Should I use any 'good bacteria' when I use Elimi-NP?

[reefluvrr]

Hi @Lou Ekus and @Hans-Werner,

I have made the mistake of using too much blend of carbon dosing with Vinegar and Vodka in trying to reduce my phosphate since early February 2020. Everything started when I had flat worm infestation in my office 60 gallon reef tank. I used Flat worm exit at recommended dose and when I arrived back to work the next day, my tank crashed (many fishes died, shrimps, I think I also saw reduced levels of amphipods and copepods) likely due to the toxins from the death of the flat worms.

I saw a spike in my PO4 levels to 0.45 (Hanna ULR) and over 16ppm NO3.

I tried using a commercially available blend of Vinegar and Vodka(without mentioning brand name) to reduce my PO4 levels. My NO3 levels reduced to about 2ppm but PO4 levels were still over 0.3.

I increased my carbon dosing levels slowly from 2x, then 3x, then 4x levels over the course of 1 month period. I was happy when my PO4 levels dropped to 0.08. (I had to dose NO3 during this time period as well--this is before I found out recently that Hans does not like dosing NO3!)

This is when I started to notice maybe my corals were not really getting their needed PO4. SPS skin looked dried, LPS polyps retracted and died. (I have a Hana calibration check kit for my Hana ULR PO4 tester, and I sent out for triton lab analysis in the past) My Hana tested either half as much or double what Triton has reported in their PO4 test...

After listening to ReefDudes:
Carbon Dosing your Reef tank with Lou Ekus form Tropic Marin

I believe I have used too much carbon and overfed the bad bacteria that have affected my corals as well.

Sorry for the long story....

Currently I am at 0.15 to 0.2 PO4 and about 1-2 ppm NO3. I am only carbon dosing 1ml/day. Yet my old corals still looks unhappy. I since added new test LPS and SPS. The LPS are still about 70% polyped out, but SPS polyps looks retracted.
No GFO but using a protein skimmer. I have green and brown algae on my glass which I clean daily.

I would like to use Elimi-NP to help target the good bacteria in bringing my PO4 levels down to 0.08.

Could I use something like Zeobak, Dr. Tim's waste away, Microbacter7, etc to help promote good bacteria with Elimi-NP?

Thank you very much for your time and any advise is greatly appreciated! It has been 4 month of hell for my tank.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Hi,
I recommend to keep your dosing regime always simple. With too much products you quickly loose track of the effects.
Since some bacteria products are laden with high concentrations of nutrients I rather recommend a prebiotic like our Tropic Marin Reef Actif for supporting the growth of good bacteria.

 

[reefluvrr]

I rather recommend a prebiotic like our Tropic Marin Reef Actif for supporting the growth of good bacteria.

Thank you very much for your reply.

As a scenario, what if you believe you have more bad bacteria than good in your reef tank. What would you still recommend?

 

[Hans-Werner]

I think that most "bad bacteria" rely on simple organic substances like acetate and ethanol. These substances can be metabolized directly and very quickly and support rapid growth of opportunistic "rotting" bacteria.

We know especially from digestive tracts, also of fish, that complex polymeric substances, we usually call dietary fiber, support a more specific set of beneficial mutualistic bacteria. Only these bacteria have the enzymatic tools to cut the fiber to digestable pieces. These more slowly growing bacteria use antibiotics to compete with the "bad bacteria" and keep them in check.

As far as I know, and I may not be right, bacteria preparations have only a small set of beneficial bacteria in the sense I have just stated. In my opinion in this situation it makes more sense to support the growth of the beneficial bacteria present in and adapted to the tank with prebiotics than adding a few bacteria strains that may be badly adapted and maybe don't survive or grow in the tank.

 

[reefluvrr]

I think that most "bad bacteria" rely on simple organic substances like acetate and ethanol. These substances can be metabolized directly and very quickly and support rapid growth of opportunistic "rotting" bacteria.

Hans, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with me. Can you help me further understand what "bad" and "rotting" bacteria does in our tank.

Does the bad/rotting bacteria cause in some way or another coral polyps from not opening, kill/harm the coral ?
How does the bad bacteria harm our coral bacteria/zooxanthellae population in the coral?

I think from what Lou Ekus said, good bacteria is what our corals can uptake and utilize PO4 thus making them 'happy' and polyped out and grow?

Can I also feed my fish more to help establish good bacteria too?

 

[Hans-Werner]

"Bad" bacteria are opportunistic bacteria that show rapid growth and high oxygen consumption if they get the right food. The oxygen consumption allone may have adverse effects on fish and corals, but some of the opportunistic bacteria may even attack fish and corals directly. Some fish diseases like fin rot are known to be connected to bad water conditions and are caused by such opportunistic bacteria. Also coral diseases are caused by such opportunistic bacteria which are present everywhere but only in moderate numbers because they are limited by easily degradable food.

