Interview With Dr. Timothy A. Hovanec

[aaronnorth]

you're relying an awful lot on management in every LFS countrywide that stocks these products to train their staff properly, and then relying on the staff to do their jobs properly. I've got nothing against LFS staff but we all know that whilst some will do things properly, others won't.

I totally agree, but this shouldnt be a negative aspect on bactinettess, this also applies to any mehod of cycling even adding ammonia - i bet some shops dont even tell them about cycling!

 

[Axleuk]

you're relying an awful lot on management in every LFS countrywide that stocks these products to train their staff properly, and then relying on the staff to do their jobs properly. I've got nothing against LFS staff but we all know that whilst some will do things properly, others won't.
As for retailers being told to give them the proper advice...again, I refer you to the point above.

But surely you can say the same thing for almost all products. I dont think thats enough of an argument against the product.

If someone goes into a shop and purchase a toaster and then complains that they cannot get a signal when they try and plug it into their TV, whose fault is that? Its not the shopkeepers fault for not telling them at the point of sale the purpose of the product, they assume the person purchasing the product knows what they are buying.

 

[aaronnorth]

But surely you can say the same thing for almost all products. I dont think thats enough of an argument against the product

lol, exactly what i have just said - must of been typing at the same time!

 

[raptorrex]

If someone goes into a shop and purchase a toaster and then complains that they cannot get a signal when they try and plug it into their TV, whose fault is that? Its not the shopkeepers fault for not telling them at the point of sale the purpose of the product, they assume the person purchasing the product knows what they are buying.

this work unless the customer told the shop assistant what they intended to do. its is covered, amongst other things, by the fit for purpose rule.

 

[tenohfive]

you're relying an awful lot on management in every LFS countrywide that stocks these products to train their staff properly, and then relying on the staff to do their jobs properly. I've got nothing against LFS staff but we all know that whilst some will do things properly, others won't.
As for retailers being told to give them the proper advice...again, I refer you to the point above.

But surely you can say the same thing for almost all products. I dont think thats enough of an argument against the product.

If someone goes into a shop and purchase a toaster and then complains that they cannot get a signal when they try and plug it into their TV, whose fault is that? Its not the shopkeepers fault for not telling them at the point of sale the purpose of the product, they assume the person purchasing the product knows what they are buying.

You've both missed the point. Storage of this product is essential to its effectiveness, and if the LFS staff aren't all aware or don't make their customers aware of this the product becomes ineffective.

 

[OohFeeshy]

i am merely opening peoples eyes to an alternative method that they may not have been aware of until recently.

They are aware of it. So you're doing no 'eye opening'. There's a topic every week or so about whether various products work. Guess what the concensus is? Generally no, but if you can get hold of Bio Spira (in the US) or Bactinettes (in the UK), providing they've been stored correctly and so on, then they do.

Even with a ridiculously rubbish search, waaay back in 2005 you find posts about Bactinettes and Bio Spira.

You appear to be completely missing the point here. You say 'yeah, Bactinettes, great-o' (or something to that effect), we say, So what? We know, but due to previously mentioned potential problems, it's still easier and more effective to reccomend to new people that they use ammonia.

If you can get it, you have the option of using it.

Yeeees.... And if you can't get it, you don't. So what was your original point here?

I dont believe you can say this doesnt work until you have tried it. when biospira was launched i'm sure you would have your doubts, but now it is established everyone thinks it is good (and probobaly is) once bactinettess get strated, i am sure lots more people will turn to them with great success - especially in th UK.

Seroiusly... Have you actually bothered to read anything I've written? Apparently not. I have never said that it does not work (providing storage conditions are met). The topic is not, as per se, about whether it works. It is about the OP really not getting the message and continuing to act like some sort of Bactinettes martyr.

 

[aaronnorth]

I wasnt aiming the point at you, it was at everyone in general, i just linked it in with the post about the refrigerated couriers.

 

[Axleuk]

They are aware of it. So you're doing no 'eye opening'. There's a topic every week or so about whether various products work. Guess what the concensus is? Generally no, but if you can get hold of Bio Spira (in the US) or Bactinettes (in the UK), providing they've been stored correctly and so on, then they do.

Just because there are previous posts on the subject about similiar issues does not automatically make people are aware of it. You are only assuming. i wasnt aware of it when i joined the site. I agree with the later part of your statement.

You appear to be completely missing the point here. You say 'yeah, Bactinettes, great-o' (or something to that effect), we say, So what? We know, but due to previously mentioned potential problems, it's still easier and more effective to reccomend to new people that they use ammonia.

