Freshwater Waste-Away Sludge Busting Bacteria – For Freshwater Aquaria, Fish Tanks, Aquariums – Unclogs, Cleans Gravel Beds, Removes Hidden Wastes – 100% Natural, 4 oz - treats 120 gallons (071)

Product works as advertised. Cleared up my tank water in a day and has kept it pure and sparkling. Fish are healthy and happy. Highly recommend this.

I used this for my 5 gallon fish tank

I have been using Waste-Away now for just about a month in a moderate to heavily planted aquarium. So far it does seem to reduce organic waste in the aquarium in general, and the development of bacterial films inside filter pipes, and debris build up inside the filter itself. Before adding this supplement I had to clean my glass filter inlet and outlet pipes and rinse the filter material once a week. Now, after four weeks, the bacterial growth resembles a week's growth. Filter flow also remains noticeably higher, suggesting that debris congestion inside the filter material is reduced. One word of warning though. During the initial dosages the establishment of the bacteria consumes a lot of dissolved oxygen from the water at night. This leaves fish gasping at the surface. When your lights go off and plants stop photosynthesizing make sure to add a bubbler (small airpump and an airstone) for night time surface agitation and water oxygenation.

I have a red ear slider. I had just cleaned her entire tank, added back the water and used the product as directed. Her water got cloudy as expected but never ever cleared. I first heard about Dr Tim's Aquatics WasteAway on Amazon and then I checked out the web site. I thought I had the answer to all my cloudy tank problems. All I can say is that after using it two more times as directed, the product NEVER worked for me. I was expecting something to finally work and got nothing. In fact, the tank does better if I don't used anything.

This product has been advertised as a safe alternative to quickly clean your aquarium gravel, safely. BE WARNED! I have a 37 gallon aquarium, has been healthy for three years, I haven’t had fish in it until a year ago and it currently holds two male parrot cichlids who I am temporarily keeping in until my 65 gallon aquarium is fully cycled. My fish tend to excrete a lot of ammonia and require weekly maintenance of 25% water changes in order to maintain a healthy balance. I had to take a trip and left my fish in my sisters care. She is pretty familiar it’s aquariums and has been my “fish nerd buddy “ for several years so I felt safe leaving them in her care. However, while I was gone she ended up feeding them copious amount of frozen blood worms and the aquarium quickly became a toxic environment. After she tested the water and had it re tested at a pet store she found out that the food had left such a large amount of waste that the healthy bacteria had gotten over run (basically I had rotting food sitting in the filter and the gravel to a large amount) she called me and I said to immediately do a 25% water change and then do a ten % water change everyday for five days to resolve the problem. Well she got freaked out and ordered this product to help rectify the situation and basically it almost killed my fish. What I mean is that the product is too concentrated to dose the aquarium with the RECOMMENDED DOSAGE listed on the Bottle. It’s actually recommended to USE HALF THE DOSAGE listed on the bottle. She used half the dosage but called me literally 30 minutes after dosing and showed me videos of the fish and the aquarium. My fish were laying on their sides on top of the decor, their breathing was extremely labored, their color went from vivid orange to pale peach (in that short of time) they usually reacted to a person very sensitively and if a person looked into their eyes they would frantically hide. These fish are very shy and don’t like humans to engage with them so the fact that they were not responding to her attention at all really scared me. The water was also very cloudy. I immediately told her that they had been poisoned and that she needed to take out half of the water (without vacuuming the gravel as she had added this product during a 1/2 water change that day already) she removed half of the water and we decided to put a 100 gallon HOB filter in place of the current 55 HOB to circulate the water. The product removes oxygen from the tank and (I am not sure how the chemicals in it work) but researching it made us realize the fish couldn’t breathe. After 1 hour with increased water circulation, removoal of 1/2 water & rinsing the filter media in another established aquarium (we had to be sure the filter media wasn’t polluted also and luckily I have several aquariums to use for filter media and cleaning ). My fish started to get better. Honestly, I have never used chemicals to help clean up the gravel. I have always been counseled to NOT USE CHEMICALS in lieu of basic maintenance so I was at a loss on this one but luckily I know the signs of fish poisoning and my fish obviously were suffering from the chemical reaction. After two hours, (we added extra circulation using a 100 gallon filter and adding an high intensity air bubbler ) we also removed 1/2 of the water, but without vacuuming the gravel as it would have been too many changes too quickly and would kill the fish, ) my fish were up and swimming again, their color became brighter and orange again, their respiratory symptoms became almost back to normal and they were reacting to visual stimulus. This, this product is too strong and too intense for most freshwater fish. I am lucky because my blood red parrot cichlids are EXTREMELY hardy and we’re able to bounce back with the proper care. However, if you have fish that are sensitive (Cory Cats & Discus are a few examples) this would have definitely killed them. Please avoid this product. If you have a heavily polluted aquarium do this…gravel vacuum the gravel until you have removed 1/2 (don’t take anything more than that amount or it will cause the fish to go into shock and die) then add some new carbon to the filter (keep the old stuff int there), turn off the lights, make sure the room is quiet and observe. The next day, do a 10_15% water change this time rinsing out the filter media in the old water until it no longer looks dirty, avoid feeding for 3 or four days while your doing daily 10% water changes and after five days take your water sample to petco for a test and also do a test at home. The store is a good fallback method to ensure your water tests are accurate. When you have the water tests that say your tank has balanced out you can resume feeding and can probably remove the air bubblers and lower the water flow of your HOB filter. After that you can resume doing the weekly water changes or 10-20 %. You can also begin feeding them as you did previously. Best recommendation is to feed every other day (I usually do every two days) and remove any remaining food after five minutes as that is the amount of time your fish need to eat after that the extra food only falls to the bottom and decays which is how most fish become stressed and sick.

Good

I've kept fish for many years, I followed the instructions on this product 3 times and every time, I'd find dead fish the next morning. So, I replaced my fish and thought ok, maybe cut the dose in half of the recommended amount. Next day, 2 more dead fish. I'm not sure how concentrated this is but I've never had a product KILL fish like this. Buyer beware.

I used a tiny amount of Waste Away, less than the instructions said for a half dose for this 40 gallon tank and within minutes my fish were dying. Over the next two hours, all of them died but my plecostomus. I am so sad. I'm returning the Waste Away (poison) but that doesn't get me my fish back. Very upset.

Cela fait une différence dans l’aquarium. Je le recommande.