When water quality deteriorates, which simply means more food is available to the opportunistic bacteria (biochemical oxygen demand BOD rises), cfu (bacterial count) rises and oxygen saturation decreases, "bad" opportunistic bacteria may get pathogenic and destroy corals and kill fish.

 

[reefluvrr]

Also coral diseases are caused by such opportunistic bacteria which are present everywhere but only in moderate numbers because they are limited by easily degradable food.

Thank you for your explanation to help me understand the bigger picture.

I have received my Elimi-NP today and will start dosing today.

I actually stopped carbon dosing 3 days ago and since GFO have been offline since 5 days.

My PO4 spiked up from around 0.15-0.2 to over 0.6 now!

I plan to the instructions on using Elimi-NP, but how long will it typically take using the product before I see a reduction in PO4 back to 0.1 or below?

Thank you!

 

[Hans-Werner]

This is difficult to say. Definitely, carbon dosing has its limitations. If 0.6 ppm is not only caused by the changes but by the continuous food supply, I doubt that carbon dosing with Elimi-NP alone will lower phosphate concentrations sufficiently.

With high nutrient concentrations I recommend, to enrich the fish food with fish oil products like Lipovit or Lipo-Garlic. This will improve feed conversion and is a kind of organic carbon dosing for the fish. The positive side effect is that fish are more vital and robust against bacterial infections.

 

[reefluvrr]

I recommend, to enrich the fish food with fish oil products like Lipovit or Lipo-Garlic. This will improve feed conversion and is a kind of organic carbon dosing for the fish

Once more, I am very thankful about you sharing your experience and expertise. I never would have thought about 'thinking outside the box' carbon like dosing for fish.

I agree that my PO4 at 0.6 appears rather high from two days ago. Oddly, yesterday evening and this morning my PO4 went back down to 0.25 and 0.26.

I have started dosing Elimi-NP on apex DOS system.

Hopefully I will be able to report back to you the good news!

Have a great weekend and once again, I cannot thank you enough for your time and knowledge!

 

[haitian_reefer]

any update? I took my media reactor to start dosing elimi-np

 

[Jesse571]

Hi @Lou Ekus and @Hans-Werner,

I have made the mistake of using too much blend of carbon dosing with Vinegar and Vodka in trying to reduce my phosphate since early February 2020. Everything started when I had flat worm infestation in my office 60 gallon reef tank. I used Flat worm exit at recommended dose and when I arrived back to work the next day, my tank crashed (many fishes died, shrimps, I think I also saw reduced levels of amphipods and copepods) likely due to the toxins from the death of the flat worms.

I saw a spike in my PO4 levels to 0.45 (Hanna ULR) and over 16ppm NO3.

I tried using a commercially available blend of Vinegar and Vodka(without mentioning brand name) to reduce my PO4 levels. My NO3 levels reduced to about 2ppm but PO4 levels were still over 0.3.

I increased my carbon dosing levels slowly from 2x, then 3x, then 4x levels over the course of 1 month period. I was happy when my PO4 levels dropped to 0.08. (I had to dose NO3 during this time period as well--this is before I found out recently that Hans does not like dosing NO3!)

This is when I started to notice maybe my corals were not really getting their needed PO4. SPS skin looked dried, LPS polyps retracted and died. (I have a Hana calibration check kit for my Hana ULR PO4 tester, and I sent out for triton lab analysis in the past) My Hana tested either half as much or double what Triton has reported in their PO4 test...

After listening to ReefDudes:
Carbon Dosing your Reef tank with Lou Ekus form Tropic Marin

I believe I have used too much carbon and overfed the bad bacteria that have affected my corals as well.

Sorry for the long story....

Currently I am at 0.15 to 0.2 PO4 and about 1-2 ppm NO3. I am only carbon dosing 1ml/day. Yet my old corals still looks unhappy. I since added new test LPS and SPS. The LPS are still about 70% polyped out, but SPS polyps looks retracted.
No GFO but using a protein skimmer. I have green and brown algae on my glass which I clean daily.

I would like to use Elimi-NP to help target the good bacteria in bringing my PO4 levels down to 0.08.

Could I use something like Zeobak, Dr. Tim's waste away, Microbacter7, etc to help promote good bacteria with Elimi-NP?

Thank you very much for your time and any advise is greatly appreciated! It has been 4 month of hell for my tank.

I had the same problem and was able to get it under control by using NP-BACTO-BALANCE. My phosphate stays at 0.03 and my nitrates at 3-5ppm. This was AFTER using ELIMI-NP to get it down to these numbers. Now I just use the NP-BACTO-BALANCE to keep it there.