Who is 'we'? Yourself and select handful of others from a memberbase of 36241, hardly a majority.

Throughout the duration of this thread i have had information presented to me that about the differences between Bio Spira and Bactinette and have changed my stance slightly in light of this. This was due to the differences between nitrospira spp and nitrobacter spp and now knowing more of the scientific aspects has opened my own eyes a little.

 

[tenohfive]

Who is 'we'? Yourself and select handful of others from a memberbase of 36241, hardly a majority.

Axle, read through this thread and others like it. The majority of people hold this view, not just Feeshy. He's not overgeneralising at all, he's drawn the same conclusion I have from reading this thread and others like it - the majority of other users of this forum advise fishless cycling or mature media as the two safest ways to cycle a tank.

You seem to be very keen to pick on statistics, but as I've said before - on these forums a general consensus formed by listening to different peoples opinion is the only outcome - not as black and white as pie charts and graphs, but certainly more useful. We all know the total membership figure is largely composed of a transient element of users who come on for awhile and ask some questions, then leave the hobby or have no desire to talk about it etc. The actual number of people who log on every day or every week is a fraction, and its those who are saying the same thing:

These products can work, and do work - but not all the time. The one thing I've heard repeated again and again within this thread and elsewhere is that the best way to cycle a tank is with mature media. The second most recommended option is fishless cycling.

 

[blodhi74]

Interesting read.

 

[rabbut]

I urge everyone to take the time to read the interview. Although quite comprehensive, i think you will agree there are some very interesting facts and statements to backup the argument i have been trying to highlight with regards to cycling using an alternative method.

OK, completed that fairly comprehensive interview, and I agree, a lot of interesting points were raised, though many aren't about the topic of your OP I'll start with the bits relavant to Bactinettes, and then move onto some more interesting points, such as test kit accuracy and aclimation, all of which were discussed in that interview and have sparked my interest....

There are only a couple of products available in the world of this nature and if either are available to you and you are cycling a tank for the first time, this is something you should consider and support.

Well, I think you saw the responce to that statement above in previous posts, and my thoughts after the reading of the interview have not changed my mind about the product. I won't be supporting this product as a viable alternative to fishless cycling on it's own

I have pasted the interview in full without any alterations other than highlighting, in bold, statements i feel are worthy.

I will leave your highlights in bold, and add my own in italics

CT: Most of our members know you as the person that pioneered BioSpira, which is a cycling product that actually contains the proper bacteria for cycling a tank. It is noteworthy to mention that the product actually works as advertised! I'm interested in knowing how the product came about and the amount of effort and time that went into developing and marketing it.

Does this product work as advertised is the question you should be asking here The product is advertised as being able to instantly cycle a tank for a modest bio-load. A point is raised later in the intervies below...

CT: Is it possible to fishless cycle a tank using BioSpira?

Dr. Tim: Sure, the bacteria don’t care if the ammonia comes from fish or an inorganic source. As long as it’s ammonia they’ll use it. So use BioSpira® as directed and add ammonia but do not let the ammonia concentration get too high, say above 5 to 10 mg/L. Best to start with about 1 to 2 mg/L and as that is oxidized slowly increase the amount of ammonia added. You’ll see that in a very short time the system can oxidize all the ammonia to nitrate overnight. Now you can add fish to the system.

However I must point out, there is no real need to do a fishless cycle if one uses BioSpira®. If you use it as directed and maintain a fish density of six Rosy Barb sized fish per 10 gallons you will find the ammonia and nitrite does not get above 2 to 3 mg/L and then only for a day or two at most. And don’t overfeed!

Instantly cycled? I think not In a cycled tank, ammonia and nitrite are always zero If ammonia and nitrite rise in a new tank, it isn't cycled. If they raise in a well established tank, it's likely a mini-cycle or an equipment fault. To me this ammonia and nitrite raise after adding fish with bio-spira, means that the product isn't working as advertised. The product is advertised as intantly cycling the tank. By my definition of cycled, it takes the product a day or two to cycle the tank, therefore IMO it does not work as advertised. I would point out though, that a day or two for a cycle is a significant improvement on a normal cycle and the product would be a viable way to speed up a cycle, if, as bolded by you, the product was correctly handled

After over a year of not getting positive results, I was basically forced to change the direction of my research from how many nitrifiers to who are the nitrifiers. This was a lot of work making clone libraries and sequencing gels. But it resulted in the discovery that Nitrobacter species were not present in aquaria samples but there were lots of bacteria that were most closely related to Nitrospira. At that time, Nitrospira were considered a strange bacterium that was not important. My research changed that. The first paper was published in January 1998 and later in that same year three other research groups (one in Australia, two in Germany) also published papers showing that Nitrospira-like bacteria not Nitrobacter were the bacteria responsible for nitrification in many different types of aquatic systems.

