Cycling with Microbacter7

[DocPalmer]

Hey sorry for the late reply. Looks like some more good info was shared dealing with your concerns. I did mb7 for a few weeks and then the wife started bugging me to put fish in even though it wasn't cycled yet. Gave up on mb7, didn't really want to go that route any longer and wait a few months for it to finally cycle the tank.

Back to the beginning, I started with about 30lbs of dry rock and 40lbs of live sand and mb7. Once I changed my mind, I added about a 1lb live rock along with biospira to quick cycle the tank. I added a peppermint shrimp, a few hermits and a clownfish. that was around maybe April 20th.

Now on June 16th, tank is doing well. I left the lights off mostly for the first few months but have now kept them on during the day. No major issues with the tank, just have the brown diatom algae growing which the Astrea snails love to eat up. I now have 6 fish, 5 hermits, 4 snails, cleaner shrimp (peppermint shrimp and a yellow goby disappeared over night awhile back, think the dang emerald crab ate them, he just died though for some reason) and a serpent sea star. Also have been seeding pods and feeding phyto's to them. I usually feed pellets in the morning and mysis shrimp in the evening.

I also still dose mb7 once a week to keep the benefits of mb7 bacteria in the tank but as far as cycling, I didn't have the patience to wait long enough for it to supposedly work. My LFS guy said using mb7 was a quality thing over the quantity thing which I bought into for a minute until I posted on here.

I appreciate your input big time. I may shift gears to the hermit crabs with a different bacteria tank starter (biospira or turbo900) and just supplement with the MB7 that I've already purchased like you're doing. I had the same experience. LFS guy said to use mb7 and everyone on here is like "why are you using MB7????" lol

 

[OlPainless]

I appreciate your input big time. I may shift gears to the hermit crabs with a different bacteria tank starter (biospira or turbo900) and just supplement with the MB7 that I've already purchased like you're doing. I had the same experience. LFS guy said to use mb7 and everyone on here is like "why are you using MB7????" lol

Sounds like a good plan. Can be hard to judge some things being a beginner like we are but sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes, even if that is just listening to the LFS person and getting a collective advice on here. I would also consider adding a small live rock to help seed the tank, you also get the benefit of having some coraline algae already on the rock to seed your tank with that as well. Some of the snails I picked up have coraline on them so I am hoping to start seeing some of that grow on my rocks soon.

 

[DocPalmer]

Sounds like a good plan. Can be hard to judge some things being a beginner like we are but sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes, even if that is just listening to the LFS person and getting a collective advice on here. I would also consider adding a small live rock to help seed the tank, you also get the benefit of having some coraline algae already on the rock to seed your tank with that as well. Some of the snails I picked up have coraline on them so I am hoping to start seeing some of that grow on my rocks soon.

Agreed and was contemplating adding a small piece of live rock. Sounds like the way to go!

 

[OlPainless]

Agreed and was contemplating adding a small piece of live rock. Sounds like the way to go!

Good luck, keep us updated and send us some pics of the tank and setup if you can!

 

[DocPalmer]

Good luck, keep us updated and send us some pics of the tank and setup if you can!

Will do! This is the nano i'm getting myself acclimated with (planning to turn it into a QT when the larger one arrives). I think a small live rock would fit nicely in the bottom left corner.

 

[OlPainless]

Will do! This is the nano i'm getting myself acclimated with (planning to turn it into a QT when the larger one arrives). I think a small live rock would fit nicely in the bottom left corner.

Looks good, can't wait to see the "big one" once you get it going. I am taking a risk by not QTing any fish, my wife was super hesitant to let me get my tank and it is only a 36gal so I dont have any room for a QT tank. So far i've only bought from 2 LFS and have not seen an issue with the fish or from the fish. Fingers crossed

 

[DocPalmer]

Looks good, can't wait to see the "big one" once you get it going. I am taking a risk by not QTing any fish, my wife was super hesitant to let me get my tank and it is only a 36gal so I dont have any room for a QT tank. So far i've only bought from 2 LFS and have not seen an issue with the fish or from the fish. Fingers crossed

At least she let you get away with having a tank! I've read you're less likely to encounter issues with non-QT if you get your livestock from a consistent source. Good luck to you! I'll likely post a build thread here pretty soon. Once I figured it out.

 

[OlPainless]

Update: Tank is doing good, lots of brown algae on the rocks and seeing some purple and green algae growing as well, nothing crazy though. Had small white polyps shoes up a few weeks ago and after posting on R2R they seem to be beneficial pineapple sponges. Fish have been doing good, recently added a scarlet hermit(seems more active at night), a black urchin and a replacement peppermint shrimp. I do a water change every 2 weeks and clean/change filtration once a month. Seems to be working. Still dosing MB7 once a week but it’s one of those unseen benefits.

 

[brandon429]

Cease dosing any bottled bacteria going forward it’s wasting money, very nice setup there

sellers of bac only want you to think there’s a hidden benefit, there isn’t. If you were to add ten drops of prune juice to the reef per week that will never harm, and never benefit just the same
(there really were additives like that in early 00’s literally we think it was prune juice lol. a harmless and benefit-less reef doser)

in facts dna sampling shows original cycling strains dosed to be replaced fully by selected natural strains within a year or two of startup. The bacteria you dosed are outcompeted by natural bac that get in free and you couldn’t stop them even if tried.


the marketing is so good in fact by peers and bottle bac sellers that even in spite of the dna studies there will always be a large market that uses the items as a recurring supplement, hoping we can save someone from being on the buyers list long term. it isn’t helping with algae or any testable param, it’s best to cease dosing aerobic bac to the system it’s already full up

 

[Happy Clam]

BTW API will always show .25 even when it is 0 for ammonia.