Let's talk about Bacteria in a Bottle

[akunochi]

started with all dry rock and nothing biologically active in 190g of water. had .5 ammonia from the decaying matter on the dry rock after only 2 days. added 5 small chromis on day 2 with a bottle good for only 75 gallons which ate all ammonia and nitrite in 12 hours and started building nitrate. zero ammonia or nitrite since. day 5 or so added kole tang, yesterday, on day 11 i added 2 clowns and a coral beauty and am awaiting ammonia etc with a bottle of turbo start good for 75g on hand.. thats it in a nutshell for now.

I hope you are kidding with that time table....I really really do.

 

[kpiotrowski]

akunochi, your responses on this thread are counterproductive. I would expect more from the vice President of the PSAS. I am continuing my involment on this topic based on emails (pm)from several different members here who wish to see the proggress of this product so that we may learn more about it. It has been put up against many different products in indepedant studdies and makes enormous claims against the competition. keep in mind I was a skeptic...and still am to a large degree. The truth of the products performance is all I am after and all that I am asking from the members is postive feedback.

 

[gimmito]

I'm definitely open to the role bacteria plays in our tanks. When it's all said and done, what are the water parameters ? If you have 0 ammonia and nitrites, what are the nitrate readings ? How are the animals are holding up ? Also, were the animals quarantined ?

 

[mojoreef]

Dr. Tim personally and he explained how he discovered the nitrosoma bacteria found in our saltwater tanks

I think you would have to go back about a hundred years to find the person that discovered that, but it doesnt really pertain to the conversation.

Anyway it is impossible to say this product or basically Nitrosoma bacteria can cycle a tank, It only completes a small portion of the cycle, so how does it pertain to the overall picture?? The concept here is that the introduction of the bacteria will immediately begin the reduction process of Ammonia to Nitrite and then Nitrites to nitrates, of this I have no dought and believe it to be absolutely true. So as mentioned by both Kpiot and Seth this bacterial population is based on available food sources. SO this ends the practical use of the product going forward as you till need to wait for the anaerobic bacterial population that reduces nitrates/sulfates and so on to establish. With the product that Gimmito is refering to they take it a little bit further by suggesting the dosing of ammonium Chloride which is a more friendly form of ammonia, basically the same form that fish poop out. SO what the ammonium chloride is doing is artifically sustaining the nitrifing bacteria population while an anaerobic bacteria population establishes.

So whats the end game then?? It allows you to deal with the fisrt part of the nitrogen cycle quickly, but you still have an issue with nitrates and will still have to allow its population to grow and stablize. So in the mean time you will have nitrates, if you feel the need to add fish in a hurry you can try some fish that are hardy and dont mind the presence of nitrates. I think a word of caution should be said that you are manually trying to create and feed bacteria populations which is almost impossible to do accurately, so one should becareful relying on that completely and if someone is truely in a rush they should watch the types of fish they add right away.

In a case of emergency, where all of a sudden you have some big organism die and you have a sudden spike in ammonia these products seem like a very good means by which to deal with the problem at hand.


Mojo

 

[akunochi]

Mike...

You are being completly counterproductive by not simply agreeing.

 

[Scooterman]

kpiotrowski you said you have 190 gallons of water in your tank right? How much dry rock did you use? Did you add anything other than that like dry sand/live sand?

Sorry If I missed that, I'll read the entire thread when I get off work, If I missed that information.

 

[gimmito]

Mojo,

I agree mostly w/what you and Krish are saying. If anyone wants more info on Dr. Tim's products and are thinking of cycling your tank. Checkout his website for more info.

DrTims Home

Don't take my word for it, but rather research before putting anything in your tank.

 

[mojoreef]

Yea I dont see the issue gimmito, the bacteria in a bottle will do exaclty a advetized, it will excellerate your new tank through the ammonia to nitrite to nitrate portion of the nitrogen cycle. It however has no answer to the nitrate levels that will be the biproduct of using it. So some fish will be more hardy and not have an issue with elevated levels of nitrate and will do ok, some wont. If one just thinks back prior to live sand or live rock, these products were what we used?? bacteria does not come out of nothing, not really a big deal.

So as mentioned prior if a person feels the need to get fish in the tank really quick then they should look into cycling with a product like this and then following through with dosing ammonium (another product this fellow sells) to maintain the bacteria until the natural levels form and are maintained. Pretty much boils down to that? right? So pay a $ 150.00 bucks for a bottle of "The one and Only" bacteria in a bottle will do a 120 gallon tank and then maintain it with the ammonium chloride for a few bucks more. For that your in biz and able to put fish in the tank in a week instead of waiting for a natural cycle. In regards to corals and such this product is not a viable option.

take care

mojo

 

[kpiotrowski]

I must appologize that I am not able to give any good replies at this time, as I am at work working yet another double shift...trying to pay for this new venture. aslo have not tested tank since last addition of livestock but will tommorow night when I get my test kit back from the guy I mentioned put a bottle of turbo start in his tank with crazy instant results.

real quick though, I have about 230lbs of dry rock and about a 1.5 inch aragonite sand bed. skimmer is running wide open and not fine tuned at all. have skimmed about a liter in a week. cycling with lights off. temp 77 to 80. ph was 8.3 last time I checked a week ago. 025sg. nitrates around 10ppm, tank has been up for 14 days as of today. am hoping to see this new addition of fish show me some ammonia and add another bottle of the stuff to see whats next. I figure I'm shooting for 20ppm nitrate and then wait for the last stage of bacteria to come along and change it all up an then see where my nitrates will go down to. Is my theory anyway. any advice on how high I can let my nitrtates get with the fish i said I have?

