Brightwell aquatics / microbacter7 / live sand

[aggrofish]

So I was thinking of using the brighwell aquatics products products to cycle a new tank and some of their products post cycle like microbacter clean. The thinking was to see if there’s any truth to cutting down the ugly stage.

I already have some doctor tims and biospira, which I understand is the same product. The thing that has me staying with those is that the microbacter7 clearly states not to be used with live sand. I’m using live sand. Anyone know why this is the case? Anyone use any of their other products? Did it help reduce any algae outbreaks?

 

[Doctorgori]

I have both products, I thought the Microbacter isn’t recommended to cycle with live sand, my guess is you can use it post cycle regardless of substrate

 

[Spare time]

You can use it with live sand. It may say so as additional bacteria in live sand can compete with needed phosphate. That is my guess but then again microbacter 7 isn't pure cycling bacteria (it has a few other types too). Otherwise it may be that live sand could have a little die off at first and add a small amount of ammonia when giving the bacteria in it lots of oxygen to start breaking down what may have died in the bag. Again these are guesses as to why they state do not use live sand with the bacteria.