Bacteria in a bottle?

[Davy Jones]

Hello all,

After lots of reading and research I believe that my dino problem stems from lack of biodiversity. (Bought dry pukani rock)

I will be ordering a nice shipment of pods, both trigger and tisbe to add to the tank. (I have no fuge so I'm thinking I may have to do this quarterly or semi annually depending on results)

But on to the point of the post! I also plan to order a "bacteria in a bottle" I know some think it's snake oil and others swear by it.

For those of you that use it, which product do you like the best? Some of the most popular seems to be

Seachems stability
MB7
ZEOBAK
Dr tims one and only
Prodibio


Likely I'll go with one of these but I'd like everyone's opinions!

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

Dr Tim's One & Only

I have used it a few times and it can't be "snake oil" when my tanks cycled in days, not weeks. I think the "snake oil" crowd are often the ones that think patience is the key to everything. I agree post-cycle, but have never seen the point in waiting for bacteria.

 

[Davy Jones]

Dr Tim's One & Only

I have used it a few times and it can't be "snake oil" when my tanks cycled in days, not weeks. I think the "snake oil" crowd are often the ones that think patience is the key to everything. I agree post-cycle, but have never seen the point in waiting for bacteria.

Thanks for the input!

Do you shut your skimmer off when you dose it?

 

[brandon429]

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.

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

I've always added it prior to adding fish, so I did not have a skimmer going. If I were adding later, I would probably turn it off for a while.

Dr Tims often has deals going if you get on their mailing list. I'd even try emailing them and asking if they have any deals. They usually respond quickly.

 

[erk]

I use MB7 as a way to maintain biodiversity. I followed the directions on the bottle and now dose every Wednesday as my once a week dose. I probably could dose every other week or less, but the bottle is large and not very expensive. The bottle recommends shutting down the skimmer for a couple hours to allow the bacteria to settle into the tank. I combine this with vodka dosing to feed the bacteria and keep the colonies growing.

Before this method, I used GFO, activated carbon, filter socks, and a protein skimmer to maintain water quality along with a refugium of macros. Since switching to bacteria and carbon dosing, I only have a DIY skimmer I made myself. With this method, I can easily maintain my nutrient levels at whatever level I want, whereas before I had the hardest time maintaining NO3 below 20ppm. I also had major bacteria blooms that caused crashes twice. They only subsided once I took the GFO offline. Correlation does not mean causation, but when you shut off a GFO reactor and the bloom disappears after an hour or two, that's some pretty good correlation. Only algae that is still a pain, but appears to be slowly subsiding is Valonia. Emerald crabs are handling that.

I cannot say that dosing bacteria does anything special, it could just be the vodka dosing, but I like to maintain diverse colonies of bacteria to ensure no single strain takes over. As we know in other areas of biology, when a single strain of bacteria dominates others, it can eventually become a nuisance. For example, if H. pylori, a common stomach bacteria, becomes the dominate strain in your gut, it can cause infections, ulcers, etc. I like to treat my whole tank as a single living being with every mechanical/inorganic and biological component having its own place. If any one is out of balance, then I can have issues.

I imagine any bottle of bacteria will work. I should probably switch it up and change the type of bacteria I'm dosing to truly ensure biodiversity. Probably go to Dr Tims next. If I lived near the ocean, I'd filter that water and do a water change with it every once in awhile. That will really keep the biodiversity up.

 

[jetmaker]

Hello all,

After lots of reading and research I believe that my dino problem stems from lack of biodiversity. (Bought dry pukani rock)

I will be ordering a nice shipment of pods, both trigger and tisbe to add to the tank. (I have no fuge so I'm thinking I may have to do this quarterly or semi annually depending on results)

But on to the point of the post! I also plan to order a "bacteria in a bottle" I know some think it's snake oil and others swear by it.

For those of you that use it, which product do you like the best? Some of the most popular seems to be

Seachems stability
MB7
ZEOBAK
Dr tims one and only
Prodibio


Likely I'll go with one of these but I'd like everyone's opinions!

Thanks for the help guys!

Bio speria. Works for sure. Dr tim developed it for instant ocean

 

[Davy Jones]

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'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.

 

[brandon429]

Yep those are fine to try it's a good plan. Also read up on dinoxal it's the best contender so far in threads comparatively... just additional help if your strain is a mean one

Try to post a tank or just single area pic
We still have 4/10 dino invasions misidentified

 

[Davy Jones]

Yep those are fine to try it's a good plan. Also read up on dinoxal it's the best contender so far in threads comparatively... just additional help if your strain is a mean one

Try to post a tank or just single area pic
We still have 4/10 dino invasions misidentified

I will have to do more research, the product scares me as I've read it kills sps and anemones as often or more so than it kills dinos.. I have 2 bta's, 5 rfa's and about 10-15 different sps mini colonies alive (some growing, others showing rescission.)

