What's more important or comes first when battling dinos: getting nutrients up from zero, or adding beneficial bacteria??

[dbugg]

Seems to be a gap in the awesome wealth of knowledge I found here in the community, or maybe I am misreading/misunderstanding....I've read so much the last week, I feel like I should have a degree in microbiology by now.

Young 40g breeder frag/QT/grow tank with snails, no fish, started with 2 year old live rock and water from a very good DT. Identified my dinos as Ostreopsis with a microscope and the guides here. Installed 15W HOB UV by Aqua Ultraviolet (highly recommended) with Sicce 1.0 a few days ago. Overnight, water became crystal clear and dino population vastly receeded, moreso after a couple of days of basting. Corals are struggling but not emergency. Not feeding corals since I saw and understood dinos. No snails deaths observed.

Nutrients are very low. Instructions here are "get nutrients, especially phosphate up from zero", but also "add Microbacter7, and more live rock, because you need good bacteria to outcompete dinos". As I understand it, these statements are conflicting, no? Good bacteria/live rock would consume the nutrients?Should I dose nutrients first, or add bacteria first? Or both at the same time?

 

[Dan_P]

Seems to be a gap in the awesome wealth of knowledge I found here in the community, or maybe I am misreading/misunderstanding....I've read so much the last week, I feel like I should have a degree in microbiology by now.

Young 40g breeder frag/QT/grow tank with snails, no fish, started with 2 year old live rock and water from a very good DT. Identified my dinos as Ostreopsis with a microscope and the guides here. Installed 15W HOB UV by Aqua Ultraviolet (highly recommended) with Sicce 1.0 a few days ago. Overnight, water became crystal clear and dino population vastly receeded, moreso after a couple of days of basting. Corals are struggling but not emergency. Not feeding corals since I saw and understood dinos. No snails deaths observed.

Nutrients are very low. Instructions here are "get nutrients, especially phosphate up from zero", but also "add Microbacter7, and more live rock, because you need good bacteria to outcompete dinos". As I understand it, these statements are conflicting, no? Good bacteria/live rock would consume the nutrients?Should I dose nutrients first, or add bacteria first? Or both at the same time?

The water becoming clear overnight could also be from killing bacteria and micro algae. Potentially UV reduces diversity in the water column. Maybe a “so what”.

Adding bottled bacteria is a waste of money. We don’t know whether it is effective or it does something is it the bacteria or the liquid doing something). We only have anecdotal data and poor quality observations that bottled bacteria does anything (bottled bacteria gets my provisional “snake oil” designation until better data is available).

Get the nutrients up now. Forget everything else.

 

[dbugg]

The water becoming clear overnight could also be from killing bacteria and micro algae. Potentially UV reduces diversity in the water column. Maybe a “so what”.

Adding bottled bacteria is a waste of money. We don’t know whether it is effective or it does something is it the bacteria or the liquid doing something). We only have anecdotal data and poor quality observations that bottled bacteria does anything (bottled bacteria gets my provisional “snake oil” designation until better data is available).

Get the nutrients up now. Forget everything else.

Thanks for the response. I've never used bottled bacteria, if it is truly "snake oil", Brightwell seems to have most people fooled. I can't believe there's not enough data to know whether it works or not. Seems like it should be a straightforward experiment. Anyway thanks for the advice. I will continue to dose.

What about adding more mature live rock from my DT?

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Add live rock from the ocean if you can afford it. Then boost nutrients (not too high) and then add a product like ZeoVit Zeofood to establish the microbiome more quickly. I had dinos like yours in my recently built tank and this worked amazingly well.

 

[Jimbo327]

UV and be done with it

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for the response. I've never used bottled bacteria, if it is truly "snake oil", Brightwell seems to have most people fooled. I can't believe there's not enough data to know whether it works or not. Seems like it should be a straightforward experiment. Anyway thanks for the advice. I will continue to dose.

What about adding more mature live rock from my DT?

“Works” requires an endpoint. What endpoint do you propose folks evaluate mb7 for?

It doesn’t claim to be a dino treatment, that I have seen.

I’d raise nutrients and if that doesn’t work, I’d add bacteria, and in the vein, I’d probably use a different type of bacteria (purple no sulfur bacteria such as PNS substrate sauce).

