About Microbe-Lift products.

[Yuval5520]

First of all, Is microbe lift - all in one bloom & grow realy good? I mean it as micro and macro nutri, and about it again, its saying 5 ml per 100 liters and my tank is roughly 40 liters how much should i dose?

Second of all, MICROBE-LIFT XTREME. is it conditioner and bacteria in the same bottle?

 

[Essjay]

Dosgae:
5 ml in 100 litres
1 ml in 20 litres
2 ml in 40 litres.



Microbe-Lift Xtreme appears to be a water conditioner. From their website (my italics) -

• Detoxifies Nitrite
• Removes Ammonia (possibly detoxifies rather than removes it)
• Destroys and removes chloramines
• Removes Chlorine
• Detoxifies heavy metals
• Adds a multi-part skin-slime replacer
• Adds essential electrolytes
• Boosts alkalinity

It does not contain bacteria. It detoxifies ammonia and nitrite with chemicals. With most of these conditioners which detoxify ammonia and nitrite the effects are just temporary. The idea is that they detoxify them until the tank bacteria have chance to remove them.

The ingredients are
sodium hydroxymethylsulphonate (the chlorine remover)
sodium bicarbonate (this is also baking soda)
sodium chloride (common salt)
edetate sodium (also called EDTA and it binds metals)
aloe vera (to stimulate the slime coat but also coats fish's gills)

 

[Yuval5520]

Dosgae:
5 ml in 100 litres
1 ml in 20 litres
2 ml in 40 litres.



Microbe-Lift Xtreme appears to be a water conditioner. From their website (my italics) -

• Detoxifies Nitrite
• Removes Ammonia (possibly detoxifies rather than removes it)
• Destroys and removes chloramines
• Removes Chlorine
• Detoxifies heavy metals
• Adds a multi-part skin-slime replacer
• Adds essential electrolytes
• Boosts alkalinity

It does not contain bacteria. It detoxifies ammonia and nitrite with chemicals. With most of these conditioners which detoxify ammonia and nitrite the effects are just temporary. The idea is that they detoxify them until the tank bacteria have chance to remove them.

The ingredients are
sodium hydroxymethylsulphonate (the chlorine remover)
sodium bicarbonate (this is also baking soda)
sodium chloride (common salt)
edetate sodium (also called EDTA and it binds metals)
aloe vera (to stimulate the slime coat but also coats fish's gills)

So its not with bacteria?

 

[Essjay]

No it's not with bacteria, it's just a water conditioner which also detoxifies ammonia and nitrite.

Their bacteria product is Nite-Out II. This contains Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. Nitrosomonas are the bacteria which 'eat' ammonia, but the nitrite 'eating' bacteria which grow in fish tanks are not Nitrobacter. It's Nitrospira which 'eat' nitrite in fish tanks. So this product contains the wrong nitrite eaters.

 

[Yuval5520]

No it's not with bacteria, it's just a water conditioner which also detoxifies ammonia and nitrite.

Their bacteria product is Nite-Out II. This contains Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. Nitrosomonas are the bacteria which 'eat' ammonia, but the nitrite 'eating' bacteria which grow in fish tanks are not Nitrobacter. It's Nitrospira which 'eat' nitrite in fish tanks. So this product contains the wrong nitrite eaters.

I didnt run my filter for a month and now im buying a new one, probably on my bio rings on old filter the bacteria died, what should i do? did i ruin the cycle? (no fish deaths "just" zero nitrates) I put just in "" cause i think cause of that my plants are dying. Will a fertilizer help?

 

[Essjay]

If the bio rings are still wet, there should still be some bacteria. Maybe not as many as there were if there was no water flowing over them bringing ammonia to feed them, but enough to kick start things again.
If you want to add a bottled bacteria, look at Dr Tim's One & Only or Tetra Safe Start as they contain the right bacteria species.


Aquatic plants prefer ammonia as their source of nitrogen. They only use nitrate if there's not enough ammonia. Plants have to convert nitrate to ammonia to use it and that takes energy. My tanks have nitrate so low the tester can't detect any.
Plants also need minerals and they get used up in a tank, so yes fertiliser is a good idea. I use the liquid Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Tank for the leaf feeders - there are several other liquid products with Flourish in the name, but only that one. For the root feeders I use Seachem Flourish Root Tabs.

