Bacteria in a bottle?

[Davy Jones]

Better pictures of my pretty growth.

Definitely cyano, I would do 30% waterchanges every other day for a week or so as well as dose some coral snow from KZ. And cut back on feedings, however your tank looks pretty new so its not uncommon to have cyano growth ina newer system

 

[Fishinwall]

Definitely cyano, I would do 30% waterchanges every other day for a week or so as well as dose some coral snow from KZ. And cut back on feedings, however your tank looks pretty new so its not uncommon to have cyano growth ina newer system

I suppose I could, but I am running Triton Method.

What exactly is the water changes removing?

 

[psirex]

I suppose I could, but I am running Triton Method.

What exactly is the water changes removing?

Nutrients (phos, nitrates, detritus)

Try lights out for a day or 2 (worked for me along with nutrient export)

 

[furam28]

I suppose I could, but I am running Triton Method.

What exactly is the water changes removing?

Triton method is a good option for large well-established tanks (200+) where water change is a pain and system is stable enough. In a tank your size, you will get too many problems with doing no water changes, and the buildup of organic waste can cause a crash in the long term. Triton detects only a handful of elements, not any organic molecules.

 

[Davy Jones]

Im getting a cup of sand from a local reefer and a small ball of chaeto and sump sludge to add to my tank tonight, also got zeobak in the mail yesterday from a friend so ill try that as well tonight. Hopefully things go well!

 

[imustbenuts]

I've tried a couple of things already to combat dinos, lights out and h2o2 dosing via a doser then a 40% waterchange (helped a little then they returned)


Stopped waterchanges and over fed, most successful at lowering amount of dinos however algea then takes over. And ironically waterchange and manual removal of a large amount of algea allowed the dinos to return.

I did daily 20% waterchanges in conjuction with over dosing h2o2 at night and this did nothing.

I have not gotten a uv sterilizer
I have not removed my sandbed
I have not elevated ph
I do overskim with an oversized skimmer
I do run filter socks
I run rox.8 carbon


My personal experience has been this: letting the tank get "dirty" caused a drastic reduction in the amount of dinos that grew every day, to the point where I felt comfortable ordering more coral. Before the new coral got here I did a large waterchange and removed probably 40% of the algea growing in the tank. This caused the dinos to return (they have never been to plague proportions, but they bother corals enough to have some tissue loss and it continues from there)

Tldr; tank gets dirty from feeding and no wc, algea grows, dinos dis spear, I clean tank and remove algea, dinos return.

My thoughts are removing the algea and cleaning the tank removes the competition for nutrients for the dinos and they start to bloom. So if I add 2 litres of pods, add some bottled bacteria every so often (maybe a couple strains) and maybe even add a small piece of live rock and cup of sand from an established tank I might be able to compete with it.

I am no scientist or expert, these are just my observations.

@Dirtrider225 so what bacteria did you decide on? I'm at the point of tearing down my system. I'm going to try the EC LLC micro bubbling with algae oust and bio load as a last resort. Then I'm done.

 

[Davy Jones]

@Dirtrider225 so what bacteria did you decide on? I'm at the point of tearing down my system. I'm going to try the EC LLC micro bubbling with algae oust and bio load as a last resort. Then I'm done.

I went with Zeobak and Biomate from KZ due to the fact that i had to make an order from BRS anyways and they did not stock dr tims. I also managed to get a small amount of sand from a local reefer that has had his tank set up for 8 years, so im hoping with the 2 im good to go.

