Have they discovered where bacteria magically appear from yet?

[Bamf Comics]

If I remember the line correctly from 25 years ago, the american association of feed control officials definition of by products say they can include tissue from dead, dying diseased and disabled animals and can also contain hair, hyde, beaks, feathers urine and fecal waste. I don't trust anyone open cart, especially in the pet industry. You have to earn it then maintain it. The boxes of filters and Hikari food just arrived but I've been buried in comic orders and walk-in traffic. Robert Downey Jr popped his head out as Doctor Doom last week apparently intent on causing a stir large enough to fund next weeks fish order already if the bacteria cooperate. Basically, any new movie announcement or tv show announcement triggers a wave of speculators to run chasing multiple comics and drives the prices thru the roof. The prices are growing faster than the bacteria in my tanks on some issues.

We helped build Iams and Eukanuba then proctor and Gamble bought them and put the product in all the Walmarts and Dollar stores around us killing traffic.

 

[Alice B]

OK- but then why did you say that Marineland lost their culture when you did not know this was actually the case?

That staement is what made me respond above. I am a bit biased here. But, Dr. Hovanec is a well respected scientist and tank related bacteria and products has been central in his life/business for a very long time. While it is not impossible, I would very much be surprised if a scientist of his caliber and reputation lost one of his most important strains of bacteria.

I have read all three of his papers on the bacteria, I have read his patent application for the Nitrospira. One thing many people fail to acknowledge is that his name is not the only one on the 3 papers. In fact, on one paper Dr. H. was not the main contact.

Burrell PC, Phalen CM, Hovanec TA.2001.
Identification of Bacteria Responsible for Ammonia Oxidation in Freshwater Aquaria.
Appl Environ Microbiol 67:.
https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.67.12.5791-5800.2001

Hovanec TA, Taylor LT, Blakis A, Delong EF1998.
Nitrospira-Like Bacteria Associated with Nitrite Oxidation in Freshwater Aquaria.
Appl Environ Microbiol64:.
https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.64.1.258-264.1998

Hovanec, T.A. and DeLong, E.F., 1997.
Comparative analysis of nitrifying bacteria associated with freshwater and marine aquaria.
Oceanographic Literature Review, 2(44), p.144.
https://journals.asm.org/doi/abs/10.1128/aem.62.8.2888-2896.1996

I assumed that was what happened, correcting my post. in the meantime it's perfectly ok if I almost never buy anything from marineland?

 

[Alice B]

The bigger and more popular the company the less likely I am to buy their products, as popularity goes up quality goes down. I use Fritz Professional chlorine remover in the ponds I work on for others as well as my own aquariums. Unlike Prime it can't be overdosed. Since I don't know what the chlorine level is in every city in North Texas I have to push fairly close to overdose or I run the risk of losing someone else's koi. And that gets very expensive. If I need bacteria I'll stay with Fritz, it has worked well for me for years, and hasn't been bought up by one of the big giant corporations. They don't put their bacteria in Petsmart or Petco, just independent pet stores unless something has changed. I now have to buy thru a wholesaler, they cut out the small store accounts a few years ago. Even tho I don't have a store I had an online store for 17 years. And I did occasionally run product tests, back before 2001. It was pretty fun. anyway good luck with the cycling Bamf.

 

[Bamf Comics]

One 20 and two of the 10's crossed the finish line with Monday's tests. Two of the 20's had the nitrite drop off to low levels and should be gone any day. The last four 20's I set up with partially preaged sponges had their HOB's added last Wednesday and got dosed with full dose Dr Tim's. It turns out, full dose is 4 capfuls for a 20 so the original tanks had their doses at 25% which should have had results of some type and the 10's at 50% dosage. The four 20's that got dosed, had testable nitrite last Monday. Last night they had high nitrite pretty much where I would have expected them to be without Dr Tim's. I didn't check the nitrate last week but there is testable nitrate in all 4 of those tanks but whether to attribute it to the preaged sponges or Dr Tim's I can't say for certain. I was hoping Dr Tim's would have pushed them across the finish line by now with 5 days to bump up the production on the new HOBs and the preaged sponges. It didn't so I can't give it a glowing revue again and this was sourced from a wholesaler unlike the 1st bottle. Also, one of the 20's from the very beginning still doesn't show nitrite and it got a partial dose as well from what was left in the bottle as well as the initial dose from the 1st bottle of Dr Tim's. I shuffled a smaller filter sponge over to it last night from one of the finished tanks so hopefully that one will start moving soon. Two months is long enough to wait for nitrite to show up. The four 20's that got dosed got 50% changes last night but it was water only since they're bare bottom. Cartridges and sponge remains untouched. I ordered some hornwort from one seller and guppy grass from another e-Bay seller and set up 3 tubs with a 4' twin tube light and spiked with water with extremely high nitrate from the cycling tub (one of them was the cycling tub). I figure I can run the light 24/7 to speed grow the plants to have some additional options soon. Not really thinking to add DIY CO2 right now although it's pretty simple and low tech. 2 liter bottle, sugar, pack of yeast, water, airline tubing through the cap with an airstone on the end, almost instant CO2. Seems a bit overkill for guppy grass and hornwort though.

