Dosing Bacteria

[joshua36]

Hi,

I am starting a new 4 ft tank soon and would like some advice from all the sifus out there. I have read a lot about dosing bacteria during tank startup and would like to give it a try this time round as I am sick of waiting for weeks for my tank to mature before I can add in fishes and corals. For those who have dosed bacteria during startup before, can you kindly share your experience?

1. Is it really effective?

2. Can you recommend what product to buy?

Thanks,

Josh

[comycus]

Hi,

I am starting a new 4 ft tank soon and would like some advice from all the sifus out there. I have read a lot about dosing bacteria during tank startup and would like to give it a try this time round as I am sick of waiting for weeks for my tank to mature before I can add in fishes and corals. For those who have dosed bacteria during startup before, can you kindly share your experience?

1. Is it really effective?

2. Can you recommend what product to buy?

Thanks,

Josh

That's not a good trait to have in this hobby bro...

But to answer your question, yes I have seen some people who have 'quick started' their cycling process by using the following:

1. NSW

2. Quality cured live rock (preferbly has been curing near your new tank to prevent die offs)

3. Live Sand

4. Huge dose of bacteria culture

5. Allowing tank to stabilise for 1-2 weeks, with constant parameter testing.

I wouldn't advice doing this method for newbies w/o experience. However, if you insist in continuing, you will still need to exercise patience in adding lifestock into your tank. Throwing in 10 tangs straightaway will still shock any 4ft tank, matured or not matured. I have seen alot of newly set up tanks that look really beautiful right after startup. Owner populate the tank immediately with corals and fishes and it looks great for the first few weeks. Then suddenly fishes start dying, corals start melting.

If you don't have the patience to wait, then don't start. End up wasting $$ and killing innocent LS. Research more and learn more about this hobby and u will find it a rewarding one. Just my 2 cents worth.

[weihsiang]

Hi,

I'm new, but you can try to 'seed' your tank by getting some crushed corals or filter media from another reefer's or a LFS tank and put it inside your system. Another way is to add in live rocks earlier as the initial die off will also supplement the nutrients for the beneficial bacteria to grow.

Dosing bacteria helps but I still think that they need time to colonize to help in the reduction of the wastes products.

I think the key is patience as comycus have mentioned. Add in your live stocks slowly, if not they die we also end up bek cek...worse than the wait for the tank to mature.

Hope that helps =)

[allantang]

Hi,

I am starting a new 4 ft tank soon and would like some advice from all the sifus out there. I have read a lot about dosing bacteria during tank startup and would like to give it a try this time round as I am sick of waiting for weeks for my tank to mature before I can add in fishes and corals. For those who have dosed bacteria during startup before, can you kindly share your experience?

1. Is it really effective?

2. Can you recommend what product to buy?

Thanks,

Josh

my suggestion is don't rush into it.. cos the possibility of crash is pretty high. i have tried using dosed bat.. erm.. is like a "shot in the arm" thingy or consume lots of sugar before a race. the moment the bat dies off suddenly, so will ur LS.

u can cut short, by getting LR from other tanks.. that will speed up ur process and add LS 1 by 1 after an interval.

[Terryz_]

Dosing of bacteria will work on reducing the length of cyclingBUT it is not recommended for newbie as it will be quite confusing for them to differential whether it is safe for stocking...

BUT I emphasize no matter what method you use to reduce the cycling period, Cycling is still required, Minimum 2-3 weeks... And go slow on your stocking, it is not advisable to be stocking very fast...

[joshua36]

To all the reefers who have responded to my plea for advice, thank you very much for your kind advice. Just to clarify though, I am not entirely new to this hobby. In fact, I have been reefing for almost 2 years now and this will be my second setup. In my first setup, I did not dose any bacteria and even though I waited almost a month before introducing any fish and coral, the first entrants did not fare very well. Since then, I have been reading up on what other reefers say and would like to try out bacteria dosing to experience it myself. I have narrowed it down to Biohome and Biodigest for the products to try. Would very much like to hear your experience if any of you have used these products before.

Once again, your advice/feedback would be much appreciated.

[Terryz_]

To all the reefers who have responded to my plea for advice, thank you very much for your kind advice. Just to clarify though, I am not entirely new to this hobby. In fact, I have been reefing for almost 2 years now and this will be my second setup. In my first setup, I did not dose any bacteria and even though I waited almost a month before introducing any fish and coral, the first entrants did not fare very well. Since then, I have been reading up on what other reefers say and would like to try out bacteria dosing to experience it myself. I have narrowed it down to Biohome and Biodigest for the products to try. Would very much like to hear your experience if any of you have used these products before.

Once again, your advice/feedback would be much appreciated.

Prodibio are not being retailed in Singapore anymore unless you can find ex stock...

Biohome is just medium for bacteria to house and populate themselves, you can use normal liverocks in your sump for the effect also...

Edited September 26, 2010 by Terryz_

[Milch_Tan]

To all the reefers who have responded to my plea for advice, thank you very much for your kind advice. Just to clarify though, I am not entirely new to this hobby. In fact, I have been reefing for almost 2 years now and this will be my second setup. In my first setup, I did not dose any bacteria and even though I waited almost a month before introducing any fish and coral, the first entrants did not fare very well. Since then, I have been reading up on what other reefers say and would like to try out bacteria dosing to experience it myself. I have narrowed it down to Biohome and Biodigest for the products to try. Would very much like to hear your experience if any of you have used these products before.

Once again, your advice/feedback would be much appreciated.

hey bro, sorry to hear that your 1 month of waiting yielded bad experience with your first fish. However, there might be many variables involved that led to the fish(es) dying, isolating the possible causes would help to determine the leading causes, or better yet, determine the casual effect (cause-&-effect relationship):

1) Fish : was already unhealthy during purchase (ie. internal parasite etc), ie a highly fragile fish (golden pygmy angel, ventralis etc), or even a diet-specific fish (ie. mandarin fish)

2) Water : did you mix marine-hobby salt and tap water directly and just wait for a month? what is the tank size volume(smaller tanks tend to be less forgiving, but larger volume when prep wrongly is equally devastating, such as super low SG) ? the ratio of salt-mix and water? type of water (ie. distilled, RO/DI or Tap? or NSW?), source of NSW (ie. from LFS, or self-collect? Did you do a massive water change after your 1 month cycling?

3) External factors : Traces of cleaning agent still left in the tank w/o realizing, surface oil, wrong type of sand use (ie. using fresh water type of sand), etc.

Think a good number of bros here use both "Market-Prawn" method and dosing becteria, personally, i've used both at the same time, anyhow, just some questions you could work on hope it helps.

[DUCADOS]

No matter what u do,always do it with patience. If u notice,thing that been done with patience are most likely to be better or nicer compare to those that don't.

Furthermore u r now dealing with livestock which i believe many would not recommend or encourage u to do so.(unless your set up are those million dollars one)

I myself LL keep my tank cycling for close to 3months before a 1dollar fish is dump into it for testing...That 1 dollar fish is still with me till now...Bigger n fatter...

[BFG]

It's one thing whether to dose or not to dose the bacteria but it's another thing to keep them alive. How is your set up created? Does it have ample place for the bacteria to grow and multiply? Do you have true live rock whereby these bacteria would populate or do you have those so called dead coral skeleton type of live rock, which are really not useful other than to make the aquascaping look different?