Last night i did 2 drops of zeobak, with 5ml DIY coral snow. Then just for good measure i did 2ml red sea's nopox. Not that i think the bacteria need any food.. I will test p04 and no3 tonight and see if there was a large drop in nutrients with such a little amount added

One thing to consider that i never thought of, when dosing h2o2 at elevated levels you will wipe out your nitrifying bacteria if you do it for an extended period of time. Like i did. And my corals have been doing terrible recently and i couldnt pin it down to anything, i thought it was a swing in alk (not a large one but im sure it effected things!) but as it turns out it is the nitrates and ammonia! the added feedings finally got my nutrients above 0, which coincidentially caused the dinos to slow up to almost nothing. They do show up on the powerheads when i shut them off however they dissipear right away when they turn back on.
I also found out that my nitrates are about 30ppm and my ammonia is actually regestering at .1ppm. Cue the 20 gallon waterchanges coming up this weekend

Before giving up, and i know you will think im absolutely nuts.. Try raising no3 and po4. If you are at the point of giving up you have nothing to lose but a few extra pinches of fish food or mysis cubes. I personally believe it helped me. But keep in mind im as from from an expert as it comes lol

 

[brandon429]

h202 will never wipe out your filtration bacteria, even with gross overdoses.

that's the first tenet in reef peroxide dosing

peroxide on reef substrates is a poor sterilizer, undetectable sterilizing abilities (no tank has ever generated ammonia after a peroxide dose indicating bac loss)

peroxide on clean polished surfaces with no marine substrate characters bumps up to an inconsistent sterilizer, isn't even good at that point due to often limited contact times and percentages used (3% takes a long contact time required, often along with physical wiping or hand removal of bacteria loosened by application)

where it becomes handy is its bubbling and physical debriding abilities, depending on use. for algae and target zapping in the reef...it helps in some cases, not in others, but bacteria are not even in question the whole time (this allows for variances of use etc)

 

[Fishinwall]

Triton method is a good option for large well-established tanks (200+) where water change is a pain and system is stable enough. In a tank your size, you will get too many problems with doing no water changes, and the buildup of organic waste can cause a crash in the long term. Triton detects only a handful of elements, not any organic molecules.

I don't believe that is true.

 

[furam28]

I don't believe that is true.

Maybe this will help you understand: https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/175947/

 

[Fishinwall]

Maybe this will help you understand: https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/175947/

They are talking about Nano tanks with no refugium and probably no sump. I have both and to me the triton method helps to eliminate variables, hence more stability.

 

[imustbenuts]

I received the reef grow algae oust and bio load. I am using these products with micro bubbling at night. The bio load seems to be hydrogen peroxide but I'm not 100% sure. Unsure what the algae oust is. Fingers crossed

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I see your answer as this

You implied two different processes above from the same bottle, that has to be factored. The ability to cycle is not the same as competition against invaders. There are genetic based studies verifying the cycling bacteria we are able to ship around in water.


No form of dino control beats 20% efficacy...and using bottle bac against them is the same. it is harmless to try, if it doesn't work you didn't harm anything.

Contrast that against pH jacking, also reported a way to beat dinos. Owing to the 20% rule, as any large dino cure thread is mostly misses 80%, I never liked messing with critical tank params with the best likelihood of it not working (or threads would reverse outcomes, cure 80% of posters)

Each must have their own go at dinos. Given my research it would be
Massive tank cleaning, no dinos, hard work clean out.
Oversized uv sterilizer, gross oversize.
Blackout
Peroxide
Squirt some mb7 not a harm.

Those five are what I'd do. If it helps to know, and prevent, the sole cause of all dino tanks is purposefully importing them, even fish bring them across tanks. Anything traded is a vector. Quarantine is how you detect the DNA (manifests as aggregate community invasion) eradicate it, then use those items dino free. That's helpful to know because it reveals dino transmission among tanks as not haphazard, but purposefully done by the keeper. That rule also allows one to purposefully exclude them as well, quarantine works.

The best results currently seen are by using dino xal among retail dosers. I bet dinoxal is curing over 20% all threads considered. Also, 4/10 claimed Dino invasions sans pics are just cyano invasions caused entirely oppositely.

Plenty of people used mb7 to battle cyano and won. I feel it's legit, if bio counter attacks are the chosen mode. We're all trying for better odds.

I agree that folks should consider the goals when selecting bacteria. The nitrogen cycle bacteria are not the ones competing against cyano, dinos , etc.

That said, I do not have a specific preferred brand, but folks seem happy with MB7 for this purpose.

