Bacteria maintenance. What do you dose?

[Borg]

Stress zone. 50ml
After every water change

 

[piranhaman00]

As a microbiologist (and of course a reef keeper), this is an extremely interesting read!

A new term to me when I started reef keeping, and not sure if I saw this mentioned, but "Old Tank Syndrome". To my understanding, this occurs when the diversity of an aquarium becomes narrow as the predominate bacterial strains take over as the reef matures. Dosing different bacteria would help with this surely, along with placing liverock from different systems in the sump.

Not sure how common this is, only ran across it a few times. In my opinion dosing bacteria just because, cant be a waste but maybe not that beneficial either. Not sure, like I said, great discussion!

 

[brandon429]

Old tank syndrome is detritus compaction and never happens with resident bac

We have beaten old tank syndrome, it's a past issue. Not any bare bottom tank with decent circulation and maintenance gets ots. Sandbed tanks that have good cleaning in place, whatever mechanism, won't get it.

The definition of the eutrophic environmental condition is the definition of old tank syndrome. Live rock matured systems never drift or need refreshment, from something in retail where money leaves my pocket and flows into anothers.

 

[piranhaman00]

Old tank syndrome is detritus compaction and never happens with resident bac

We have beaten old tank syndrome, it's a past issue.

That must be why I dont see it come up often, thanks!

 

[brandon429]

We are all very opinionated here admitted lol
it must be said many will not agree with me there about bac and old tank syndrome.

but
old tank syndrome can be both caused and cured by specific mechanisms in work threads, tank turnaround threads, so that makes a tie in between claims and demonstration at least. We can turn around the eutrophic condition and actively do, on file, causing patterns to emerge.

Then there's far end lifespan studies on oldest living large tanks, Paul B, and oldest living tiny reefs which are concentration studies, both use detritus mitigation vs impaction as the preventative for ots covering the whole spectrum of reef tank size options.

The old notion of never clean your sandbed causes ots. Live rock pent up with waste and algae reducing porosity causes ots and selects for plants we found

While not a job for nitrifying bottle bac, specific digestion sludge removers mentioned prior can help clear impaction and eventual release into water column but cleaning attains this free, and effective tank design has already planned for throughput vs storage. Just my opinion

 

[ReefGeezer]

Thank you for the detailed response. What bacteria products are you using other than vibrant?

You are welcome.

Vibrant is a new-ish product for me. It is the only "product" I add. I think the resulting bacteria don't survive that long in the system, but do good things while they are around. Dosing 10 ml every two weeks in my 100 gallon system keeps some around. I can't say now that I'll do this forever though.

I have carbon dosed for a long time, but i don't actually dose very much. I want the resulting bacteria as a food source rather than using it to control nutrients. I suppose it also helps in nutrient control a little though. I've settled using vinegar. I don't think any other products are required. The bacteria that use the carbon I dose show up without adding any other products. Same for the bacteria that process ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

 

[CavalierReef]

Have you noticed a difference in “old” vs “new” tanks (aside from the diversity)? Is there a health difference or a difference in coral growth? Does the tank look different? Algae growth differences? I know it’s all anecdotal at this point, but do you think one or the other is “better”?

Does anyone remember that, back in the day, replacing live rock with "fresh rock" was recommended every few years by some "expects". Maybe this recommendation was based on the loss of bacterial diversity on/in the rock. ???

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I think the hardest part about deciding whether or not bacteria dosing is worthwhile is that the effects (good ones) take awhile to see. Stability also takes awhile. How do you know that the bacteria did anything and not stability instead?

We need some of the top dogs here (that aren’t already dosing bacteria), with very nice tanks, to give bacteria a try. If they notice their already amazing tanks reacting in a positive way, then maybe we are on to something.

I suspect that a lot of us, that are dosing bacteria, are still far behind the curve and are surely going to see benefits from stability as well.

Edit: So far, after 3 weeks of dosing various bacteria’s, I’ve noticed that my phosphate is just a tick above 0. I’m assuming that the bacteria are consuming it, and hopefully getting consumed by the corals. Tank isn’t getting cloudy, so I also assume that the bacteria aren’t going to town in my tank either.

