Biospira and Skimmer!

[Antoniocastro]

Hello!
I would like to know if anyone has any experience with this:

How long should I turn off for the skimmer if I added biospira bacteria to my tank because I added new fish??

thank you

 

[dedragon]

i just wouldnt add the biospira when I add the fish. Unless the tank is very new there isnt a reason to do so. If you added you could wait an hour and then turn it back on

 

[taricha]

I've seen an hour or 4 hours. either is probably fine.
Not necessary, but it would shortcut the time (a couple of days) for the tank to scale up nitrifiers to the new load.

 

[Dan_P]

Hello!
I would like to know if anyone has any experience with this:

How long should I turn off for the skimmer if I added biospira bacteria to my tank because I added new fish??

thank you

I don’t think that experiment has been done.

The question is how long do the BioSpira bacteria take to settle out? It seems that when you first put BioSpira in a system, most of the ammonia consumptions happens in the water. By 24-48 hours, there are bacteria colonizing the surfaces.

How fast does a skimmer remove bacteria from the water? Ken Feldman did this experiment and skimming halved the bacteria in two hours but the removal rate slowed to a crawl.

To hedge your bet double the amount of BioSpira dosed and shut the skimmer off for as long as you feel it is safe to do so, but maybe no too long so as to avoid an anaerobic condition developing in your stagnant skimmer. Maybe less than 12 hours.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm going to move this thread to the main forum since it is not an experiment.