Bacteria Bloom

I just wanted to share my experience with everyone. I had a very persistent Bacteria Bloom that had been going strong for about 2 weeks. I was reading everything online and didn't want to go the UV route, but it was becoming obvious that this wasn't going to just go away. My tank was newly set up, dead sand, dead rock, cycled with One and Only Nitrifying Bacteria with clown fish (300 gal system), after cycle added CUC and more fish that's when I got bacteria bloom, ammonia, nitrite, everything fine, funny note it ate up my Alk i'm assuming for carbon.

I read on here that Dr. Tim recommends his Waste Away product for Bacteria Blooms. I reached out to him through his website, and got a response that yes they recommend Waste Away for Bacteria Blooms. I didn't get a response to how bacteria fixes bacteria, or how much product to add, whether to turn skimmer off or anything else.

Well the Waste Away showed up and I was desperate so I went ahead and added it. I just did a full dose for my tank, they say not to fully dose for fear of bacteria bloom, but I wasn't afraid of that since I already had one. I turned my skimmer off for about an hour, then turned it back on. Sometime during the night it freaked out and was overflowing when I woke up. I cleaned it and started the skimmer again.

After 24 hours it was definitely clearing
After 48 hours it was clear, I could see larger white spots in the water but so much clearer then it was. Was producing large amounts of good skimmate at that point.

After 4 days I still have some white spots floating around so I can't call it crystal clear yet, but in my book success for sure. I will do a water change and a second dose once i'm 7 days away from the first dose.


Anyone who is searching and researching about persistent nasty bacteria blooms I can say Waste Away absolutely worked in my tank!!


Thanks Dr. Tim.

 

Nice. Thanks for the write up. Glad it worked for you.

 

You're welcome. Sorry for the not responding been very busy lately (not a good excuse) and just behind on emails.

Adding a lot of bacteria to combat a bacterial bloom is like using a backfire to fight a brush or forest fire. The goal is to take away the fuel that is cause the persistent bloom quickly by adding a lot of bacteria to consume what is feeding the bacteria.

 

Using that same thought pattern, would adding a biopellet reactor and biopellets to the system keep a high level of bacteria in the waiting for when the extra nutrients are in the system, or would it just sustain a bacteria bloom?
More simply stated,

Would adding biopellets to a system that already has a bacteria bloom help get rid of the bloom, or just sustain the bloom?


Thanks,

 

To add to that, during my bacteria bloom's I see a decrease in my alkalinity. I forgot where I read it, but I remember some people discussing that its the bacteria using up the carbonate. Would you agree? Would having the carbon source of bio-pellets help with this?

 

Hello

Adding biopellets would probably just sustain a bloom because you are fuel (the pellets) instead of fire (the bacteria) in keeping with the analogy. You want to get the fuel out of system by adding more bacteria not by adding more fuel.

 

Heterotrophic bacteria do not use inorganic carbon (carbonate, bicarbonate, carbon dioxide). They are breaking down organics into ammonia, the ammonia goes through the nitrification process which produces acid and reduces alkalinity.