As Andy points out above, bactinettes does not use the same bacteria as biospria, and thus, as such, will only theoretically speed the processing of ammonia, but not make a significant improvement on nitrite oxidification times. I know you have experienced in practice that the product does. Based on the bacteria presant in bactinettes though, I would'nt be supprised if nitrite spiked anythime in the first 6 months in your tank, as the supplied bacteria for nitrite oxidation die off without nitrospira, the true nitrite oxidising bacteria, there to take over nitrite oxifdation in sufficient quantities.

Dr. Tim: Only very few test kit brands accurately measure water quality parameters. If you want to get good data then use test kits from Kordon or Aquarium Systems. Other than those, I would say use the liquid products over the tablets. The tablets are the worst. Most test kits give false positive readings (meaning they indicate that ammonia, for example, is present when it is not). In general, pH and nitrite kits are the most accurate while ammonia and nitrate are the least accurate. And keep the reagents fresh! But for most kits they give only a general indication.

This is something that supports the advise given by regular forum members, in that liquid kits are better than strips or tablets. Interestingly Dr Hovanec does not rate tablets over strips, as is the consencus amongst members on here... Dr Hovanec recomends a different brand to API which is a brand swarn by by most on here, instenad recomending Aquarium systems or Kordon kits. I wonder if this is a recomendation to use kits by his company, or genuine recomendations that he is making from his experience

CT: Along the same lines as adequate hobbyist test kits, are there other water parameters that should be monitored that typically aren't?

Dr. Tim: Most people don’t monitor their tank’s nitrite concentration. I think that is more important than ammonia for an established aquarium. This is because the nitrite-oxidizing bacteria are more sensitive than the ammonia-oxidizing bacteria to environment conditions. If something is wrong nitrite will show up before ammonia. I recommend nitrite and pH. pH will tell you when you need to change the water, nitrite will tell you when to clean the filter.

We recomend measuring nitrite concerntation to newbies, so this supports us here, though we tend to give ammonia more thought than nitrite, as ammonia is more toxic and does lasting damage, unlike (as far as I'm aware) nitrite. I question the methology behind using the point where the pH starts to crash to monitor when waterchanges are due, or using nitrite concerntrations to monitor when to clean the filter. I don't agree with this advise, and personally believe that these two maintanance tasks should be carried out long before these levels start to move

CT: Acclimation of new arrivals is one of those things that many hobbyists do with very little thought. Taking into account the toxic substances inside a shipping bag and the changes that occur once the bag is opened, do you feel that float and/or drip methods of acclimation are ideal? Why or why not?

Dr. Tim: Well this might get me in trouble but for most fish neither! I guess I should explain. For nearly 8 years or so, I have been in charge of the fish at the Marineland booth at the many industry trade shows we do each year (I just passed it along to another person I trained). There are about 6 or so shows a year where we set up aquaria. The largest shows involve 60 to 70 aquaria and/or commercial display units and are a mix of freshwater, saltwater and koi.

We have never used either method. We prep the water, getting rid of the chlorine, set the water temperature and add a pre-cultured BioWheel® to each system. The next day when the fish arrive from the airport we rip open the bags and carefully net the fish from the bags directly into the tanks. We virtually never lose fish from this and we always have the best displays. Most of the fish are right from the fish farm or the marine distributor so these are not conditioned fish.

If I had to choose one of the methods you mention I would go with floating. Seldom have I ever used the drip method. The problem with the drip method is that you are adding water with a high pH to the bag water, which has a high ammonia level. This causes the bag water pH to rise and makes more of the ammonia toxic. The vast majority of fish are tougher than we give them credit for and I would much rather give them a little temperature shock than soak them in ammonia.

This interests me, as I now make drip aclimations a habbit, unless a fish looks like it is realy suffering, then I do flow Dr Hovanec's advise. I remember there being a rather heated and controvertial discussion about this on here arround a year ago, with no general consensus reached. It is as a result of this discussion, that I started to follow my current procedures. With this, I'd surgest that you follow whatever method works for you, but try floating first, as this is the most common method ATM

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Axleuk]

Hi Rabbut,

I appreciate the time you have taken to not only read the paper, but to post your comments.

