Beneficial Bacteria?

NanaReefer · Dec 21, 2016

How can I tell whether or not I've got enough? Would there be specific signs of to little besides nitrites & ammonia?
Tank is 2+ years old. I only have 3 small fish, total water volume about 52g. LR about 30lbs.

CodyRVA · Dec 21, 2016

If your tank is 2 years old, you have plenty, but the amount is relative. If the system is new, you can gauge if it has cycled by adding an ammonia source and testing accordingly. With an established system with fish, I imagine the main concern is likely the bio load. With your current bacteria population, can you add a larger fish without having issues, IE diatoms, algae, etc? There are a number of ways to increase your bio load to build up the population, in preparation for introducing new livestock.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 22, 2016

If you do not have detectable ammonia, then there's no benefit from more nitrifying bacteria. There may be other types that could be useful, like deniftrifiers.

BlueCursor · Dec 23, 2016

BACTERIA DIVERSITY:

I have been playing with this concept recently. I used to keep ULNS for my SPS. Why, because I read that I was supposed to do it. Turns out not such a good idea so I backed off the carbon dosing and let NO3 and PO4 come up some. Then I got lazy and let NO3 climb too much and got some brown in my SPS (ok, a lot of brown).

That was when I started adding a little more carbon back in for feeding bacteria, but I also started adding bacteria to my reef tank as a "booster" shot to get more strains in there. Honestly, I only knew from human physiology that the greater the diversity of bacteria in the human gut the better. So I figured why wouldn't my tank benefit from greater bacteria diversity? Especially since my tank had gotten a little out of balance and things were not progressing as smoothly as they had been.

I was adding Probido maintenance doses twice a month. Didn't really notice much if anything. After a few months I started adding some Vibrant, along with the Probido maintenance doses. After two weeks I started seeing a growth surge. Nothing else that I am aware of changed. This sent me to google to look into coral and bacteria symbiosis. Turns out this is a recent hot topic for marine biologists. They have discovered that different corals host different bacteria strains just like they host algae. When the bacteria strains they host suffer, so does the coral.

I am keeping up with my twice a month maintenance dosing of bacteria. I have seen very good results with my SPS corals. I can't scientifically prove anything as far as which bacteria strains are helping the most; I can't even prove that bacteria dosing is directly or indirectly helping my SPS corals. I can say there is definitely something worth considering here. There are many papers out there dealing with this relationship and the need, and I have seen better SPS growth after attempting to reintroduce bacteria diversity back into my tank. So it's something worth considering.

Even though I don't know how or why, I'm going to take the approach that my gut and my tank do better with bacteria diversity. Currently its circumstantial evidence as far as my tank goes, but it's something that just seems right. Event if I can't prove it scientifically, I know it in my gut!

NanaReefer · Dec 23, 2016

What bacteria are you dosing?

BlueCursor · Dec 23, 2016

Vibrant twice a month. Probidio ProDigest twice a month. I dose each at 1/2 normal dosage.

NanaReefer · Dec 23, 2016

BlueCursor said:
Vibrant twice a month. Probidio ProDigest twice a month. I dose each at 1/2 normal dosage.

Have you noticed any negative change in your Zoa's?

BlueCursor · Dec 24, 2016

Over the past year, what Zoas I had mostly have melted away under my SPS conditions. I did notice a rebound of my Zoas when I started dosing the Vibrant. It isn't something that is a big difference, but there are new polyps (maybe a 5% increase in polyp count overall) where as before there haven't been new polyps in over 9 months.

Paul B · Dec 24, 2016

BlueCursor said:
Even though I don't know how or why, I'm going to take the approach that my gut and my tank do better with bacteria diversity.

I agree with the biodiversity being healthy. A few times a year I take a handful of this mud and throw it in my tank. I don't know what kind of bacteria is in this, but it has been working for decades.

