Seems im rehashing old threads today, and this one was very interesting. I’d be curious what people’s thoughts are now 3 months (or more) later?
why is the recommended dosing of these products so different? Aren’t they all basically just the PNSB and wouldn’t they be dosed similarly?
My thing is that many of us run uv, and some also run ozone, so if you need to disable uv and ozone for 24-48 hours after dosing, how can you dose daily as I think hydrospace recommends. And if daily dosing is required, who can afford it unless you are running a nano tank? I think @spicymikey confirmed he was adding 200 ml per day. Thats almost 2 gallons a month for a product thats $150 a gallon. I think someone else in this thread suggested that hydrospace needed to revisit their dosing instructions. Unless they really mean for their product to be effective requires daily dosing at these levels. But I can’t imagine they would expect a $300 per month outlay to dose their product effectively.
Brightwell seems to recommend weekly dosing (or more if desired), but it seems not many people were praising their version of Pnsb.
Microbelift special blend was almost impossible to find their dosing instructions as their website said to check the label, so that means if I wanted to know how I might have to dose, I have to buy the product 1st.1/2 joking, but it was way too hard to find their recommended dosing. I finally found a post on a forum with a picture of their label. Can someone please confirm if this is in fact their dosing recommendation
Splash of which, mb purple, pns pro bio, or the Microbelift special blend?
It does reduce nitrates if dosed high but I ended up throwing my bottle away.Seems im rehashing old threads today, and this one was very interesting. I’d be curious what people’s thoughts are now 3 months (or more) later?
why is the recommended dosing of these products so different? Aren’t they all basically just the PNSB and wouldn’t they be dosed similarly?
My thing is that many of us run uv, and some also run ozone, so if you need to disable uv and ozone for 24-48 hours after dosing, how can you dose daily as I think hydrospace recommends. And if daily dosing is required, who can afford it unless you are running a nano tank? I think @spicymikey confirmed he was adding 200 ml per day. Thats almost 2 gallons a month for a product thats $150 a gallon. I think someone else in this thread suggested that hydrospace needed to revisit their dosing instructions. Unless they really mean for their product to be effective requires daily dosing at these levels. But I can’t imagine they would expect a $300 per month outlay to dose their product effectively.
Brightwell seems to recommend weekly dosing (or more if desired), but it seems not many people were praising their version of Pnsb.
Microbelift special blend was almost impossible to find their dosing instructions as their website said to check the label, so that means if I wanted to know how I might have to dose, I have to buy the product 1st.
Microbelift Special Blend. This is my fav amongst the products I have tried (Microbacter, Dr. Tim’s, one of the German companies I can’t remember the name of). I have spent literally hundreds of dollars on bottled bacteria and Microbelife is the only one I would recommend. I don’t dose it often. I only use it to add some bacteria when setting up a medicated quarantine tank or when Dino’s appear in my display tank and I go through Dino fighting protocol.
Would you say of the three, that this is your preferred? After reading this entire thread, I saw you did quite a bit of research on all 3 and while I didn’t see you list a favorite, it seemed to me at least that you maybe preferred the special blend over the pns pro bio on a cost per use perspective but maybe thought the pns was more “concentrated”. Again, I don’t recall you saying that exactly , it’s just what I read into it. But I know assumptions can be totally off base, so wanted to ask you directly.That's the old bottle. This is the currently shipping bottle of Special Blend.
There are no public studies proving the value of PNSB in a reef tank, and that may be why you don’t see dosing volume alignment. I’d be shocked if the recommended doses are more than how to sell more bottles.
Correct me if I’m wrong but tried to buy some on BRS and they had none available. Spoke with my LSF and they said Brightwell has stoped production because the shelf life of the product was too short. It’s a specific live bacteria that begins to die off after a few days of being bottled.
I wish I had saved the video because I can’t find it now, but I swear I saw a video re Brightwell purple and they mentioned something about there being. New version coming soon, so I think what yiu are saying is probably right. It would make sense.
As I mentioned, from my testing the Microbacter Purple was ineffective. Seemed to have some sort of coloring in the water. Hydrospace is the real deal from my experiments. I use it daily. I've tried different doses but find 50ml per day for 400gal with Ozone running 4 hrs overnight works well. 100ml is better. After more testing I found the 200ml (more in line with Hydrospace recommendations) was not improving coral health or reducing PO4 any more than 100ml.Seems im rehashing old threads today, and this one was very interesting. I’d be curious what people’s thoughts are now 3 months (or more) later?
why is the recommended dosing of these products so different? Aren’t they all basically just the PNSB and wouldn’t they be dosed similarly?
My thing is that many of us run uv, and some also run ozone, so if you need to disable uv and ozone for 24-48 hours after dosing, how can you dose daily as I think hydrospace recommends. And if daily dosing is required, who can afford it unless you are running a nano tank? I think @spicymikey confirmed he was adding 200 ml per day. Thats almost 2 gallons a month for a product thats $150 a gallon. I think someone else in this thread suggested that hydrospace needed to revisit their dosing instructions. Unless they really mean for their product to be effective requires daily dosing at these levels. But I can’t imagine they would expect a $300 per month outlay to dose their product effectively.
Brightwell seems to recommend weekly dosing (or more if desired), but it seems not many people were praising their version of Pnsb.
Microbelift special blend was almost impossible to find their dosing instructions as their website said to check the label, so that means if I wanted to know how I might have to dose, I have to buy the product 1st.
The PNS bacteria likes to colonize on the rocks and create anaerobic zones. Dose it in the morning, run UV and Ozone in the overnight hours. Most of the PNSB will be fine. You will just be knocking back the Heterotrophs that prefer the water column, like Vibrio. Its actually a win-win and a good strategy to follow
Yea that's just not true what your LFS said about Brightwell. They probably heard that from someone else who heard it from someone else, etc. The bacteria will not "die" in a bottle after a few days. It would just go dormant. Some bacteria can go on for years , decades, and even millennia , in a dormant state . Admittedly some others are less resilient. From what I understand pnsb bacteria is less resilient than something like bacillus but it can still survive for months in a bottle without nutrients . Certainly should be long enough to package and ship a product . Let's remember Bacteria are single cell organisms that have existed on earth for 3 billion years. They don't need to "breath". They don't need to "eat". They breakdown molecules (of various types) to generate energy to divide and create new copies of themselves. If they cannot breakdown their preferred molecules for energy, they can just go dormant and wait. There must be another reason they stopped production.
Do you have evidence of this occurring in reef tanks?
What kind of evidence? Like scraping film off the rocks and having it analyzed? No, I do not. Sorry @telegraham .
I ask because the assumption is that the PNSB sold to the hobby actually survives in 35 ppt long enough to do anything. Based on my own testing, the viability of the bacteria is greatly diminished after only 30 minutes of exposure to the salinity we hobbyists maintain.What kind of evidence? Like scraping film off the rocks and having it analyzed? No, I do not. Sorry @telegraham .
I'm only making the statement based on the documented normal behavior of these PNS bacteria, and my observation of significantly more gas-off from the rocks and substrate. They say this bacteria's biofilm is purplish. Maybe I see that a bit but if so, it's not dramatic. Can't say with certainty. Also hard to tell with coralline algae in so many locations. They prefer anerobic conditions to metabolize thus the reason for colonizing on surfaces rather than free swimming in the water column. Here's a pretty good explanation of these bacteria. Hope this is helpful. Credit to Grok.
