Liquid Bacteria

[MBOU]

Well, I think we all now have a point of view from each side, the point of view from a scientific aspect, the point of view from someone who has plenty of experience and the point of view (and a sensible one at that!) from a regular ole fishkeeper who actually used the product.

Read the post and form your own conclusion, no answer is a given as it is all from personal experience, what works for some might not work for others as everyones tanks have different water values and bacterias. Like pretty much everything in the hobby, its all trial and error.

A very interesting post and thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge, whilst its now closed to prevent ongoing arguments that could go backwards and forwards forever, its informed and interesting posts like this that we need. Dont stop!

EDIT:

I am going to allow TwoTankAmin's last comment to me as now I believe we have lost a very valuable member and it's an absolute shame but their point is very much valid.

This is not one, but two lies. Dr Tim maintains two sites. One mostly for products and the other mostly for information. Neither one of these sites has a forum. So here you have lie number one. What you will find are two links to other unrelated Forums sites. One is Cichilid-Forum.com and the other is 3reef.com. Both of these sites have provided a special sub-forum for Dr. Hovanec. I have checked out both of these sub-forums and there is not a single post I read that would support what raptorex stated about the product not working consistently. See for yourself http/www.drtimsaquatics.com/forums

The fact is Dr. Hovanec's products do work, I have used his bacteria several time with results as promised/expected. But I am not a fish keeping newbie so I don't make the common mistakes most of them do. Most people who use one of the actual functional bacterial starters (only 3 that I am aware of contain the proper live bacteria DrTim;s, Tetra SafeStart and Avecom's ABIL-there may be more used in the aquaculture industry but I am not familiar with them) make mistakes and fail to follow the directions. The product doesn't fail, the user does

Let just look at the ignorance on most sites regarding testing, test kits and what the readings mean. I am going to steal some replies made by Dr. Hovanec to make my point here. In a thread a poster stated he was using the API Master test kit to take his readings to which Dr. H replied:

by DrTim's » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:11 am Ok, that test kit measures in the ion form. When I say 5 mg/L-N I mean ammonia-nitrogen or nitrite-nitrogen not in the ion form.

3 ppm ammonia in the ion form -- your kit, equals roughly 2.2 ppm ammonia-nitrogen (divide the ion value by 1.216 assuming your measure NH3-ion)

3 ppm nitrite in the ion form -- your kit, equals roughly 1 ppm nitrite-nitrogen (divide the ion value by 3.284)

What this means is that in the units I discuss your values are less than what you may think. I would wait 24 hours and them re-measure and then re-dose

Later in the thread he clarifies this further;

Your nitrite test is measuring nitrite, ok. But there a couple of ways to express the units. As an example, someone from Europe might ask us how far it is from Las Vegas to LA - you might say 300 I might say 483 and neither answer is wrong they're just incomplete. You said 300 MILES I said 483 kilometers. This the same with the kits - some kits measure the nitrite ion (NO2-) other kits measure nitrite using nitrogen as the scale. The kit is not measuring nitrogen it only a scale for the units. So I say don't let your ammonia or nitrite get above 5 ppm ammonia-nitrogen or nitrite-nitrogen that gives you the units (I'm telling the scale (like miles or kilometers). The API does not measure on that scale - it measures in the ion form. So when it says 5 ppm (the top of the color chart) that is not the same as the 5 ppm that I talk about - they are different units or scales. The conversion is that 1 ppm of the nitrite-nitrogen equals 4.4 ppm of the nitrite ion. So that is why when you say you have between 4 or 5 nitrite in the scale I work with that is around 0.9 to 1.13 nitrite-nitrogen.

Incidentally this also dispels the myth propagated ny OldMan47 about 1 ppm of ammonia producing a greater amount of ppms of nitrite when you look at the nitrogen involved in the "nitrogen cycle". It also indicates why a reading of .25 ppm of total ammonia on the API test kit is almost never a cause for doing water changes during a fish in cycle. Another myth propagated by this and other sites. The fact is NH3 and NH4+ are not the same things- the former is about 100 times as harmful as the latter.

I have always felt an obligation to help other on sites like this because in my earlier years I was helped greatly. But what I find on general fish sites is that the urban myths get so entrenched they can not be changed by the facts and the science.

It's genuine knowledgeable people that this forum needs and I felt this was a good enough response to share, I hope TTA didnt mind me doing so.