 

[Yuval5520]

If the bio rings are still wet, there should still be some bacteria. Maybe not as many as there were if there was no water flowing over them bringing ammonia to feed them, but enough to kick start things again.
If you want to add a bottled bacteria, look at Dr Tim's One & Only or Tetra Safe Start as they contain the right bacteria species.


Aquatic plants prefer ammonia as their source of nitrogen. They only use nitrate if there's not enough ammonia. Plants have to convert nitrate to ammonia to use it and that takes energy. My tanks have nitrate so low the tester can't detect any.
Plants also need minerals and they get used up in a tank, so yes fertiliser is a good idea. I use the liquid Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Tank for the leaf feeders - there are several other liquid products with Flourish in the name, but only that one. For the root feeders I use Seachem Flourish Root Tabs.

its not wet. whats should i do

 

[Essjay]

In that case I'd look for one of the two bottled bacteria products known to contain the correct species of bacteria - Dr Tim's One & Only or Tetra Safe Start.

 

[Yuval5520]

In that case I'd look for one of the two bottled bacteria products known to contain the correct species of bacteria - Dr Tim's One & Only or Tetra Safe Start.

Microbelift nite out 2 also good?

 

[Essjay]

Not if you want the nitrite eaters which grow in aquariums. Nite-out 2 contains Nitrobacter.

It used to be thought that Nitrobacter were the nitrite eaters which grew in aquariums but Dr Tim Havonec proved they didn't, and that Nitrospira are the ones which grow in aquariums. The use of Nitrospira is copyrighted and only the two products I named in post #8 can use Nitrospira.

 

[Yuval5520]

Not if you want the nitrite eaters which grow in aquariums. Nite-out 2 contains Nitrobacter.

It used to be thought that Nitrobacter were the nitrite eaters which grew in aquariums but Dr Tim Havonec proved they didn't, and that Nitrospira are the ones which grow in aquariums. The use of Nitrospira is copyrighted and only the two products I named in post #8 can use Nitrospira.

What if i wont use what you mentioned?

 

[Essjay]

No bacteria product cycles a tank instantly. Just about all of them contain the right ammonia eating species, so they speed up the first stage of the cycle. The ones with the correct nitrite eaters speed up the second stage, but the ones which don't can't help with the second stage as much as the ones which do contain the correct species.

With any product you'll probably need to do water changes to keep both ammonia and nitrite as low as possible; you may well find you need to do water changes for longer to keep nitrite very low.

 

[Yuval5520]

No bacteria product cycles a tank instantly. Just about all of them contain the right ammonia eating species, so they speed up the first stage of the cycle. The ones with the correct nitrite eaters speed up the second stage, but the ones which don't can't help with the second stage as much as the ones which do contain the correct species.

With any product you'll probably need to do water changes to keep both ammonia and nitrite as low as possible; you may well find you need to do water changes for longer to keep nitrite very low.

Its weird that i have no sign of ammonia or nitrite without filter?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This is just my personal opinion for whatever it is worth, But if I had a bottle of Microbe-Lift Xtreme I would think the best place to put it is in my toilet. However, we have out own septic system so I would be worried about harming it.

There is also evidence that aloe vera can be harmful to fish gills when the aloe is in the water. This is a completely different situation that when aloe vera is dietary.

Secondly there are the “Stress Coat” type products. Some of these products have some form of conditioner in them which will neutralize chlorine. But one of these products, API StressCoat Natural, Pond and Marine, claims to neutralize chlorine with aloe vera alone. It cannot neutralize chlorine and several Facebook group posts have had whole tanks killed by using this product as a chlorine conditioner.

Aloe vera is used in “stress coat” products (API StressCoat, Microbe-Lift Aquatic Stress Relief) supposedly to aid in fish diseases and after a water change to sooth the fish. Aloe vera coats the gills of the fish and interferes with oxygen exchange. It also rapidly depolymerizes, forming sugar in the aquarium water column. This sugar will give a bacterial outbreaks in the water column. This bacterial outbreak will kill fish. I do not recommend using these products.

The above comes from here, I suggest folks have a quick read: https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/5-5-3-water-conditioners/

I used ti have a study on this bookmarked. However, over time, institutions move things and the link I had was no longer any good and I had the title of the paper replace by the words Aloe Vera Bad. So I could not do a search by the paper title

Doing a search on Google scholar for aloe vera and fish basically returns a ton of studies. but almost all of then involve aloe vera as a dietary supplement.

 

[davros]

This tank has had fish in it all along or this is a new setup?