfer. Set up the new tank, put the new sponge filter in, dumped a bottle of Fritz Turbo Start 700 in, and put the old filter media from the HOB in the 10 gallon in. 3 days in and have had NO ammonia or nitrites, my cycle is still going strong. Not sure if just the filters would have handled it this well on their own, seeing as I only seeded the new one for a week, but all is well and I am glad I bought this. It did cloud the water up at first, but cleared quickly. Also has a terrible smell haha.

Package was not marked "Keep Refrigerated" and..... In essence it was BAKED in the 99+ degree MIDWEST HEAT in a METAL mailbox like a potato in the oven. Basically, from the plastic outer wrap with the address on it the next layer was heavy brown paper, then heavy plastic, next came the tin foil and inside the foil was bubble wrap which had a barely 2-inch by 2-inch gel pack while the live bacteria was in another wrapping of plastic. The bottle was extremely HOT!! The gel pack was hot enough to possibly have keep food warm while driving to your grandmother's house for Sunday dinner. There is NO way this product would be viable for use in an aquarium. This was also sent 3 days ago and just arrived!! SO, this has been sitting in heat for possibly 2 days at minimum!I have asked for a full replacement but during the time it has took for me to write this they had contacted me saying that this BAKED product is still Viable.... This seemed like a very automated response and matches word for word what others have also received on here. I have responded that I would like a full refund on the product then. This is NOT up to Fritz standards at all!!! We have in essence CONTACTED FRITZ about the issue. This is NOT VIABLE sitting in the 100-degree Midwest heat.