Aquabella treatment

[Mgoc]

My test kit is only a few months old and I think the reason why it went through a cycle is that I originally had gravel for FW and I replaced it with live sand and the decorations were replaced by base and live rock in a short amount of time. Not even 3 months later I had to move it to a different room. So yeah it has been pretty difficult for my biofilter to establish.

On a different note; my new blue tang has ich and I started treatment last night. I hope it doesn't interfere with the aquabella treatment

 

[bigblue]

Hi Mgoc, thank you for letting me know you started this. Very much looking forward to your results.
Could you inform us about the water you used, and if tap how you treated it, type of substrate and depth, filtration system?
I have added recently soft corals and duncan, and just tested my water for nitrates (I don't bother testing for ammonia or nitrites), and i still have a perfect 0, almost 10 months and no water change! I top off with RO.
As for your problem with ich, hope you caught it in time. If you treat the water with a copper based solution, note that it might interfere with the pool of bacteria, copper is an antiseptic. I'd add the booster a week after you finish the ich treatment.
Good luck!

 

[bigblue]

Even in a pristine tank with no bacteria, plant life like macro algaes will consume ammonia breaking up the dangerous cycle spikes. Just like fully cured (and algae covered) live rock is supposed to do.

A tank without bacteria will never have allowed you to not change water.

 

[bigblue]

I will keep testing and updating this thread as often as possible and hopefully it will help somebody

Just curious, cause i am looking for another test kit that the API, which one are you using?

 

[bigblue]

but I had quite a bit of trouble with nitrates and waste that wasn't breaking down properly (...) but the products have been EXTREMELY helpful.

Most likely, you had a deficit of enzymes to start with. Happy to read the product was useful, that confirms bacterial solution can help in many regards.

 

[Eienna]

Most likely, you had a deficit of enzymes to start with. Happy to read the product was useful, that confirms bacterial solution can help in many regards.

Yup. Thought I mentioned that...must've derped XD

Unless you mean my 50g FW. That was a well-established tank that crashed (and crashed hard!) because I accidentally killed off my cycle bacteria.

 

[Mgoc]

Hi Mgoc, thank you for letting me know you started this. Very much looking forward to your results.
Could you inform us about the water you used, and if tap how you treated it, type of substrate and depth, filtration system?
I have added recently soft corals and duncan, and just tested my water for nitrates (I don't bother testing for ammonia or nitrites), and i still have a perfect 0, almost 10 months and no water change! I top off with RO.
As for your problem with ich, hope you caught it in time. If you treat the water with a copper based solution, note that it might interfere with the pool of bacteria, copper is an antiseptic. I'd add the booster a week after you finish the ich treatment.
Good luck!

Yeah man for sure!!! Glad to see you got the PM

I started using tap and treated it with your common dechlorinator but I switched to RO a couple months ago, I use aragonite live sand about 1 inch deep and for filtration nothing but an old marineland HOB filter.

About the ich, maybe I panicked cause this morning the white spots on my blenny and blue tang were gone (but last night the blenny was covered as if you had poured powder sugar all over him) but I still treated with kordon ich attack, I will test the water soon to see if it interfered with the aquabella at all.

 

[Mgoc]

Just curious, cause i am looking for another test kit that the API, which one are you using?

Same one. API

 

[Mgoc]

Most likely, you had a deficit of enzymes to start with. Happy to read the product was useful, that confirms bacterial solution can help in many regards.

I agree, when I was doing my research on how to setup a SW aquarium, everyone was talking about bacteria and seeding your tank with it and letting it establish and so on... It's funny to me that when you talk about adding bacteria that comes in the form of a commercial product, people say its completely unnecessary... Maybe they had lots of previous experience and did exactly what they were supposed to do but I am a newbie and this treatment could be a life saver for me.

 

[bigblue]

Yeah man for sure!!! Glad to see you got the PM

I started using tap and treated it with your common dechlorinator but I switched to RO a couple months ago, I use aragonite live sand about 1 inch deep and for filtration nothing but an old marineland HOB filter.

About the ich, maybe I panicked cause this morning the white spots on my blenny and blue tang were gone (but last night the blenny was covered as if you had poured powder sugar all over him) but I still treated with kordon ich attack, I will test the water soon to see if it interfered with the aquabella at all.

Well, good to know your fish look much better, and yes, definitely, keep treating your aquarium, you might had caught ich at its onset, which is always better than ...

From what i know, and i don't claim to know a lot, the deeper the bed, the more surface you'll have for bacteria to colonize in. mine has at least 3 inches. Most people think of bacterial activity happening in the filters, but the sand bed/ substrate is the real thing, especially if you start seeing hitchhikers, they help a lot.

 

[bigblue]

It's funny to me that when you talk about adding bacteria that comes in the form of a commercial product, people say its completely unnecessary... Maybe they had lots of previous experience and did exactly what they were supposed to do but I am a newbie and this treatment could be a life saver for me.

Well it takes a lot of hard work to get there ... In my day job, i work on sustainability projects for a large funding organization. Over the years, my mantra has become "look how nature does it" so i became fascinated with insects and microbes. Both play a pretty important role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem, so i wonder, why one would question bacterial supplements when it is right in front of your eyes? I mean we have 10x more bacterial cells than human cells on and in our body! Without them Earth will not even exist as we know it.
So yes, lots of companies have tried their luck at it and failed miserably. How many launches (and $$) did we try to get to the moon? Or implant a heart?
No, skepticism does not help. I am glad you are willing to try and share. I was not that hot to get back into the hobby, that product has made it much more enjoyable than i thought ... imagine not having to worry about your dog or cat's poops ... WOW!!! That would be something.

