Aquariums: I received this healthy bacteria as a free gift to my order, that was on Saturday is there a life span to when i can put this in my tank?? I dont have anything in the tank yet, im currently in the process of setting up my first live aquarium.

I’m not sure but personally I would not put that in my tank, I would go get some active bacteria in a bottle from the pet store. Like a bio starter or something. Usually they can come in packs of three, a water conditioner, the bacteria and something else but you can just buy the bacteria singular. That stuff is usually clear or a little bit of a yellow tinge. That’s why I say I wouldn’t put this in my tank just cause of the really dark colour. Up to you tho!

Imo you should put it in right away, if anything it will just be able to establish in your filter, you could put a snail inside to give the bacteria *some* of the food but I wouldn’t wait too long personally before putting it in.

If it was me, i would need make sure it was not from a sick tank lol. Or you could just yolo and cross fingers. I prefer doing it myself, i dont want the hassle of sick fish or parasite on my tank.

Nah

It’s probably collected from a water change in one of their tanks.

Once you have water in your tank you can pour it slowly into the back of your filter so it runs through the filter floss, don’t let it overflow or it will go cloudy (but this is harmless and will settle). You don’t have to use all of it. Then you should let it chug for a while, fishless, feeding a tiny amount and doing water changes as you would normally until it’s cycled. If you’ve done research you should be able to tell when it’s good to go.

Just make sure it doesn’t smell offensively foul (a little stink is good, but like straight piss or rot is not good). If you let it sit too long it can get super stank and/or some of the bacteria inside will die because the temperature is too cold, but this isn’t really a precise science and it will still be helpful if it hasn’t totally gone wild and smells like death.

This is what saved me when I got my first tank years ago. I was in Petco telling them all of my cycling woes when this odd man told me to come to his house and he would give me some of his tank gunk. I was so desperate I went. I gave my husband the address etc. He met me with his lovely wife, showed me all of these huge aquariums. Some with local wild fish in them. He gave me gunk and my tank was perfect in days. I hope you have the same outcome. If you can trust the source I would add it now.