Tunze Care bacter

reefluvrr · Jan 24, 2023

Hi @rvitko.

I had purchased a couple bottles of Tunze carebacter back around 2019 and forgotten about it until just yesterday. I opened one bottle up to try in my newly set up 15 gallon reef tank. I am only using biobricks and no skimmer on this tank.

For the past three weeks, I had to use an algae scrapper to clean the glass daily. My NO3 and PO4 were 33ppm and 0.4ppm.
Prior to dosing carebacter yesterday, I had been dosing Dr. Tim's waste away, Biodigest, PNS Probio to help control NO3 and PO4 while using Tropic Marin carbon source.

I decided to use a quarter spoonful of carebacter and 1ml of Tropic Marin carbon dosing.

I was pleasantly surprised to find my glass to be very clean today. Also I was starting to develop some hair algae on my dragon's breath macro. That was 90% percent gone today.

It would seem that the bacteria in carebacter may be different to what I had used with the prior products.

I would like to know if you have any research by Tunze about carebacter?

Quite impressed with my result from it.

Equally shocked though is the lack of info found on the internet about it...

rvitko · Jan 24, 2023

While Care Bacter is very popular in Europe, it has not caught on in the US. It is a fairly old product that was developed by a biological company in France that only produces bacteria and fungi for bioremediation of everything from sewage to oil spills, to slaughter house waste, initially this product was developed for growing marine food animals. It contains two species of bacteria, one is a mortal enemy of Vibrio, it prevents bacterial ulceration in foodfish and shrimp and may possibly inhibit RTN, however this is unproven and very difficult to prove as if nothing happens to something, there can be a lot of reasons for that, the other is a sludge digester. Essentially, the French company sells it only in bulk quantities to farms and we sell it in small quantities for aquariums. My own experience is very similar to yours, it definitely works, but it does not live long term in a marine aquarium, so the action ceases when dosing is discontinued, typically the first doses you notice less accumulated detritus and slower growth of film algae on the glass, over a longer term the nutrient levels come down and more stubborn algaes start to decline. I have mainly used it to combat algae and nutrient issues, typically for 6-12 weeks at a time, I find that long term continuous use can bottom out nutrient levels so you will in most cases reach a point where you need to cease dosing based on PO4 and NO3 levels. It typically takes 6 weeks to see results on more stubborn hair algaes, they honestly get worse before they get better and then suddenly decline around the 6-8 week mark. Of note, on a really dirty neglected tank, things will tend to get much worse before they start to improve and that is largely because of the breakdown of detritus and liberation of the nutrients so a really dirty tank, I would start with a pretty thorough cleaning and larger water change. I suspect part of the reason it is not as popular in the US is we are used to liquid products but as a powder of suspended dormant cells it is far more concentrated and there is a lot less shipping weight to contend with, the carrier is marl clay which for all practical purposes is a lime based clay largely formed by dead calcereous algae.

reefluvrr · Jan 24, 2023

Thank you for your prompt reply and thorough writeup.

Can I ask a few follow up questions:

rvitko said:
My own experience is very similar to yours, it definitely works, but it does not live long term in a marine aquarium, so the action ceases when dosing is discontinued

How long does the bacteria seem to live in our marine aquarium? This can help me figure out how often to reseed the aquarium.

My bottle have no dosing instructions, so how much quantity/gallon should one use?

Thanks again.