First time dosing MicroBacter Clean | How potent is it?

Reefahholic · Aug 13, 2022

Just wondering if anybody here can give me some opinions on dosing MB Clean. I’ve been dosing Dr Tim’s Waste Away and I’m assuming the MB Clean is also similar (Heterotrophic bacteria), but is it as potent as Waste Away.? I’ve literally seen people nuke their reefs with Waste Away, because they didn’t follow the directions on the bottle. It’s very concentrated and potent especially if a system hasn’t seen it before.

Just curious what a safe starting dose of MB Clean would be for a 100/G system for those of you who have been playing with this product and any suggestions you have or observations seen in the system.

It says add 20 mL (4 cap fulls) per 25 gallons for “Normal dosing.”

Or 30 mL’s (6 cap fulls) per 25 gallons for “Problem Aquariums” or to rapidly accelerate cleaning.

Let me know!

shakacuz · Aug 13, 2022

following along… i actually have been dosing MBclean for about a week now but i’ve been under dosing for a 40B(roughly 50g volume). one day the cyano goes away, another it comes back. hopefully in a couple weeks it clears up as the bottle states the bacteria works slow. might bump the temp in the tank to aid in the process..

jhuntstl · Aug 13, 2022

I've been using it about 2 1/2 months. I dose the recommended normal amount and have not seen any adverse effects.

It's hard to give any real feedback though. Maybe 6 weeks after I started using it, I treated the tank with fluconazole. This took care of my bryosis issue and the little bit of GHA I had. My rocks are very clean now. Maybe the clean is keeping it that way?

Reefahholic · Aug 13, 2022

I’m thinking for taking the normal recommended dose and doing 1/2 to observe how it affects nutrients, pH, etc.

I find MB7 to be more mild and fairly safe. I’m hoping this is the same.

One thing for sure is that Dr. Tim’s Waste Away definitely works. You just need take it slow especially initially. The first time I dosed it I noticed a strange sound coming from the reef early that morning. It completely opened up the overflow box and pipes. So no doubt it’s working. Will it completely obliterate your algae and clean the tank. Not really, but it does definitely help. I’ve dosed it a few times where the system was just getting funky. Too much organics and skimmer needed to be cleaned. The bacteria basically brought the system back into balance.

I like trying different products so I can help others. Can’t help if you have no experience.

map2022 · Aug 23, 2022

I’ve been dosing the recommended amount of Microbacter Clean for a couple weeks to try to supress a few hard-to-reach patches of green hair algae. It seems like it stopped the GHA growth.

But, I noticed a few dinoflagellates on the sand bed yesterday, checked nitrate and phosphate, and both were at zero. Unfortunately, I didn’t check NO3 and PO4 before starting MB Clean, so I don’t know if it was the GHA or the MB Clean that took them to zero. But I’m just curious if anyone else observed double zeros while using MB Clean?

(Also, the dinos are minimal and I’m not worried about them yet. I probably won’t stop the MB Clean at this point, but I will be monitoring NO3 and PO4 and dosing as needed to stay above zero.)