You could also just get some sludge from another tank or the ocean. I've added real ocean water I collected for just this purpose.

 

[smaddox]

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[Kungpaoshizi]

h202 will never wipe out your filtration bacteria, even with gross overdoses.

I don't believe this is true.. Peroxide is an indiscriminate cell-destroyer. If I pour a gallon in a 20 gallon tank, I'm 99% sure that everything will be wiped out, including nitrifying bacteria. I'm sure the exposure goes down as dilution occurs in larger tanks, but killing anything and everything is the goal of peroxide. In a clinical sense, it's meant for killing bacteria, I doubt the chemistry and biology changes much in our tanks, it's just less of an effect because we're not matching water 1:1.

 

[brandon429]

I enjoy all challenges to claims, people type crazy stuff online. here's my backup

1000 pages of peroxide working showing no param change associated with filtration bacteria. getting death on a glass slide doesn't xfer into death within the shrouds provided by marine substrates and co mingled communities among our nitrifiers, all layers of insulation for starters.

when we add 3% into a reef tank, its no longer 3% contacting targets like you mentioned.


if any assumptions about peroxide nonsafety were true for reefing, we'd be having lots of ammonia and nitrate readings jacked.


also, I tested peroxide extensively in a microbiology lab as employment...terrible sterilizer. excel beef processing labs, plainview texas in the 90s. we were going through chem after chem testing boot washes and cross contamination prevention. peroxide is terrible when any form of scums or insulation or dilution is involved. even 15% peroxide is terrible as a sterilizer on high surface area/scum settings. we are using 3% in most peroxide cases, then further diluting that after addition into decimal levels

cant wait for any formal reef article writer to instigate microbial actions of peroxide in the reef tank and factor in the work we've provided as rolling threads. that day hasn't come yet.

I want all claims made about peroxide safety analyzed and battled so harshly, that only a clean/safe/acceptable procedure will result. we should stop using it if the null claims pan out. If years keep progressing under the ammonia nitrite and nitrate consistencies we log, the safety claims might have to be accepted due to one mechanism or another.

 

[brandon429]

this is a neat way to envision the mechanics of peroxide in a reef tank regarding bac impact in my opinion:

the bottle of peroxide says its an antimicrobial, agreed. no conditions listed for ability to sterilize such that measurable bac metabolites in an aquatic system will change.... what are the conditions required if any to get any form of measurable bac loss? We can't even generate them in gross peroxide overdose threads.

a 10 day prescription course of antibiotics is also an antimicrobial, its conditions are take twice a day for 10 days or you get incomplete or no kill of target.


Agreed that peroxide doesn't target when dosed into water, all life gets hit and the metabolically intolerant succumb first. We find the first susceptibles to be algae and bacteria not at all, amazingly. This is another polar opposite finding per application vs claims made by reefing communities before the test run

The first was pico reefs in general. All pico reefs were not possible, or plumbing tricks at least, depending which decade we inquire. Allelopathy was supposed to be the limiter

 

[imustbenuts]

I agree that folks should consider the goals when selecting bacteria. The nitrogen cycle bacteria are not the ones competing against cyano, dinos , etc.

That said, I do not have a specific preferred brand, but folks seem happy with MB7 for this purpose.

You could also just get some sludge from another tank or the ocean. I've added real ocean water I collected for just this purpose.

Hey Randy,

I live in San Diego and have access to filtered ocean water at Sripps. The NSW hasn't helped at all with my Dino's.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hey Randy,

I live in San Diego and have access to filtered ocean water at Sripps. The NSW hasn't helped at all with my Dino's.

Dinos can be a real pain. Maybe hydrogen peroxide can help.

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

Debating how "safe" peroxide is in the tank could go on for some time. The first mistake I see people do though, is using the brown bottle peroxide, which has stabilizers, many of which are toxic. (period)

All I was merely stating is that it's impossible to say "nitrifying bacteria are not affected".

I myself have used it in my tank, but I sure prefer to use it outside of the tank. Good talk though!