bottled bacteria

Susan Edwards

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 28, 2016
Messages
5,462
Reaction score
7,003
Location
Tracy, California
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Come Oct 6th if all goes as planned, I'll be starting up a 240 g RS reefer 3xl900. Of course, with rock, sand and room in the sump it won't be that much water volume, but I'm trying to figure out how much bottle bacteria to add. I will have new live sand (don't have to rinse), mostly new rock with some current rock with corals on them, and will add a few pieces to the sump. I know there are some people who say I don't need to add anything else but as I'll be xfering my fish right away I don't mind wasting the $$ on the bottles just in case.

I have:
Biospira-up to 75g
Fritz-up to 20g
Dr. Tims-up to 120 gal.

Is this enough. I also keep on hand prime and stability. I also need to keep UV's and skimmers off? Right now I'm not sure how my UV's will be plumbed. I think to the 2 returns so I think I just unplug them (lfs doing the plumbing). How important is it to turn off skimmer and uv's to add thte bacteria. Never had uv's before.
 

blaxsun

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 15, 2020
Messages
26,709
Reaction score
31,131
Location
The Abyss
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I used enough Bio-Spira for 200-gallons and whatever MicroBacter7 I had left and that did the trick for me (fish were migrated across in 24 hours without incident).

Like you, I’d also been curing rock separately for roughly a month or so prior - and moved over all of my existing rock - so it probably wasn’t needed, but I wanted to err on the side of caution.

Yes, you turn the UV and protein skimmer off for the first 48 hours after adding the bacteria. Because you’re adding it directly to the water column, the UV and protein skimmer will zap it before it has a chance to populate the new rock, substrate, sides of the tank, etc.
 
Back
Top