Bacto balance help

[hans4811]

The most common cause for cyanobacteria as you see them in my eyes is an imbalance of phosphate in substrate compared to phosphate in the water.

I see two possible reasons for this imbalance:

- Lowering phosphate concentration in the water.
- Bringing phosphate up with ortho-phosphates which may adsorb to substrate.

From an own approach in killing cyanos and from the R2R thread on the "root cause of cyanobacteria" I know that most likely cyanobacteria live in mutualistic symbiosis with bacteria under the cyanobacteria mat. Most likely the bacteria are the actual phosphate and iron releasing agent. The same seems true in dinoflagellates.

It is more effective to fight the cyanobacteria when not only vacuuming out the mats but also disturbing the bacteria below the mats. I filled a plastic bottle with some dry sea salt I used for the water change and let it trickle out of the bottle to the substrate while pumps were turned off. I regulated the flow of salt with one finger at the opening of the plastic bottle.

In the disturbed places cyanos needed longer to come back. It was not too much salt and it was included in the calculation of the total salt needed for this water change.

Nevertheless you will also need patience until the cyanobacteria are gone and substrate and water have found their balance again.

Thanks for the reply Hans…

Bringing phosphate up with ortho-phosphates which may adsorb to substrate.

…ortho-phosphates…you mean the Neo-Phos and Neo-Nitro I added ? And this makes sense to me because my sand is just messy looking as all get out !

I do try and disturb the sand where the reddish/brown particulates seem to gather by blowing them with my turkey baster to get them in the water column and hopefully get them in my sock and/or getting hit by the snow/mb7 mixture. Never heard of that trick with the salt…so just squirting dry salt into the sand bed ?…interesting…

So would you leave the NP dosing off for now ? And if so, how do you combat the rising P04 ? I’ve used Phosphate Rx before in the past with good results…may try that just in the interim while I have NP turned off. And hopefully my refug and skimmer will pick up the slack…

And yes…patience is key here ! Love the NP product by the way…I’ve tried a million different ways for nutrient export, and dosing this has been a game changer for me. Just hope I can find the balance for NP in my system !

will go read that r2r post you mentioned as well..thx again.

 

[Hans-Werner]

so just squirting dry salt into the sand bed

Just let it trickle out of the bottle onto the sand bed and rest there for a while before turning on the pumps.

Regarding nutrients I recommend to ignore the numbers and try to find a way. After you have found a way I recommend to look at the numbers. And try to have continuity and not change products and up and down frequently.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

To my knowledge this is not a common problem with NP-Bacto-Balance. Cyanos may point to dropping phosphate concentrations of high iron dosage. How much iron is dose with Moonshiners?

If nitrate is not dropping with organic carbon dosing please check for nitrite. Nitrite may give a false-high nitrate indication.


The concentrations in NP-Bacto-Balance are Sr 7900 ppm, Ba 12.3 ppm, Cr 0.5 ppm, Mn 13.9 ppm, Fe 7.0 ppm, Co 0.6 ppm, Ni 2.5 ppm, Cu 0.2 ppm, Zn 1.2 ppm and B 1300 ppm.


Please check for nitrite. Maybe this is the easiest explanation for nitrate concentrations not dropping.

@Hans-Werner , could you tell me how the concentrations in NP-Bacto-Balance compare to those in K+ Elements? In the TM dosing guidelines, they suggest adding an equal amount of A- Elements to balance the NP-Bacto-Balance dose, and I am wondering if the concentrations of the matching elements between the two are equal in concentration.

I guess a shorter way of asking would be, is NP-Bacto-Balance comprised of full concentration K+ Elements, plus some N and P?

Your dosing guidelines wound suggest they are, but I just want to confirm.

 

[Hans-Werner]

@Hans-Werner , could you tell me how the concentrations in NP-Bacto-Balance compare to those in K+ Elements? In the TM dosing guidelines, they suggest adding an equal amount of A- Elements to balance the NP-Bacto-Balance dose, and I am wondering if the concentrations of the matching elements between the two are equal in concentration.

I guess a shorter way of asking would be, is NP-Bacto-Balance comprised of full concentration K+ Elements, plus some N and P?

Your dosing guidelines wound suggest they are, but I just want to confirm.

Yes, absolutely correct, the concentrations of trace elements in K+ Elements and NP-Bacto-Balance are the same, with NP-Bacto-Balance containing N, P and organic carbon additionally.

 

[ninjamyst]

Can you use bacto balance + np plus at the same time? I want to keep my phosphate level higher, around 0.10. If I got there with np plus and transition to bacto balance, will that drop my PO4 down to 0.05?

 

[Reefer911]

I am interested in adding in TM Bacto Balance but I also dose All For Reef daily. Will the trace elements in the bacto balance cause an imbalance of those elements when dosing AFR as well?

 

[Hans-Werner]

I am interested in adding in TM Bacto Balance but I also dose All For Reef daily. Will the trace elements in the bacto balance cause an imbalance of those elements when dosing AFR as well?

No problems of using both products combined has been reported to us although some users use both products combined. I see no problem in using All-For-Reef and NP-Bacto-Balance combined. Since the trace element concentrations in both products are low and both products increase the consumption I expect no significant enrichtments or imbalances.

 

[Karliefish]

My tank is on the shine and dose Bacto and Elimi- NP depending on PO4 levels. In the colors book from Reefmonshine it addresses Cyano and using Bactria to eliminate it or actually replace it good for the bad. I also at one point had a Cyano out break and did use Chemiclean, then added carbon after gone and dosed very heavy Biodigest , MB7,and Zeo Back.

What size tank and did you find that dosing both MB7 and BioDigest help eliminate Cyno?

 

[Chris Spaulding]

What size tank and did you find that dosing both MB7 and BioDigest help eliminate Cyno?

The main tank SPS 170 gallons total volume no cyano have not had in well over a year knock on wood. I have a 75 g total volume Seahorse tank that I have had a a Very stubborn black cyano problem. I increased the dose of the PNS to 1 oz a day and maintained the weekly MB7 and BioDigest dosage and over about 4 weeks that cyano is all gone. All three tanks are on this bacteria combo and bactobalance

 

[Karliefish]

The main tank SPS 170 gallons total volume no cyano have not had in well over a year knock on wood. I have a 75 g total volume Seahorse tank that I have had a a Very stubborn black cyano problem. I increased the dose of the PNS to 1 oz a day and maintained the weekly MB7 and BioDigest dosage and over about 4 weeks that cyano is all gone. All three tanks are on this bacteria combo and bactobalance

Fascinating so you are dosing PNS (1oz) daily and then weekly does both MB7 and BioDigest together? Has using PNS dropped your PO4 or N? Or does Bacto balance keep it from lowering?

 

[Miguel.PT]

I am interested in adding in TM Bacto Balance but I also dose All For Reef daily. Will the trace elements in the bacto balance cause an imbalance of those elements when dosing AFR as well?

Have the exact same question.

 

[Lou Ekus]

Have the exact same question.

Not at ll. The small amount of trace elements in the NP BACTO Balance are there to offset trace element from the metabolism of the Balance. Continue to use the other traces you are adding.