bacteria

So I have lived my life setting up tanks the old fashioned way by adding bacteria and waiting for the nitrate spike after a few weeks / months. However recently my parents set their saltwater tank up in less than a few days using “Nano start prodibio vials”. They have used live sand, rock and...

I have a reef tank that most likely has either brown diatoms or dinoflagellates growing on the gravel/sand. Tank is at least a year old. Tests indicate excellent water quality with the possible exception - API kit shows nitrate @ 0 & phosphate checker shows it @ 0.03 so maybe too low? meaning...

I have a reef tank that most likely has either brown diatoms or dinoflagellates growing on the gravel/sand. Tank is at least a year old. Tests indicate excellent water quality with the possible exception - API kit shows nitrate @ 0 & phosphate checker shows it @ 0.03 so maybe too low? meaning...

Does anyone know what is on my sand and rocks? It is covering some of my softie corals at the back of the tank. GSP, Zoas and a toadstool coral. Any ideas what it is?

My clownfish has had this crater looking thing on his face the past week. I’ve been treating it was a medication for bacteria infections but I’ve had no success. I’ve piggybacked this with several 25% water changes, no luck. Since this has started, my poor guy has gotten popping eye as well as...

So I bought some aragalive sand and it came today. Problem is that the bags broken and i was planning on storing it and using microbacter start xlm+ quikcycle. What do I do... Add it eventhough it might interfere with the microbacters or just wait for a refund..

ok so i decided to feed a little be more mysis shrimp today like double what i’m used to because my nutrients were low but then my tank is now going through a bacteria bloom could that be the cause because if it is then i’m lost for words and how do i fix this

I just had a friend of mine cycle some of my bio media bricks in his sump for a few weeks and had picked it up today. My question is if I can leave the bio-media in a container for a few days in the same saltwater it was cycled in. Will it require a heater or surface agitation? My reason...

So I’ve been reading about the potential dangers to caring for a reef tank and i have read about palytoxins and Mycobacterium marinum. These are things I will worry about because I am OCD and can’t help it. If anyone has advice on how to safely care for a tank without having to worry about these...

Hello Fellow reefers, Has anyone used the Brightwell Start XLM bacteria to cycle their aquarium while having new Caribsea Life rocks in the aquarium? This aquarium is running with Caribsea dry sand and Caribsea Life rocks. I have been reading the label on the Brightwell Start XLM stating "Dry...

Specifications: 45 gallon cube/ 14 gallon sump Bare bottom (No sand) Roughly 40 lbs of Caribsea Life Rock Kessil A360x (turned off during this cycling time) Reef Octopus Essence 130 skimmer (also turned off during cycling time) sitting on top of 6x6in acrylic skimmer stand 1 AI Nero 5...

Found these and there’s a few on my glass, anyone know what they are?

Hey all! I’m not normally one to start up a discussion, but due to current events and changes in life I’ve had to place setting up my display on the back burner. It’ll be my first reef tank (typical story, had a small freshwater tank as a child. In my case saw an antennata lion and thus began...

hey guys i recently saw this reefer post that he got a 2 liter bottle of microbacter7. his tank seems pretty big around 150g but i was wondering why some people religiously dose so much bacteria? is it the large water changes? i myself have a 500ml bottle for my 30 gallon tank that i thought i’d...

So today I noticed a white growth in my aquarium, the salinity is still 1.006 I was planning on starting to increase this today when I noticed a bloodworm I just fed stick to something, when I looked closer theres this weird white sludgy thing growing on the side where the bloodworm is and the...

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well! I recently treated a couple fish with copper power in my quarantine tank, however, the quarantine tank used to be my main display so I left half of my biological media in that quarantine tank and added copper power to the system (copper levels register at...

**ATTACHED PICS** I have a 75gal reef tank with live rock, 3 fish (coral beauty, clown, mandarin goby), 5 coral (three of which are attached to rock) and a clam that is also attached to rock. I did a big move into a new home and because of the pandemic I wasn’t able to hire movers for my tank...

I unfortunately made the mistake of settling for a lesser than because it was cheaper, and now I am switching to what I wanted, but my question is, will me moving all my rock, ceramic, marine pure, and possibly some of the water cause a cycle in the new tank? I’m moving from a 24g Aquatop that’s...

I have been trying to cure some very fresh very live rock I obtained. I set it up at the right temperature and salinity and prepared for the bad smell. It never happened. Every once a while I topped off the tub with RODI. Several weeks ago, i added a shrimp and did 50% water change. It has...

Simple question, if a TDS meter is reading 0 on output source water , the membrane is 2.5 years old and the other filters are about 8-9 months old can harmful bacteria grow on those filters contaminating the water? Why should you change the filters even if tds is reading 0?

So I went to work at 3.30 and no one told me anyone was throwing a party so I left home and all my medicine by my QT. I came back and a group of children broke my glass lid and let it fall in the tank. All fish were fine but then they dumped my whole bottle of keneplex and left it in the tank So...

Hello I was wondering if I could put a couple of sponge filters in my sump so I would have them established for quarantining but was wondering if I would have to have the air stone in them to have water moved through or if I could just place the sponges right in it. Thanks for any responses!

Hi, quick intro, I’m new to reefing, about 2 months into my nano 10 gallon, everything is going smooth, stable parameters and such. I have purchased a few frags of LPS from a local hobbiest a couple of weeks ago and he threw this Favite (I believe that’s what it’s called) in for free. A few...

Just getting an idea of what bacteria people dose. Please list what products, how often, and why you dose them. Do you have a specific bacteria product you dose for dirty sand, algae, to lower nutrients??? Share what works fo you! Thanks!

I've treated with copper for 2 weeks, malachite green and ruby Can someone please identify this