Cycling first tank with Microbacter 7. What to expect?

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kilnakorr

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it’s just the way the test is designed to work, the test reduces the nitrates into nitrite, so if there is already nitrites in the water, those will be counted as nitrates.
My nitrite test is near expiration date, so not trusting it really. But anyway, it's not important at this step.
My ammonia today is 0. Bright yellow! No green hue at all.
20210113_094001.jpg

I'll redose ammonia to roughly 1ppm and check again tomorrow.
 
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kilnakorr

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It seems my tank still needs some time before it's ready for livestock.
A 24 hr test of roughly 1ppm ammonia.
Before and after:
20210114_094124.jpg


Less green for sue, but far from yellow.
 
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kilnakorr

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Another day, another test.
Seems like there's a long way to go. 1ppm has not converted in 48 hrs:
20210115_101253.jpg

It does change color, but slooooowly.
 

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Slow conversion would seem to imply that your surface area to water volume ratio is very low. You got a picture of tank?
 
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Slow conversion would seem to imply that your surface area to water volume ratio is very low. You got a picture of tank?
You think oxygen issue?
tank is 130x55 cm so 7150cm2 ( 1100 square inches, tank is 92 gl). It is a little taller and less deep than a 'standard' tank.
Open top, also on sump.
You can see surface here (I have much more surface agitation than picture shows)
20201229_141451.jpg
 

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Rock, sand surface area compared to water bud. On day 24/25 you should be about done by now. You got any other filtration active?
 
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Rock, sand surface area compared to water bud. On day 24/25 you should be about done by now. You got any other filtration active?
Wow, I wonder if you got a bad bottle of Microbacter
To sum up.

I followed direction for mb7, for 12 days.
Tank was cloudy, and glas, bottom of sump got pretty slimy. No difference in ammonia levels at all.
I scrubbed down the DT walls, and sump. Added filterfloss and ran all retun water through UV. This cleared up my tank perfectly in in 24-48hrs.
I just installed a filter roller today (by pass is fully open, after dosing dr. tims), and both skimmer and UV are turned of.
Skimmer have never pulled out anything.

So the mb7 hasn't shown any signs of being effective in breaking down ammonia.
 

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Hi

I'm on day 12 cycling with microbacter 7. Not the best or fastest bottled bacteria, but what I could get at the time (bottled bacteria isn't a thing here, so everything must be ordered internationally).
I started with some rinsed frozen food, and after finding out my ammonia test wasn't working I pulled the frozen food out (after 5 days). Some escaped into the tank.
Xmas, new year and covid19 hasn't made it easier to get a new ammonia test kit, but have tested nitrite and nitrate and both looks like zero.
So...I 'hear' a lot about not testing and just follow directions on the bac bottle and you can consider the tanked 'cycled'. I can't really see myself adding anything living to a tank, that so far hasn't shown any signs of being able to process ammonia.

Ideas?
I hope you know that Microbacter 7 is for reducing nitrates and phosphates right? Its not a good product to start cycling because its not suppose to do it its works very slowly for cycling. If you want to cycle the tank then you should use Microbacter start XLM it reduces ammonia and nitrite.
 
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kilnakorr

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I hope you know that Microbacter 7 is for reducing nitrates and phosphates right? Its not a good product to start cycling because its not suppose to do it its works very slowly for cycling. If you want to cycle the tank then you should use Microbacter start XLM it reduces ammonia and nitrite.
I found that out a bit later on.
It was the only thing available at the time, and after reading reviews (and that BRS having it as a part of a cycling video) I tried it.
I do agree it doesn't seem to break down, ammonia, but could break down other organics compounds.
 

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I found that out a bit later on.
It was the only thing available at the time, and after reading reviews (and that BRS having it as a part of a cycling video) I tried it.
I do agree it doesn't seem to break down, ammonia, but could break down other organics compounds.
Because the denitrification process takes time to establish it takes a bit long time to see the effect of MB7 but once established its a very efficient way to reduce nutrients. I am cycling a 220G tank for my current build and used MB-XLM along with Dr Tims one and only. I also added some MB7 because I wanted a wide variety of bacterial population in the tank. After 4 days my ammonia is going down and I have nitrate as well as nitrite.
 
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Because the denitrification process takes time to establish it takes a bit long time to see the effect of MB7 but once established its a very efficient way to reduce nutrients. I am cycling a 220G tank for my current build and used MB-XLM along with Dr Tims one and only. I also added some MB7 because I wanted a wide variety of bacterial population in the tank. After 4 days my ammonia is going down and I have nitrate as well as nitrite.
I haven't seen much nitrite, but do have nitrate.
I cannot tell how much ammonia has been processed, as I started with 'ghost feeding'.
Tank has processed a 2ppm dose ammonia chloride.
I could very well have had very little ammonia the first couple of weeks.
 
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kilnakorr

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I like the look of that test kit, seems to be accurate and the colours seem very easy to match, unlike some I could mention but no names...Salifert!
I see what you mean. Just tried the salifert test:
20210116_105648.jpg

Seems to show 0.

my tetra:
20210116_100023.jpg

Just below 0.25 - but easy to see it's not yellow=0.
 

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I see what you mean. Just tried the salifert test:
20210116_105648.jpg

Seems to show 0.

my tetra:
20210116_100023.jpg

Just below 0.25 - but easy to see it's not yellow=0.

Good illustration, I’m surprised a company like Salifert puts out such a bad test when their other products are generally very good.
 
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Good illustration, I’m surprised a company like Salifert puts out such a bad test when their other products are generally very good.
It seems very misleading.
I think I'll make some know concentrations and test how it matches in color. It might be accurate at higher concentrations.
For now, I'll use the tetra test
 
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I'm amazed of the slow progress.
It seems the convertion rate isn't speeding up much. This if 4 days change ( jan. 13-17):
20210117_104319.jpg

So, still looks like it's close to a week to convert 1 ppm ammonia. :(
 

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