Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

[Bob Weigant]

I used Dr Tims and waited 48 hours before adding fish to my 225. Zero losses. Did the same to my 180 also with zero loses

 

[Sashaka]

watching

 

[Humblefish]

In the past, I've used Seachem Stability to quickly cycle QTs (took about a week). So, when it was time to cycle QTs for my business I went back to tried & true. Guess what? SEACHEM STABILITY FAILED ME. I don't know if I got some bad bottles/bad batch (expiration date was fine) or if Seachem's QC isn't what it once was or what .....

So anyway, I next tried Biospira and that stuff has worked amazingly. Got all my QTs, conditioning tanks, and retail tanks (20+ systems) cycled in under a week. Meaning, all tanks could process 2ppm 10% ammonium hydroxide in under 24 hrs just fine. :) I was a happy camper, and plan to use Biospira moving forward. Just make sure whatever bottle you buy isn't close to the expiration date.

 

[WWIII]

I've used dr tims and bio spira. The bio spira worked (according to my tests) much faster. I would also like to see Fritz's Fritzyme turbo start tested in this trial if there is room! I'm not too sure that Fritz doesn't supply their bacteria for others to use in relabeled products. I haven't seen confirmation of this, but have a feeling it's possibly the case? Anyways, it's another that's been around a long time and claims to allow immediate introduction of livestock.

 

[AquamanE]

Love it. Following. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Great experiment! My only recommendation is to get rid of the dry rock and simply us something else for the bacteria to live in/on......bioballs, egg crate, etc. The reason is that the dry rock will contribute nitrates (and potentially ammonia and nitrite) . By getting rid of the rock and using something inert, any nitrate you see will be from the cycle. JMTC.

 

[deedubz]

I've had nothing but success with Biospira and setting up several qts/emergency tanks. When you're dealing with velvet, for example, you don't have months, weeks, or even days to wait for a cycle. Sometimes it's a matter of life and death to get fish through a fw dip/acriflavine or formalin bath and into a sterile qt to begin copper or CP. I've never had an ammonia issue, thank God.

One of the first things we'll advise over on the disease forum is to "pickup a bag of biomax (or similar product), a cheap filter sponge, and a bottle of biospira"

 

[YumaMan]

The use of bottled bacteria culture is standard procedure in many municipal water treatment and purification stations, as it speeds up the decomposition of waste matter and it de-gunks the gunk (that's layman's language meaning that it works). No municipality likes to throw away money on useless water treatments.

 

[BigJohnny]

i have used biospira succesfully probably 15-20x. It can process 2ppm ammonia in 24 hours 75% of the time. Sometimes it takes up to a week though. The nitrite=>nitrate portion can take anywhere from 1-4 weeks so I dont find it that useful in that regard but I use it to jumpstart qts.

 

[tiggs]

If you wanted to add one more element to your experiment, I'd be curious to see the results of Bioptim/Biodigest compared to the others. This would be good to see if the glass vial storage really makes a difference or not.

 

[biga1106]

Thanks foe taking the time to do this test I definitely would like to know the outcome !

 

[Rattzreef]

Great experiment I'll be tagging along.. I've used BioSpira twice now in the last year to boost the cycle in my tanks.. first my 10g with dry rock and Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride solution and just recently on my 29g. I've brought the Ammonia level to 2 ppm twice in the last week on my 29. the first time it took about 3 days to process that much.. the second about 2. I'm interested in seeing the results from the other brands out there.

 

[Sleepydoc]

At this point after reading all the remarks and concerns i like to make few changes.
1. API ammonia kit is probably not a great test kit so lets move up to salifert or any other someone can recommend?
2. because there are other bottles being thrown out here. due to room and time i only have 4 tanks. i will do this experiment with the first 3 stated products. then i will break the system down, bleach everything, dry everything and reset the experiment again with new dry rock and use other products some are suggesting. there will be no standard (control) on the second set as we will simply compare the time and amount of bacteria we find along the way on daily basis.

On the second round i will do
Stability, ATM Colony so far

Awesome experiment! BRS may need to add you to their team!

I've used the Red Sea ammonia test - much easier to read than the Salifert test.

 

[VolStateAquatics]

I’ve used microbacter7 and stability with EXCELLENT results

 

[AlgaeBarn Verified Sponsor]

We've used turbostart with great success. We cycled a 200 gallon system in less than 5 days by adding a bottle of turbostart and enough ammonium chloride to reach a 2ppm.

 

[declanisadog]

very interesting. I look forward to seeing your results!

 

[Richards_reef]

I've used prodibio start up with great results, fish were added 24 hours after initial dose. Did a 20% water change a week later and started dosing the rest of the prodibio bacteria products (bio-digest and bioptim) after that water change. No losses.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

lol with all these successful comments and experience, do we still really need to test lol.
i am sure now after reading all these comments that most likely the experiment will show positive results decreasing cycle time compared to non bacteria added tank.
Second thing i want to test for is if most manufacturers say to add fish right away. i would like to see how much ammonia is reduced by addition of such products within 24, 36, 48 hrs etc.

 

[brandon429]

the actual testing variance here I feel impacts some of the nonperforming trials. We'd need to see how ammonia readings are cross checked. In todays market of ammonia reading, which favors .25 where there is none, salifert included Ive got a friend with a fully stocked 60 days reef at .25 (not), so whatever the test kit telling us if bottle bac works it needs to be triple verified along with the data imo.

test kit proofs makes or breaks this attempt.

 

[Brew12]

lol with all these successful comments and experience, do we still really need to test lol.
i am sure now after reading all these comments that most likely the experiment will show positive results decreasing cycle time compared to non bacteria added tank.
Second thing i want to test for is if most manufacturers say to add fish right away. i would like to see how much ammonia is reduced by addition of such products within 24, 36, 48 hrs etc.

I feel the test has value. What I am most curious to see is the time difference between the products. For example, how much faster will an "active" bacteria product work (like Biospira) than one of the "inert" bacteria products (like Stability).