Bacterial products to reduce nutrient load?

[Jan]

Hi Cy, Chris, Tim, Mark....

Do you have Elos (or other) products that promote specific bacteria which will consume excess nutrients in a tank? Which products would those be?

I bought Filtra M but haven't used it yet, and Elos AA, Coral Frenzy and DT's phyto. I use DT twice a week, Coral Frenzy the same, AA every other night.

I would like to experiment with the specific beneficial bacteria such as the Zeo and Prodobio lines have. Some of my corals (not all, just some) are more brown than they should be and I believe it is due to nutrient load as opposed to light, flow, position in tank. I don't want to try vodka or any additive that increases bacteria via shotgun approach, as I'm still struggling with Cyano. I also prefer to keep feeding the fish daily because the tang gets b!#$@y when it's hungry....

thanks

 

[DonW]

Hi Cy, Chris, Tim, Mark....

I use DT twice a week, Coral Frenzy the same, AA every other night.

I believe it is due to nutrient load as opposed to light, flow, position in tank.
thanks

Why not lighten the load, neither of those products is needed and both contain large amounts of P. Get it down low on your own and then try some of the stuff like zeo to get it down even lower. This is when those products really excel.

Don

 

[Jan]

Aahh. I didn't realize that DT and Coral Frenzy were high in P....

 

[Jan]

Don, weren't you feeding your corals with a blended up oyster, 100 ml of RODI, and maybe something else, like L-glutamine? That would be a P-free coral food, right? What's that recipe again?

 

[DonW]

Don, weren't you feeding your corals with a blended up oyster, 100 ml of RODI, and maybe something else, like L-glutamine? That would be a P-free coral food, right? What's that recipe again?

No it would not be P free. P is a spice of life. If it was ever alive it will contain P. If you have a sps tank then detritus is all that is needed and that will have plenty of P all by itself.

Don

 

[class clown]

are you sure the issue is phosphates? and excess nutrients? I'd almost be surprised if that is the case with that awesome skimmer you have. I thought my issue was phosphates until I tested them and they showed zeroe's. What i found out is that I was leaching excess C02 into my tank, so I added a Kalk reactor and also a degasser chamber on my calcium reactor. My point is that you shouldn't go out and buy a kalk reactor, but more so that you'd want to pinpoint where the issue is starting and nip it in the bud or figure out a way to counter act it.

is this a somewhat new issue since you hooked up your calcium reactor or has it been ongoing for a while?

 

[DonW]

are you sure the issue is phosphates? and excess nutrients? I'd almost be surprised if that is the case with that awesome skimmer you have. I thought my issue was phosphates until I tested them and they showed zeroe's. What i found out is that I was leaching excess C02 into my tank, so I added a Kalk reactor and also a degasser chamber on my calcium reactor. My point is that you shouldn't go out and buy a kalk reactor, but more so that you'd want to pinpoint where the issue is starting and nip it in the bud or figure out a way to counter act it.

is this a somewhat new issue since you hooked up your calcium reactor or has it been ongoing for a while?

CO2 would cause a ph hit. Very simple to detect.

Don

 

[Jan]

Ben, this issue is not new, it's been going on for a while (well before Calc Reactor). Also I am not having any ph issues, it's stable at low of 8.0 to high of 8.3 each day.

I've been told that testing phosphates is tricky, partly because most tests test for only organic or only inorganic phosphate, and we may have the other kind in our systems. Also, growing algae takes up the phosphates so that it's less detectable but we may still be suffering from excess algae growth. In my case it's the cyano bacteria, not algae. That's why I was asking what the fuel for this bacteria was, at the beginning of the thread. Seems the consensus is that it's the same fuel as for algae....

Here's a suspicion I have. I'm wondering if the dried base rock I set up my system with (prior to adding Live Rock), was either saturated with phosphate or it sucked some up from the tap water that was initially used to fill my tank. Then after a a couple months of having my RODI unit working (instead of me buying RO water from the store), maybe that phosphate is leaking out of the rocks? It's a wild guess. I'm going to buy an Elos phosphate test kit this weekend.