 

[dbugg]

UV and be done with it

Yeah I'm truly surprised how well the UV is working.

 

[Dan_P]

Thanks for the response. I've never used bottled bacteria, if it is truly "snake oil", Brightwell seems to have most people fooled. I can't believe there's not enough data to know whether it works or not. Seems like it should be a straightforward experiment. Anyway thanks for the advice. I will continue to dose.

What about adding more mature live rock from my DT?

People want to believe in miracles, so, yeah, many people could easily be fooled by vendor claims. The data that exists about product is likely to be anecdotal. On the plus side, I never heard anything bad happening from adding bottled bacteria.

As for adding live rock the only downside is removing hitch hikers and macro algae. The potential upside is introducing a complex array of organisms that will help keep the aquarium healthy. No guarantees though. Transplanting ecosystems is iffy.

 

[dbugg]

“Works” requires an endpoint. What endpoint do you propose folks evaluate mb7 for?

It doesn’t claim to be a dino treatment, that I have seen.

I’d raise nutrients and if that doesn’t work, I’d add bacteria, and in the vein, I’d probably use a different type of bacteria (purple no sulfur bacteria such as PNS substrate sauce).

@Randy Holmes-Farley , I always appreciate your scientific approach to all questions. I didn't say or intend to imply that adding bottled bacteria is a cure for dinos. What I've read here is that bacteria compete with dinos, so adding bottled bacteria when battling dinos can be helpful. True or no?

As far as the MB7, "working" in a general sense as a beneficial bacteria, one could hypothesize that tanks would cycle faster than a control tank without it? Measure, record, conclude? I haven't searched this yet because my time is consumed with dinos right now.

For my Ostreopsis, my path seems pretty clear, for now... UV, baste/syphon, raise nutrients, add your recommended bacteria, no water changes, run carbon, pray. Missing anything?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

mb7 didn’t do much for cycling in the test I saw, and in general, I think adding nitrifiers is a detriment to established tanks, not a positive.

Some types of bacteria may well help displace dinos. The nutrient approach likely has algae displacing them and the silicate approach has diatoms displacing them.

 

[taricha]

Manage N & P to remove P depletion stress. (maybe N too, but that's less critical). Fine to add "bacteria" as long as "bacteria" means live substrate from a mature system - rock, rubble etc. Hundreds of guaranteed aquarium-relevant strains and plenty of microdiversity besides bacteria. Bottles don't provide that, nor do they even claim to.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

@Randy Holmes-Farley , I always appreciate your scientific approach to all questions. I didn't say or intend to imply that adding bottled bacteria is a cure for dinos. What I've read here is that bacteria compete with dinos, so adding bottled bacteria when battling dinos can be helpful. True or no?

As far as the MB7, "working" in a general sense as a beneficial bacteria, one could hypothesize that tanks would cycle faster than a control tank without it? Measure, record, conclude? I haven't searched this yet because my time is consumed with dinos right now.

For my Ostreopsis, my path seems pretty clear, for now... UV, baste/syphon, raise nutrients, add your recommended bacteria, no water changes, run carbon, pray. Missing anything?

"Adding bottled bacteria when battling dinos can be helpful"...Id say adding most or all BOTTLED BACTERIA products wouldn't be helpful because you're just pouring in millions of bacteria, composed of probably just a few very common strains that arent really effective for what you're trying to accomplish. Just because you're adding bacteria doesn't mean those particular bacteria are needed or helpful in solving the problem.
I think my previous post is more along the lines of what you mean when saying that bacteria compete with dinos.

 

[Dan_P]

Seems to be a gap in the awesome wealth of knowledge I found here in the community, or maybe I am misreading/misunderstanding....I've read so much the last week, I feel like I should have a degree in microbiology by now.

Young 40g breeder frag/QT/grow tank with snails, no fish, started with 2 year old live rock and water from a very good DT. Identified my dinos as Ostreopsis with a microscope and the guides here. Installed 15W HOB UV by Aqua Ultraviolet (highly recommended) with Sicce 1.0 a few days ago. Overnight, water became crystal clear and dino population vastly receeded, moreso after a couple of days of basting. Corals are struggling but not emergency. Not feeding corals since I saw and understood dinos. No snails deaths observed.