 

[gimmito]

I agree 20ppm or less for the fish is about as high you want to go.

The more pressing question is are you quaranting your fish before introducing them in your display ?

Otherwise a quick cycle may be a moot point.:frown:

 

[Scooterman]

With so much water volume, so little rocks and sand that were all started off dry and so much fish in this tank I can see how at first the fish will be doing fine. It takes a while with so much water and fish to actually produce harmful levels to where you'll even see problems with the fish, they can tolerate a good bit for a while. I think the stuff you added would benefit getting the bacteria population up faster in this case and probably a good thing being you didn't add any living bacteria wise to populate your new tank. Normally If someone added LR it will take so long to populate and stabilizes, without the bacteria then you need something to support it and get it started. I don't think that is an issue or a problem, the issue I see it adding fish to this tank so soon as your tank to fully populate and cycle to the point of stabilization will take months, probably closer to a year to fully function as a bio-filter. If you ever observe a tank that was started out completely dry as in rock and sand (assuming you seeded it somehow) and watch it change over time you'll know without a doubt that it will take time and that you can't change that no matter what you add to it, other than actual fully cured lr and ls. then you sb will have to stabilize. If you think about bacteria and surface area to live on, the SB will out populate the rock and this function takes a real long time to develop. Now If you go without a SB or a ReFuge. with sand etc. then you have to accommodate for the lack of, which brings me to my next point.
You can overcome these issues simply by water replacement, removing the waster water and replacing with new water mix. or some sort of process of removal/treatment. If you ever had a BB tank you'll find that doing the Wc's are required more than with a SB. Now all this of course depends on a ton of things such as bio-load, equipment, water volume and other devices of waste removal or water treatment.
So can you succeed with this process yes and there can be a need for the product under certain circumstances as in yours starting out all dry yes I fully agree. Now you have to accommodate the processing by some means regardless how you put it when you throw in the fish before your tank has fully cycled all of the LR and sand, I think IF you are saying that you can load the tank with fish and saying that the product solely is the reasoning then this can be misleading, there is more than that going on.

 

[Scooterman]

One idea would be to make a true comparison to seeding a dry rock and sand new tank with this product and compare it to seeding by other means such as a cup of LS etc. This would be a really good comparison and reason as to why one may want to use this product!!

 

[Krish]

Going on your post Sccoty, it took me almost 1 year to have my tank balance out to read zero nitrates. The last nine months of that year was trying to work off less than 10 ppm of nitrates and everyone who knows me and has seen my tanks know that I maintain them well, never over feed or over stock so waste was never my issue. 1 year from start up so this thing doesn't happen over night.


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- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kpiotrowski]

One idea would be to make a true comparison to seeding a dry rock and sand new tank with this product and compare it to seeding by other means such as a cup of LS etc. This would be a really good comparison and reason as to why one may want to use this product!!

I actually was going to buy a small chunk of live rock to seed the tank when I ended up buying the bacteria instead NOT both because that would have deafeted the experiment. so yep, we are on the same page in many areas.

 

[kpiotrowski]

This thread still has GREAT potential to get off topic. I am trying to talk about bacteria in a bottle and how well they work or not. we seem to be going back and forth about basics and I personally agree with most of what everyone is say. I think I have perhaps a differnt angle, or way of understanding some things and some to even a greater degree than others.

can we talk about your success and failures with these products please. after all if you have never used one how can you make claims iether way? we all understand the nitrogen cycle to some degree...and I assure you all I understand VERY well with all of its implications. so yeah, who has used one that was a bad idea? what was it? what problems did you have? I assure that if my tank test well for 3 months and then blows up I WILL comminicate that here to warn everyone. I am not selling any products, just experimentting!

 

[DonW]

Im a little confused by the whole conversation. Correct me if I'm wrong. The bottle is aerobic bacteria that is supposed to make it safe to add fish. In the mean time you are supposed to be able to keep these fish happy while you await the anaerobic bacteria population. So in theory you should see a nitrate spike and it should remain for a long time until the anaerobic population catches up to the bio-load. If the bio-load is to small to maintain the bottled bacteria they want you to feed it with their ammonia substitute. I guess your expected to juggle this bio-load aerobic balance until you start to see a nitrate fall off and that should mean that the anaerobic bacteria can now handle the current bio-load.