 

[glb]

Same one. API

I used API for years but after reading the forum I've decided to gradually upgrade to increase accuracy. I have Red Sea for calcium and magnesium. I just got a hanna checker for alk. I bought a digital ph monitor. I plan on buying a hanna checker for phosphates. When it's time to buy a nitrate test, I've read that Red Sea and salifert are good. I plan on buying a refractometer to measure salinity. Hope this helps!

 

[bigblue]

I used API for years but after reading the forum I've decided to gradually upgrade to increase accuracy. I have Red Sea for calcium and magnesium. I just got a hanna checker for alk. I bought a digital ph monitor. I plan on buying a hanna checker for phosphates. When it's time to buy a nitrate test, I've read that Red Sea and salifert are good. I plan on buying a refractometer to measure salinity. Hope this helps!

Yes, that would provide much better readings, if i may ask, how much did you spend?

 

[Mgoc]

Well, good to know your fish look much better, and yes, definitely, keep treating your aquarium, you might had caught ich at its onset, which is always better than ...

From what i know, and i don't claim to know a lot, the deeper the bed, the more surface you'll have for bacteria to colonize in. mine has at least 3 inches. Most people think of bacterial activity happening in the filters, but the sand bed/ substrate is the real thing, especially if you start seeing hitchhikers, they help a lot.

I will keep treating for sure, and about the sand bed, I have heard that a shallow sand bed is ok and so is a deep sand bed but somewhere in between shallow and deep is a recipe for trouble....

Maybe someone can help me understand what is acceptable and what not?

 

[Mgoc]

Well it takes a lot of hard work to get there ... In my day job, i work on sustainability projects for a large funding organization. Over the years, my mantra has become "look how nature does it" so i became fascinated with insects and microbes. Both play a pretty important role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem, so i wonder, why one would question bacterial supplements when it is right in front of your eyes? I mean we have 10x more bacterial cells than human cells on and in our body! Without them Earth will not even exist as we know it.
So yes, lots of companies have tried their luck at it and failed miserably. How many launches (and $$) did we try to get to the moon? Or implant a heart?
No, skepticism does not help. I am glad you are willing to try and share. I was not that hot to get back into the hobby, that product has made it much more enjoyable than i thought ... imagine not having to worry about your dog or cat's poops ... WOW!!! That would be something.

It sounds like you have a pretty cool job, I would like to do something like that in the near future...

And yes skepticism is not helping new products but at the same time, like I said in one of my previous posts, I dont think I would have treated my tank with aquabella if I had thousands of dollar worth of fish and coral, unless it was an emergency. You can loose on a lot of money, time and hard work in this hobby not to mention getting your heart broken if your tank crashes or something catastrophic happens to it and many people will never risk it with new products like this one which to be honest sounds "too good to be true"...

 

[bigblue]

Maybe someone can help me understand what is acceptable and what not?

Well, the reason for a deeper substrate is the anaerobic bacteria that will feed on the nitrates. The more surface, the more you'll host. From what i read about AquaBella, they also have facultative bacteria that would turn aerobic or anaerobic depending on the amount of food available. I can only imagine most will live in an oxygen rich environment, because it is the nature of most aquarium and also because of the food source. So i'd say help the anaerobic.

 

[bigblue]

It sounds like you have a pretty cool job, I would like to do something like that in the near future...

And yes skepticism is not helping new products but at the same time, like I said in one of my previous posts, I dont think I would have treated my tank with aquabella if I had thousands of dollar worth of fish and coral, unless it was an emergency. You can loose on a lot of money, time and hard work in this hobby not to mention getting your heart broken if your tank crashes or something catastrophic happens to it and many people will never risk it with new products like this one which to be honest sounds "too good to be true"...

I completely agree with you. If i had one like you're describing, i probably would have been super ultra cautious, but i would probably not have spent that much $$ anyways. But for my 10g, i said hey, it sounds pretty good to me. I know bacteria can do this, why wouldn't they in an aquarium. If it did not work, i would have probably gave my aquarium away to a school or something, and definitely not gotten a much bigger one.

Yes, it's a cool job, but very demanding as everyone is fighting to get funded.

 

[Mgoc]

Well, unfortunately I have bad news, I just tested the water in my QT after using ich attack and the levels are not good:

Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
PH: 8.1

Now I am kinda of frustated, because I don't even know why this happened, only a few days ago my levels were near perfect and now they are not, is it because of the ich attack stuff? or is it that this treatment doesn't work?

 

[Eienna]

If it's Kordon Ich Attack, it shouldn't hurt your cycle. I have used it in SW before.

How did you add the cycle bacteria? If it's by rock or sand you may be having some small-organism die-off, which could cause a spike in ammonia.

My advice to you would be to purchase a small bottle of Dr. Tim's One and Only (make sure you get the SW version) and put that in.

 

[Mgoc]

If it's Kordon Ich Attack, it shouldn't hurt your cycle. I have used it in SW before.

How did you add the cycle bacteria? If it's by rock or sand you may be having some small-organism die-off, which could cause a spike in ammonia.

My advice to you would be to purchase a small bottle of Dr. Tim's One and Only (make sure you get the SW version) and put that in.

I started the tank with live sand and base rock with only a couple of pieces of live rock but it was a gradual change from FW to SW so I dont think my tank had a chance to properly cycle. I also forgot to mention I had an situation with a bicolor blenny mot letting my cleaner wrasse find a good spot to go to sleep and I added a piece of rock from my 180, maybe that didnt help.

I might try dr. Tim's next since you insist but I also would like to give aquabella another chance.

Thanks for the advice