How long does it take for bacterial culture from dosing to settle and grow in live rock and how long should a protein skimmer be offline when dosing?

[educatedreefer]

How long does it take for bacteria supplementation to settle and successfully multiply in a new, intermediate, and mature tank? Is it dependent on dosage amount, dosage frequency, existing bacteria cultures, and does protein skimming impact bacterial growth in live rock?
Additionally, how long should a protein skimmer be turned off for when dosing bacteria in order to allow maximum concentration of bacteria to integrate into a tank?
I currently have my skimmer turned off for four hours when dosing bacteria and carbon dosing on a weekly basis but wondered why I do it and how bacterial colonization and competition occurs with bad bacteria or algae.

 

[taricha]

How long does it take for bacteria supplementation to settle and successfully multiply in a new, intermediate, and mature tank? Is it dependent on dosage amount, dosage frequency, existing bacteria cultures, and does protein skimming impact bacterial growth in live rock?

If this is a question about nitrifying bacteria, then @Dan_P can probably provide as good of an answer on this as anybody.
If this question is about heterotroph bacteria supplementation products, then the answer is unknown. In fact even the premise of whether the supplemented bacteria do in fact establish themselves in a reef tank has not ever been demonstrated to my knowledge.

 

[MnFish1]

It totally depends on the brand of the 'bacteria' you are planning to use. And - most of them list the time period a skimmer, etc needs to be off - and how much food/bioload you need to feed to get it up to whatever level you want - You're also asking 3 questions - adding to a starting, intermediate and mature tank - so without more information - its not possible to completely answer. There are many products - you can add with a bio load of fish on day 1.

 

[Dan_P]

If this is a question about nitrifying bacteria, then @Dan_P can probably provide as good of an answer on this as anybody.
If this question is about heterotroph bacteria supplementation products, then the answer is unknown. In fact even the premise of whether the supplemented bacteria do in fact establish themselves in a reef tank has not ever been demonstrated to my knowledge.

Maybe a better model is bacteria adhering to surfaces. Bacteria do not sink very quickly and stay in suspension until they get close enough to a surface to which they can adhere to. For a sterile surface, they might be very successful at sticking and establishing a colony. If they land on an existing biofilm, whether they establish themselves depends on what their neighbors are like in the biofilm. Bacteria can also work in suspension or stick to tiny particles, like diatoms or floc, that stay in suspension. The suspended bacteria are likely doomed to being removed by the skimmer.

The bacteria in BioSpira initially show nitrifying activity on surfaces and in the water. Turning off the skimmer for four hours is an attempt to minimize removing too many suspend bacteria. I haven’t seen any information that establishes four hours as being optimal. For carbon dosing you do not need to turn of the skimmer.