My issue is what happens when you toss in to many fish and they die from ammonia because there wasn't enough bacteria. Or the other way around, you add to few fish and the bacteria dies off so you forced to pee in the tank to increase aerobic bacteria. I guess either way the maker makes more money. Seems to me it just so much easier to stick in a chunk of LR and a bunch of dead and just wait it out. Then increase bio-load slowly over time and let mother nature do what she does best instead of second guessing. Seems its just a guessing game or a gamble at best. I guess if a person needs to be in a big hurry you could add a bunch off dead rock and a small piece of live and just pee in the tank to give the bacteria an extra helping of dinner.

Don

 

[kpiotrowski]

Thanks Don! I guess to keep it short the to potiential value of this product ( wich I am not sold on yet) is twofold. One is to help your tank cycle quickly and not have to have your livestock live in a toxic environment...but more important is if for whatever reason you may have an ammonia or nitrite spike in and established, or cylcing tank like added too much livestock....which I am kina trying to do, or lets say your 10 year old tank breaks and you have to transfer all livstock to the bathtub, then a bottle of bacteri that has been prooven to work would be awesome, right? so, that is why I am trying to keep on topic of " do these products work and which ones work best". by tonight I will have an update on my tanks proggress and see where we are at. people should read the whole thread though ( my posts) if they want to see what I have done and what the turbo start is doing. I make no claims. I am just experimenting and reporting facts.

those that have argued agianst these product please refrain from negativity. Lets see if we can truly test this prodct!

 

[Scooterman]

Kpio to be fair this is a discussion, not everyone will agree and there will be difference of opinions, that is part of an open forum. Unless there is name calling and really ugly remarks etc it should be fine, we all deserve an opinion. Keep up the good work we all want to see your findings regardless of anyone's opinions!

 

[DonW]

Thanks Don! I guess to keep it short the to potiential value of this product ( wich I am not sold on yet) is twofold. One is to help your tank cycle quickly and not have to have your livestock live in a toxic environment...but more important is if for whatever reason you may have an ammonia or nitrite spike in and established, or cylcing tank like added too much livestock....which I am kina trying to do, or lets say your 10 year old tank breaks and you have to transfer all livstock to the bathtub, then a bottle of bacteri that has been prooven to work would be awesome, right? so, that is why I am trying to keep on topic of " do these products work and which ones work best". by tonight I will have an update on my tanks proggress and see where we are at. people should read the whole thread though ( my posts) if they want to see what I have done and what the turbo start is doing. I make no claims. I am just experimenting and reporting facts.

those that have argued agianst these product please refrain from negativity. Lets see if we can truly test this prodct!

While I do commend your experiment I like many don't see a real need for this product. In for your first example of cycling faster. The complete cycle is not completed until anaerobic bacteria have reached a level to handle the bio load. The experiment would have to include a separate comparable tank using a more natural method. Secondly there is no reason to have livestock in a toxic environment when using the more natural method. Its just a matter of not stocking. The second example of a tank breaking and the need to add bacteria is an upsell only. Fish just want clean water they don't care about bacteria. Water changes or a simple few drops of amquel will detox ammonia until the tank can be reestablished. In fact this is how we ran FO sterile tanks with no live rock and plastic corals for years. I guess if you had a reef tank that needed to go into a tub that would be a different issue. Even then we would use separate tubs so the fish didn't contaminate the corals water. Now I guess if for some fluke reason you saw an ammonia spike then it may be a handy product but again my first thought would be the amquel that I can get at any pet store for a couple of dollars.
My thinking is this product and others like them is a money maker and for those looking to add fish early. Maybe fish only folks that have no intentions of having a reef. If that is the goal I'm sure it will work just fine. On the other hand I dont think its a product for reef keepers that should be fairly patient people that dont mind waiting to add a fish or two.

Don

 

[kpiotrowski]

Kpio to be fair this is a discussion, not everyone will agree and there will be difference of opinions, that is part of an open forum. Unless there is name calling and really ugly remarks etc it should be fine, we all deserve an opinion. Keep up the good work we all want to see your findings regardless of anyone's opinions!

its all good! I am just trying to stay on topic of how well...or not, this stuff works and if it does if there is a superior product. But I have some perplexing information, Elos test kits just arrived( i have not got my api kits back yet) and I tested TWICE to find UNBELIEVABLE result. erroring on the side of caution ...and keeping in mind that Elos test kits are more precise, I have 0.1 if not 0 ammonia, 0.15 nitrite...and perhaps 15ppm nitrate. does anyone who has followed my proggress agree that I should have some serious trouble by now? set-up is 2 weeks old and I have been overfeeding. I expected like .5 ammonia at least!

I have asked a fellow forum member who is relatively close to me to come to my home to help evaluate this situation and see exactly what I am doing so that we may all have better understanding...keeping in mind that if I see off the charts ammonia 3 days from now, I'm gonna tell you!

hey, I was setting up a new system from scratch...can you think of a better time to try and experiment?