# Buying Beneficial Bacteria



## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

I was up in Waterloo last weekend, where a librarian from Wilfrid Laurier who is a fish enthusiast was telling me how there is a work study group in Waterloo University that has discovered something quite interesting.

Basically, they said that the "beneficial bacteria" that you can buy from stores are not even the same bacteria that are actually involved in the cycling process. They swab the aquarium, identified the bacteria and compared them to the store bought bacteria, and the results are they do not match, and the store bought bacteria also do not participate in the nitrate cycle at all  

Right now, they are trying to compare the bacteria in saltwater aquariums and compare that.


----------



## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I would believe it.

I was going to buy some to see if there were any live bacteria in them at all, but I decided against it since I didn't want to waste $30 on products I don't believe in.

Would be neat to see their study though. Any links to an article?


----------



## Byronicle (Apr 18, 2009)

Yea, funny thing is they did not publish the article yet. They are a little hesitant because they don't like the idea of telling the fish industry that this bacteria business is a scam. But I will email the librarian to keep me updated


----------



## Hitch (Apr 26, 2009)

not surprised at all. Are you sure there isnt already article about that? I thought I read it somewhere....

though one thing I am interested in is their methodologies...

but I would imagine they would not want to release sections before publishing.


----------



## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Yup, it's full of crap in those bio-bottles. A complete waste of money. What you might want to engage the librarian in, is purchase a bottle of Bio-spira and test that for traces of those nitrate eating beneficial bacteria. Many user have complain about the uselessness of those crap bottles, but have reported that Bio-spira works.
To expand this further, I know that in Asia, there is a powder form being sold that has claim to contain the dormat dry form of the beneficial bacteria. Just like yeast.
Now that was be a worthing study.

*Never pay again for live sex! | Hot girls doing naughty stuff for free! | Chat for free!*


----------



## j2quinn (Nov 23, 2006)

no scientist would hestitate to publish a paper that would discredit a company. trust me. especially if the paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal. it would be interesting to see why they haven't published.


----------



## rojowe (Nov 28, 2009)

There was a study done a while back...here is a link to another forum where they were asking the same thing....
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=480

"Does not work" is perhaps unfair, as it's rather difficult to say this without conducting a rigorous controlled trial of the product.

A published experiment looking at Hagen Cycle has in fact shown that nitrite levels decreased earlier than they did in non-treated tanks, so it does something. However, the authors were unable to provide evidence that the bacteria present were actively growing in the aquaria, so it might not be quite as effective as we'd like it to be.

The study, led by Dr Timothy Hovanec at the University of California, was published in Applied Environmental Microbiology in January 1998 and was one of the first to demonstrate that Nitrospira-like bacteria were those responsible for nitrite oxidation in freshwater aquaria.

Hagen Cycle was added to some aquaria in a controlled experiment to determine its effects. The study claims that Cycle contains Nitrobacter and not Nitrospira, meaning that the product is essentially based on the less dominant type of bacteria found in biological filtration. You can read the paper here.

It is worth noting that this study is now nearly 10 years old and it is possible that Hagen may well have reformulated Cycle as a result of the findings. Following the study, and subsequent work, several other manufacturers have switched from adding Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter to using Nitrospira. Tetra's SafeStart being one recent example.
__________________


----------



## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

It's an interesting point. Personally I do believe that it's not a beneficial product, but it's based on personal experience. I have always had better success doing a fishless cycle with ammonia, than using those products.


----------



## click (Nov 8, 2009)

From what I know the bacteria in those bottles is not the aquatic type but the type you usually find in soil. It acts the same and it does the job for a short period of time but die because they are not made for the aquatic evironment. No tank will get cycled with that type of bacteria and since it consumes the ammonia and nitrites, it prevents the aquatic bacteria to develop. As soon as the product is stopped from being added to the water, the cycle restarts.


----------



## rojowe (Nov 28, 2009)

My experience using Seachem Stability was extremely good. I can't say about the other as I have never used them. I accidentally killed off all my BB and my fish started dying, this was when I first started keeping fish, I found out that I killed off my BB so I ran out and grabbed Stability, the next day the fish were acting normal again and by the end of the 7 days of using Stability my parameters were back at normal. All I can say is the product aparentally worked for me


----------



## Harry Muscle (Mar 21, 2007)

Byronicle said:


> I was up in Waterloo last weekend, where a librarian from Wilfrid Laurier who is a fish enthusiast was telling me how there is a work study group in Waterloo University that has discovered something quite interesting.
> 
> Basically, they said that the "beneficial bacteria" that you can buy from stores are not even the same bacteria that are actually involved in the cycling process. They swab the aquarium, identified the bacteria and compared them to the store bought bacteria, and the results are they do not match, and the store bought bacteria also do not participate in the nitrate cycle at all
> 
> Right now, they are trying to compare the bacteria in saltwater aquariums and compare that.


I believe this has already been "revealed" years ago. Maybe not officially published in a scientific magazine or something like that, but I have known this fact for many many years. The only product on the market that has ever contained the correct bacteria was a product made by Seachem, which unfortunately they pulled off the market, cause too many people were using it wrong (improper refrigeration) so it was giving them a bad rep.

Harry


----------



## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

rojowe said:


> There was a study done a while back...here is a link to another forum where they were asking the same thing....
> http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=480
> ...


I don't know, but I kind of have a bit of doubt as to the effectiveness of keeping the bacteria alive in a bottle for several months sitting on the fish store shelve. That's why I never trust a single cycle products. Just doesn't make sense. Even if they did add the nitrospira bacteria into the bottle, most of the bacteria will be long dead by the time I add it to the fish tank. You need a medium for the bacteria to live. A bacteria's life averages around 20 minutes before going into fission(err spliting into two). With out a source of food, they will quickly die off. That is why I only trust Biospira where they are shiped to you refrigerated and recommend you keep them refrigerated. This slow down the bacteria's metabolism hench prolonging their life span.
Yeast as you know is a dry form of a special type of bacteria, they can sit dormant for years until you add warm water. Unfortunately, they don't do squat as an aquarium bacteria.
I've conducted simple experiments where I leave a fully cycled sponge in a bag for 5 days. Most of the bacteria is dead. When I dump it back into my tank, it went into a cycle. So I am pretty sure it's not possible to let nitrospira bacteria sit in a bottle for several months or even a year and expect them to still be alive.

*Never pay again for live sex! | Hot girls doing naughty stuff for free! | Chat for free!*


----------

