melev

So I am curious how you determined that your system needs more bacteria, and/or is lacking in the mixture you introduced. I know you have been to lectures and have advanced sources of info. and this is an area of reefkeeping that has always puzzled me.

Some of it is wishful thinking since I don't have a way to measure bacteria colonies nor a way to study which ones I have in my tank. Still, an ongoing published concern is that a single strain will dominate and take over the tank, so adding additional bacteria from various sources ensures diversity. This isn't a lot different from sharing cups of live sand from other hobbyists' tanks.

I've had this bottle since March and dosed four times in that time period.

That's an interesting idea. I'll have to ponder that a bit. I have always leaned away from any bacterial additives just as a knee-jerk reaction to the "business" of aquariums, but the biodiversity issue is indeed something to consider.

Marc, since you dont do Ozone, why do you test ORP?

I don't test it, I report it from the AC3's digital results. I do watch that number to check on the status of the tank. It was a little bit low this week, but I'd done a small water change which affects that number.

I've read that over time a single dominate bacteria is one of the factors that creates old tank syndrome. Even if this isn't the case I don't see how adding new colonies could hurt.