As for a picture I'm 100% sure it's dinos, I examined it under a microscope. It is ostreopsis (one of the meaner strains)

 

[brandon429]

You should still post a pic so readers can see and tie in to the thread

Doesn't have to be full tank shot, zoomed in would work just to show. People universally want pics on invasion threads

 

[Davy Jones]

Good point. I'll try and post some progression shots and whatnot when I get to my computer in a little bit.

For me the biggest issue has been the fact that the dinos will grow on the exposed skeleton of sps (until a couple weeks ago ivery been manually dosing so I've had alk swings. Now I use an apex dos and esv 2part) but once the dinos start to grow on the exposed bits, it just stresses out the coral and continues until it's mostly dead. Like i said, no where near a plague, but annoying to myself and my corals

 

[brandon429]

I agree, everyone is humbled when it comes to dinos. It will be so easy to know the day that stops, however. Someone will create a dino challenge thread, ask for entrants, get 9 entrants on day 1 lol, and we will see the results. Some combination of tank variables expresses and supports them differently across tanks, even in the same house per the really long threads. Troylee's thread 40 pages has been stickied here in the gen forum, and is a good supporting option just to gather options. agreed anems are sensitive to some of the water treatment options via chems, your approach is safer for anems. Should start with least harmful and work up, good plan. don't forget UV its a tool that could have helped 80% of trouble tanks we work on. amazon has a return policy per shipper, often up to 30 days. you can evaluate UV, after a forced tank cleaning of all invasion, within a week. just to keep options harmless, that UV is your best unused option so far. one rated for a pond, or a tank much larger than yours. doesn't have to run forever, its to save your tank until QT is established going forward/ also handy on qt tanks lol.

 

[Davy Jones]

Per request here are some pictures going oldest to newest, the first ones are before i realized it was dino's and not cyano bacteria. I know many will say its cyano because of how it looks, so i will also upload a video of them under a microscope







Tank was cleaned up a bit, This next photo was taken after a 72 hour blackout and h2o2 dosing. (blackout just means lights off, I wasnt able to completely cover the tank like i wanted to) By this point i lost a large montipora plate, my hammer corals looked terrible, and my rhodactis mushrooms were bleaching.


About a month and a 10 day vacation later






Constant alk swings and dinos were wreaking havoc.

This is about 2-3 weeks ago.


So it has had its ups and downs.

EDIT: So far Monti's have been hit the worst, then the Digi has been dying over the last couple months. Most recently my Birdsnests have been dying, after having been growing so well. And now im having burnt tips on some of the SPS due to the increased alk from the doser (i had about an average alk of 6.6ish and raised the alk to about 9dkh over the course of a week and a half or so? I noticed the tips of the sps are showing recession so i lowered teh dosing a little to let it drop. Im hoping that i can keep the alk around 8.3dkh. I also think if i can lower the amount of dinos that im going to take my carbon off line or atleast run less of it, i read that running activated carbon aggressively can also cause burnt tips in sps.

 

[Wilsoni]

You have a beautiful tank. Whatever you do, don't give up!

 

[Wilsoni]

You mentioned this shot was prior to a month and 10 day vacation. What maintenance was preformed from this shot to next within that time period?

 

[Davy Jones]

You mentioned this shot was prior to a month and 10 day vacation. What maintenance was preformed from this shot to next within that time period?

Sorry, this shot was taken after the 72 hour blackout, h2o2 treatment at about 2.5 times reccomended amount and extreme skimming (emptied the cup about 3 or 4 times a day on a vertex 150.. which is rated for a MUCH larger tank than mine)

A month later is the set of pictures after that one.

 

[Wilsoni]

So did you continue dosing peroxide throughout that period? I'm just curious what was done in your attempts to battle dinos after your tank looked like that for clarification.

 

[Wilsoni]

Also out of curiosity, what are your current parameters?

 

[Davy Jones]

So did you continue dosing peroxide throughout that period? I'm just curious what was done in your attempts to battle dinos after your tank looked like that for clarification.

Peroxide was used before and used after as well, And it didnt have any noticable effect. However combined with the 3 day blackout it worked very well and i was good for nearly a month. I cant remember what happened in that time that caused them to return.

Now i would run another 3 day blackout and dose h2o2 using my dos however i feel my corals are now too stressed to handle 3 days without light. Many of my sps are losing all color under the polyps (going to start another thread about the possible causes of that as well) For instance my purple stylopora, the polyps are still looking awesome and flow colorfully. But when they are retracted for one reason or another the skeleton is nearly bleach white. My green slimer, is not really green anymore without the polyps and coralites. Both of my birdsnests are actually dying. Coincidentially my cali tort, tennius coral, SSC acro and some others are coloring up nicely and encrusting faster than ever before. so idk.