 

[Keiffer the reefer]

I recently started dosing bacteria. Waste away, first and now vibrant. My purpose was to eliminate some odd looking algae. I started at thanksgiving and it has GREATLY reduced the algae. I think in another month or two, it will be gone. In the past I have also dosed the kz bacteria product. I would dose daily for a few days consecutively to reduce algae growth on the glass. On both accounts, I feel my use of bottled bacteria is meeting my goals.

I’m very curious of @Dr. Dendrostein sponge method. I’m going to give this a try.

there is a small amount of this algae visible on the sand bed at bottom left. Sorry I don’t have a better photo. This stuff had been previously been covering most of the sand bed and was killing back two birds nest colonies.

 

[Laith]

Did you monitor No3 and Po4 during the time you dosed vibrant? Did Po4 drop to 0 and possibly allowed Dino’s to set in?

When the Dinos appeared the NO3 was about 1 while PO4 was around 0.05.

 

[Rick Gaas]

Stress zone. 50ml
After every water change

Do you have a link for this product? Why do you dose this?

 

[Rick Gaas]

I recently started dosing bacteria. Waste away, first and now vibrant. My purpose was to eliminate some odd looking algae. I started at thanksgiving and it has GREATLY reduced the algae. I think in another month or two, it will be gone. In the past I have also dosed the kz bacteria product. I would dose daily for a few days consecutively to reduce algae growth on the glass. On both accounts, I feel my use of bottled bacteria is meeting my goals.

I’m very curious of @Dr. Dendrostein sponge method. I’m going to give this a try.

there is a small amount of this algae visible on the sand bed at bottom left. Sorry I don’t have a better photo. This stuff had been previously been covering most of the sand bed and was killing back two birds nest colonies.

Thank you for the info! What did you see from dosing waste away only? Curious to know the benefits.

 

[Keiffer the reefer]

Thank you for the info! What did you see from dosing waste away only? Curious to know the benefits.

The first thing I noticed was a slight jump in ORP. Went from 320 to 370 in a couple hours. The next day, the slime on the surface of my refugium was greatly reduced and a day later it was gone. Within two weeks, the weird algae was receding, but bubble algae was still spreading. Then I started with the vibrant. Immediately (one day) the weird algae recession sped up. In a week, the bubble algae is no longer spreading. That brings us current. Waiting to see more. Since things are moving the right direction, I’ll be using the maintenance dose of 1ml/10 gal every two weeks.

 

[AquaBiomics]

Thanks, I read the articles earlier.........there wasn't much to evaluate or conclude based on the small sample size, limited numerical data, ect. I'll look forward for more detailed information in the future.

Its a funny thing writing for an audience with mixed backgrounds. Some respond "that's way too much detail, please simplify" while others want more details.

I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have. Some of the questions you've asked are answered with numbers in these articles e.g. the numbers of different kinds of microbes per tank.

Sample size, I dunno. The duplicate tanks behaved so similar to each other than I don't think we'd gain much by adding a third or fourth replicate. I mean it would improve statistical power but I don't get the impression that p-values are the right thing to focus on when communicating with hobbyists. Higher sample size is always a good thing but it also costs resources or limits the number of treatments that can be tested.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I like my sponges, and want to increase my bacteria count for their benefit. Could you please recommended a daily vinegar dose, like maybe ml per gallon of culture water? TIA...

you will want to be sure nutrients for not get too low, but a start dose might be 1 mL per 20 gallons.

 

[webmanny]

I use Vibrant one a week per the instructions.

 

[naterealbig]

Extremely safe. When your bubble algae is gone you're going to have to supplement their diet with Nori or algae pellets. But they're great fish to have provided your tank is big enough. My foxface is in a 120g and my bi-colored rabbitfish is in a 65g. tank.

These are reef safe with caution. I just had to banish my Magnificent Foxface for eating a Scolymia and Trachyphilia. . This was after he destroyed every last iota of algae on my new Frags though...

 

[aznreef99]

for my red sea p500 this dose .4 ml Zeostart in morning, .04 ml in evening. 4 drops of Zeobak & Zeofood7 every Sunday. I feed 3 times a day. no3 2.5, po4 .019

 

[Silent]

Putting zeostart on a dosing pump was the greatest thing. No more daily manual dosing.

 

[radiata]

you will want to be sure nutrients for not get too low, but a start dose might be 1 mL per 20 gallons.

Thank you for the input! I don't think my nutrients will get too low - my Anthias are getting fed three times a day, and my other fish are getting fat as a result of the three feedings.