NanaReefer · Dec 24, 2016

Besides Vibrant what other bacterial additives do you all recommend?

twilliard · Dec 24, 2016

Here is a test I do to give me an idea of organic load, bacteria. I call it my 10 hour test. Just something I have been doing for years.
I take a PH test (elos) and leave it capped. I do not care about PH reading on this.
I write the time on the vial.
I wait for it to turn yellow and if I am within my 10 hour range I am good. If it takes longer I feed a little heavier.
It is something I noticed over the years of leaving my PH tests out LOL

NanaReefer · Dec 24, 2016

twilliard said:
Here is a test I do to give me an idea of organic load, bacteria. I call it my 10 hour test. Just something I have been doing for years.
I take a PH test (elos) and leave it capped. I do not care about PH reading on this.
I write the time on the vial.
I wait for it to turn yellow and if I am within my 10 hour range I am good. If it takes longer I feed a little heavier.
It is something I noticed over the years of leaving my PH tests out LOL

Interesting [emoji16]Will Salifert work as well?

twilliard · Dec 24, 2016

I am not sure?? Does it have a cap?
I have only used Elos for PH
Would be worth a shot

NanaReefer · Dec 24, 2016

Yeah it's got a cap. I'm trying it anyways-lol. Let ya know the results at 11:30pm [emoji38]

Cory · Dec 24, 2016

BlueCursor said:
BACTERIA DIVERSITY:

I have been playing with this concept recently. I used to keep ULNS for my SPS. Why, because I read that I was supposed to do it. Turns out not such a good idea so I backed off the carbon dosing and let NO3 and PO4 come up some. Then I got lazy and let NO3 climb too much and got some brown in my SPS (ok, a lot of brown).

That was when I started adding a little more carbon back in for feeding bacteria, but I also started adding bacteria to my reef tank as a "booster" shot to get more strains in there. Honestly, I only knew from human physiology that the greater the diversity of bacteria in the human gut the better. So I figured why wouldn't my tank benefit from greater bacteria diversity? Especially since my tank had gotten a little out of balance and things were not progressing as smoothly as they had been.

I was adding Probido maintenance doses twice a month. Didn't really notice much if anything. After a few months I started adding some Vibrant, along with the Probido maintenance doses. After two weeks I started seeing a growth surge. Nothing else that I am aware of changed. This sent me to google to look into coral and bacteria symbiosis. Turns out this is a recent hot topic for marine biologists. They have discovered that different corals host different bacteria strains just like they host algae. When the bacteria strains they host suffer, so does the coral.

I am keeping up with my twice a month maintenance dosing of bacteria. I have seen very good results with my SPS corals. I can't scientifically prove anything as far as which bacteria strains are helping the most; I can't even prove that bacteria dosing is directly or indirectly helping my SPS corals. I can say there is definitely something worth considering here. There are many papers out there dealing with this relationship and the need, and I have seen better SPS growth after attempting to reintroduce bacteria diversity back into my tank. So it's something worth considering.

Even though I don't know how or why, I'm going to take the approach that my gut and my tank do better with bacteria diversity. Currently its circumstantial evidence as far as my tank goes, but it's something that just seems right. Event if I can't prove it scientifically, I know it in my gut!

I agree. My monti cap nearly died on me. It turned like a light orange just barely noticeable. Even hair algae started growing on it. Po4 was zero on hanna. No3 zero. No growth at all. This was from my ats filter.

It wasnt until i started dosing vodka did the algae die off that surprisingly the monti regained color. It came back to life. My first dose was 5ml of 80 proof vodka in roughly 40 gallons total. The whole tank became super foggy. I thought everthing would die. Even the monti got covered in a thick bacterial slime. But once the fog cleared up and i mainted a dose of 2-3 ml per day, the monti is growing like crazy. Probably 1-2mm per day. Now it floureces too.

It could be many things that made it grow, but ive often thought it was the bacteria in the slime coat. But it could be it lowered po4 even more. Or that now there is bacterial "plankton" for it to eat. It could be coral warfare, maybe the bacteria ate some toxins. Who knows. But what i do know is vodka saved the coral and made it grow a lot.

Now there were some side effects in other corals. All my softies, xenia and devils hand didnt like vodka. My devils hand lost parts of its fingers, and they turned white and fell off. The xenia whilted away to a little dot. So i took them out and put them in another non vodka tank, just has an ats filter, and it regained full health.

So my main tank will be just sps because they need vodka from what i can tell. While my other tank is strictly non vodka because it actually kills them.