 

[class clown]

I think you're taking the right approach then. Process of elimination.

You can test the Phosphate levels of your tank now and see if you have a problem.

I'd also test the phospate levels of the new makeup water you're adding to the system

if it's neither of those, your theory of the rocks may be correct, or maybe not enough food is getting pulled out of the water, so you could consider switching or reducing foods.

cyano is often removed by added water flow too, so although they are not the most attractive things, you may consider adding a power head or two to the areas where the cyano collects the most.

anyhow.. it sounds like you're on the right track. Good luck and keep us posted.



Test

 

[tamarindthai]

i ,,,used the eco systems to keep the reef in balance,,without added or heavy removed or kill ,,,regular preventive maintainence,,you will have the happy reef.

 

[barrierreefcf]

I believe Chris PM'd you with the info you need but if not the Elos Purist Line combined with the Filtra M is one way you could control Phosphates/Nitrates. All of the above posts make good points. What about a macroalgae refugium? Does your system have one? If it does, and your macro grows, and you still can't control P or NO3 then the bacteria method might be a route worth taking. Our System 60 seems to thrive on it

 

[Jan]

Chris did PM me about the Purist line, Cy...I went to ElosUSA.com to read up on it. An alternate product line I researched was Prodobio...I read some intriguing things about it on an RC thread (by Iwan from Switzerland--what an amazing tank. I guess he's switched to Zeovit but Prodobio did well for him, obviously).

My Elos research was not so productive...the English translation on ElosUSA was really in Italian, which made it tough. I even tried the Altavista language translator and the translation from Italian made no sense either. So I couldn't get a feel for what the two products do. Last, I posted on the Elosusa forum on RC and Jesse answered. All he said was that I should use the whole line, but "many people have success with FiltraM by itself." There was no description or explanation from him either.

So instead of Elos I ended up buying a trial size (6 weeks' worth) of the Probodio nitrifying/dentrifying bacteria and bacteria booster (trace elements). I plan to combine these with a small amount of Filtra M. The Probodio products are not exorbitantly expensive and they're once a week treatments so fairly simple.

I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[Jan]

i ,,,used the eco systems to keep the reef in balance,,without added or heavy removed or kill ,,,regular preventive maintainence,,you will have the happy reef.

Dang, Dang, you sure do have a happy reef. When you say you "used the eco system" are you talking about a product line, or about the natural ecosystem within your tank? I assume you mean your natural one...it certainly seems to be working for you.

Ben, I'm also going to add another powerhead to the bottom where I'm having problems, and I've already cut back on the nightly dinner load. I guess I can throw away the leftover's from my nightly cube...the "starving fish in India" argument I can put to bed. :lol:

 

[swissgaurd]

ive been using prodibo , bioclean/biogest
and the reefpurer with excellent results now for almost 6 months
you will be impressed.

 

[Jan]

ive been using prodibo , bioclean/biogest
and the reefpurer with excellent results now for almost 6 months
you will be impressed.

Hi there! Bioclean, the dual-product package with biogest...that's what I bought. I am excited to try it out. Very good reviews.

 

[tamarindthai]

Dang, Dang, you sure do have a happy reef. When you say you "used the eco system" are you talking about a product line, or about the natural ecosystem within your tank? I assume you mean your natural one...it certainly seems to be working for you.

eco system cheap and easy to maintain,,,no chemical added

 

[swissgaurd]

you will see the water very clear usually within first 24 hrs.and corals starting to grow within first 2 weeks
i like the product so much that i became distributer in canada.
keep a log and take before and after pictures.


vic

 

[Jan]

Huh!

How about you, Vic? Do you have any before and after pics you could share with us? We love us some before & after pics!

 

[swissgaurd]

heres a thread i got going here in canada
with pictures
http://www.aquariumpros.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=25185


vic

 

[swissgaurd]

heres another thread
http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=312&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0


vic