Having read all the comments in response to this thread both on and off topic i have changed my stance slightly. I still support Bactinette and agree in principle the claims made by Bio Spira although i have made a conscious effort not to whole heartedly recommend either product to someone new to the hobby unless of course they have jumped in at the deep end and find themselves in a situation where the use of such products will help reduce stress inflicted on their fish.

It just goes to show that if you can take the time to look beyond the packaging of some products and do a little research prior to usage, you might just find a few revelations not highlighted that can, in some cases, make you a little more wary of their use.

I have found this thread to both interesting and frustrating at times, but ultimately the comments posted have been helpful and beneficial.

I'd like to thank everyone for their input and look forward to further discussions.

 

[tyyrlym]

This is something that supports the advise given by regular forum members, in that liquid kits are better than strips or tablets. Interestingly Dr Hovanec does not rate tablets over strips, as is the consencus amongst members on here... Dr Hovanec recomends a different brand to API which is a brand swarn by by most on here, instenad recomending Aquarium systems or Kordon kits. I wonder if this is a recomendation to use kits by his company, or genuine recomendations that he is making from his experience

I doubt its anything sinister. First off its two different companies with two different test kits, if he's marketing something he's bad at it. Second, both test kits are a touch fancier than the API offering in the area of test tubes. With color references built into the tubes which makes comparison easier and more accurate. Both kits also use individual packets of regent. He could believe that the individual regent packs will produce more consistent results than drops.
Finally, he's a researcher and his criteria for selecting a test kit are likely to be different from your average home aquaist...aquarist... fish freak.

 

[andywg]

Instantly cycled? I think not In a cycled tank, ammonia and nitrite are always zero

Not necessarily. In a cycled tank the level of ammonia (and from this nitrite) production is equal to the amount which can be processed by the bacteria. There will always be some levels of ammonia and nitrite, just below that which we can test. The amount of ammonia produced will be in constant flux so there will be peaks and troughs in the levels (albeit very small) of ammonia and nitrite in a tank. I would expect a small ammonia spike after feeding, for example.

Obviously the above should not lead to levels in the 2ppm range.

This is something that supports the advise given by regular forum members, in that liquid kits are better than strips or tablets. Interestingly Dr Hovanec does not rate tablets over strips, as is the consencus amongst members on here... Dr Hovanec recomends a different brand to API which is a brand swarn by by most on here, instenad recomending Aquarium systems or Kordon kits. I wonder if this is a recomendation to use kits by his company, or genuine recomendations that he is making from his experience

I put it down to him knowing his stuff. I have found the API tests to be mostly useless and agree with them giving false positive results (such as RO water mixed with salt giving levels of ammonia and nitrates off the charts). Also, someone mentioned a while ago about moaning to their water company cos their tap levels were too high and his accurate and properly calibrated test measured 27ppm in a tank which API was measuring up in the 80s.

Of course, one could always PM him and find out

We recomend measuring nitrite concerntation to newbies, so this supports us here, though we tend to give ammonia more thought than nitrite, as ammonia is more toxic and does lasting damage, unlike (as far as I'm aware) nitrite.

I think you may be wrong here. Nitrite binds to Haemoglobins and prevents the fish from being able to transport blood to where it is needed. I recall Neale Monks once described the choice between whether nitrites or ammonia is worst as chosing between being killed by stabbing or gunshot; both bad and undesirable.

 

[aaronnorth]

Not necessarily. In a cycled tank the level of ammonia (and from this nitrite) production is equal to the amount which can be processed by the bacteria. There will always be some levels of ammonia and nitrite, just below that which we can test. The amount of ammonia produced will be in constant flux so there will be peaks and troughs in the levels (albeit very small) of ammonia and nitrite in a tank. I would expect a small ammonia spike after feeding, for example.

Obviously the above should not lead to levels in the 2ppm range.

i agree with you here, in a tank, algae blooms of any type can be caused by NH3 spikes, (other factors can cause this). Mainly in planted tanks where nutrient substrate are used, if disturbed in a major rescape for example, then the substrate can release NH3. The first sign is the death of any shrimps due to their sensitivety, (i lost 3 when i rescaped a month back), i tested the water - NH3 0 (according to the nutrafin kit) after a 2days, i started to get spyrogyra - i put this down to the untraceable ammonia. The test kits in the market are designed to read levels that are dangerous to the fish, not what the actual levels are.