Nutrients are very low. Instructions here are "get nutrients, especially phosphate up from zero", but also "add Microbacter7, and more live rock, because you need good bacteria to outcompete dinos". As I understand it, these statements are conflicting, no? Good bacteria/live rock would consume the nutrients?Should I dose nutrients first, or add bacteria first? Or both at the same time?

Another indication of the gap in our knowledge is found in a study of what happens to a stony coral under stress. One stressor studied was nutrients, a mixture of 0.6 ppm NO3, 0.4 ppm NO2 and 0.18 ppm NH4. The hobby recommends maintaining a NO3 level 2-5 ppm, even higher depending who is giving the advice. Go figure.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Another indication of the gap in our knowledge is found in a study of what happens to a stony coral under stress. One stressor studied was nutrients, a mixture of 0.6 ppm NO3, 0.4 ppm NO2 and 0.18 ppm NH4. The hobby recommends maintaining a NO3 level 2-5 ppm, even higher depending who is giving the advice. Go figure.

Out of curiosity, was the aim of the study to assess stress from nutrients on a specific species or genus or intended to investigate stress on stony corals in general? I'm curious because it seems like that would be species-specific and vary greatly depending on species. If the results weren't intended to apply to all stony corals, then it makes sense to set a recommended range like the one you mentioned as a general guideline.

 

[biotex]

I would recommend watching the BRS biome cycling playlist. There is a wealth of information there on the processes involved when cycling a tank.


To answer your question, coral health is the priority, so I would increase nutrients. I don't see a benefit to adding bacteria in your specific case. Many bottled bacteria products contain a carbon source which may allow bacteria to outcompete dinos, but there's no guarantee that this will happen for you. Adding carbon sources will bottom out your nutrients even further. I beat dinos by using a UV 24/7 and feeding my corals more, that was it.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I would recommend watching the BRS biome cycling playlist. There is a wealth of information there on the processes involved when cycling a tank.


To answer your question, coral health is the priority, so I would increase nutrients. I don't see a benefit to adding bacteria in your specific case. Many bottled bacteria products contain a carbon source which may allow bacteria to outcompete dinos, but there's no guarantee that this will happen for you. Adding carbon sources will bottom out your nutrients even further. I beat dinos by using a UV 24/7 and feeding my corals more, that was it.

I watched that when it first came out and I might be remembering incorrectly, but didn't they add 16 jars of copepods or something like that for dinos?

 

[biotex]

I watched that when it first came out and I might be remembering incorrectly, but didn't they add 16 jars of copepods or something like that for dinos?

That wasn't the take home message. I would rewatch ep.9.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

"Adding bottled bacteria when battling dinos can be helpful"...Id say adding most or all BOTTLED BACTERIA products wouldn't be helpful because you're just pouring in millions of bacteria, composed of probably just a few very common strains that arent really effective for what you're trying to accomplish. Just because you're adding bacteria doesn't mean those particular bacteria are needed or helpful in solving the problem.
I think my previous post is more along the lines of what you mean when saying that bacteria compete with dinos.

Hence my recommendation of a specific type of bacteria. Does it help with dinos? Not certain, but if raising nutrients and/or silicate doesn’t help, I’d try it.

 

[killer2001]

UV + raising nutrients + silica dosing + manual removal for about 2 months solved by dino problem, and I had it all over. Haven't seen dinos come back since. Few months ago I added a small dry rock to my tank and it never developed any dinos, just standard diatoms/algae and matured nicely.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

That wasn't the take home message. I would rewatch ep.9.

I might if I experience trouble setting up my next tank...there were a few things I recall from the series that I found to be not replicable/convenient (such as the dozen jars of copepods added st once). I actually wrote a few things down while watching that I had questions about. Also, from my point of view, they presented the study as if your results would be basically the exact same as their results if you followed their methods which were outlined very basically. I dont recall everything I wrote down. I think its in a thread someone started here somewhere.

Hence my recommendation of a specific type of bacteria. Does it help with dinos? Not certain, but if raising nutrients and/or silicate doesn’t help, I’d try it.

PNS ProBio is the 1 bottled bacteria Id be curious to try but unfortunately it isnt available here.