What bacteria do you use to cycle your aquarium?

[PizzaIan339]

I am looking for a good bacteria to use to cycle my tank. I want to make sure that the tank starts out on the right foot. What bacteria do you use?

 

[Dom]

I use a piece of seed rock from another established tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Not all Cycling Bacteria are created equal. Who's who, and what do they need?

My hypothesis is that there are very different types of Bacteria that are being used to "cycle" tanks to prevent ammonia accumulation, and it's not entirely clear which products contain which group, and it's also poorly understood what the requirements are for one of these groups to do their...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Kyan]

I always use this.

 

[bushdoc]

Live rock from other tank or sea/ aqua-cultured rock

 

[BanZI29]

I used Mincrobacter 7 from brightwell and Microb-lift nite out. it worked really well

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

MB& is a poor choice, according to taricha's studies:

"The negative controls of "sterilized" and Tank water did precisely nothing to ammonia over the 33 days, and MB7 and PNS substrate sauce looked like the do-nothings."

"I'm a bit surprised at the number of people in threads who use MB7 as cycling bacteria (BRS apparently promoted it for that purpose in videos?), but I'm confident it's one of the heterotroph types, and so addition of food later should be much more illuminating."

@taricha

 

[gbroadbridge]

I am looking for a good bacteria to use to cycle my tank. I want to make sure that the tank starts out on the right foot. What bacteria do you use?

I just drop a couple of pellets of food in the tank and let the bacteria present in the air find the food and cycle the tank.

Takes 4-6 weeks.

 

[Wrassenaround]

I used Fritz's Turbo Start, it allowed me to immediately transfer my livestock from my other tank and essentially "skip" the cycle process.
It worked wonders for me and I never had any worries about my cycle or having an ammonia spike.

 

[Uncle99]

All good, better if you use more than one for diversity, not all the same.

 

[RichReef]

IO Bio Spria has never failed me. I had to set up an emergency tank once and the LFS handed me that.

Been using it ever since. Even on my latest build.

To be honest over the first month I use a little of them all.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have great luck with Pohl's bacteria and Micro Bacter XLM

 

[EricR]

I knew nothing when I started (and not too much now) but:
I never even purposely added nitrifying bacteria.
Cycle happened anyway and completed around 1-1.5 months.

*I wonder if proximity to the real ocean comes into play here at all

 

[Pickle_soup]

I am looking for a good bacteria to use to cycle my tank. I want to make sure that the tank starts out on the right foot. What bacteria do you use?

Seachem Stability, but I am bias towards them.

 

[schooncw]

Add some re

I am looking for a good bacteria to use to cycle my tank. I want to make sure that the tank starts out on the right foot. What bacteria do you use?

no substitute for real live rock

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I always use this.

Same exact one I used for my tank

 

[JohnNYC8]

I am looking for a good bacteria to use to cycle my tank. I want to make sure that the tank starts out on the right foot. What bacteria do you use?

Fritz's Turbo Start

 

[brandon429]

by day 15 after dosing, what difference does it make what kind of bacteria anyone uses

long game is post day fifteen: fish disease. what bacteria a reef uses to start has 0% impact on that reef's life arc/trajectory in the long game I think all the relays of best practice should be centered around fish disease.

current standard of cycling in reefing: all the bottle bac carry a light fish load day 1 if we want them to, a couple clowns isn't 2 ppm workload and any decent bottle pulls it off we see in searches, the thing never discussed is disease preps as the real hidden need for the system

result-note how busy the disease forum is today/ we are causing a throughput belt in reefing that leads right to dead fish in a bucket. the cycle is given without much effort, all sampling and study and prep need to be around fish disease prevention steps. a new cycling article should state as much, to free up people from the concern of which bac to use. the cycle part is the .01% concern. the market is designed to make it seem like the choice matters.

even the longest most prepared cycle has nothing to do with disease prevention, cycling is about simply carrying bioload ammonia and not allowing a tipping point for the system. that can come quickly nowadays, for cost, by any of the brands.
see latest studies in the research forum.

the steps for real true disease prep are detailed, arduous, and way more dedicated than the average tanker will agree to, its far harder than selecting just a brand

 

[exnisstech]

I used bottled bacteria for the first time on my last tank. I used fritz start 900 and it worked great. I did add a container of rock rubble from one of my established sumps also so I'm sure that helped.
I've also been adding a small amount microbactor 7 and bacto balance daily for a few months and my uglies have been very minimal.

 

[oldbob50]

Live rock and substrate from an established and healthy tank. This gives you a lot more bio diversity than just cycling bacteria.