Hopefully by next Monday's tests everyone's finished.

 

[Colin_T]

The reason you have nitrate in the tanks is because there is nitrite.
Nitrate test kits read nitrite as nitrate and give you a false reading.
Don't test for nitrates until the nitrite is 0ppm.

 

[Bamf Comics]

That's not true for AP test kits. My AP test kits show every tank has or had nitrite except two and many had no testable nitrate at all with the test showing yellow and no color change for weeks. The results for which tank is showing what has been consistent for weeks on end. The AP kits showed similar results for years going back into the early 90's. I trust the AP kits.

Here's a picture showing the high nitrite and high nitrate in the oscar tank. A 50% water change last night and we're getting the same results testing this morning. Tanks around it are testing high nitrate and the nitrate tests stay yellow. The tanks are giving consistent readings doing the same tests multiple times.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You do not seem to understand a lot of this *SIGH*

If you have nitrite in a tank and no nitrate (and you cannot use your nitrate test for this) the way the nitrate test works is to reduce the nitrate to nitrite and then test that. So you will be told using the nitrate kit that you have nitrate when you do not.

If you have bith nitrite and nitrate in a tank and you test using the nitrate kit, it will count the nitrite as well and the result is you get a nitrate reading that is higher than the actual level of notrate in the tank.

It is posible for any of the following conditions to be present during cycling'
1. You have some level of nitrite and 0 nitrate. However, if you test for nitrtate it will show there is sone when there is none.
2. If you have both nitrite and nitrite in a tank and you test for nitrate you will get a reading showing there is more notrate than there actually is.
3. If you have only nitrate in a tank and you test for nitrate it will geve an almost accurate reading. The reason I say almost is because nitrate testing is notoriously hard to do accurately. This is especially true when the actual nitrate level is between 0 and 20 ppm as far as I have been able to discover.

The Hach inexpensive nitrate test costs $144. I comes with 100 single packet reagent doses. It uses a single powder pack to add to the test water to create the resultant color. This is way different than the API two liquid reagent kit where one has to bang heck out of bottle #2 beore adding it.

The Hach test kit also offers an option to purchase this "To verify the test accuracy, use a standard solution as the sample." "Nitrate nitrogen standard solution, 10.0 mg/L NO3–N" 30749 Nitrate Standard Solution, 10 mg/L, 500 mL for $31.45

The above should tell us a lot about the difficulty getting an accurate reading from the Nitrate test kit from API WHICH comeS with 90 tests and cost anywhere from about $10 - $20 depending from whom you buy it. Hach sells to research type people and API sells to hobby fish keepers like us.

From Wiki:

A nitrate test is a chemical test used to determine the presence of nitrate ion in solution. Testing for the presence of nitrate via wet chemistry is generally difficult compared with testing for other anions, as almost all nitrates are soluble in water. In contrast, many common ions give insoluble salts, e.g. halides precipitate with silver, and sulfate precipitate with barium.

The nitrate anion is an oxidizer, and many tests for the nitrate anion are based on this property. However, other oxidants present in the analyte may interfere and give erroneous results.

Nitrate can also be detected by first reducing it to the more reactive nitrite ion and using one of many nitrite tests.[1]

You can see all the methods that Hach can use to test for nitrite and nitrate here. The price for accuracy is insane.
https://www.hach.com/parameters/nitrate

The test kit I have used the least over the last 24 years is the one for nitrate. I seen no need to do it in my planted tanks and my water change regimen in my non-planted tanks is so stringent that I should never need to test for nitrate.

 

[Alice B]

Tetra nitrate kits are more accurate than API, IMHO. More expensive but if I'm going to bother to test, especially on a reef, I want the best.

 

[Bamf Comics]

Two more tanks from the same stand showing the exact same test results for the 3rd time since last night pictured. On the left we have nitrite but no nitrate. On the right higher nitrite and a hint of nitrate.
I don't care about the numbers or how exact they are for this purpose. What I'm getting are consistent and duplicatable over multiple tanks and tests. They also market a 5 in 1 dip test strip that tests for nitrite and nitrate at the same time without any warning that one is messing up the results of the other. https://apifishcare.com/pdfs/products-us/5-in-1-test-strips/api-test-strips-instruction-manual.pdf

You are free to walk in the front door and conduct the tests in person since seeing is believing as they say. I was ecstatic the first time I finally had a color change on a Nitrate test, unfortunately it wasn't in the tanks but in the tub I was preaging sponges in. Weeks of nitrite showing up but no color change at all to the Nitrate test solution from yellow. Now we're finally getting somewhere.