bacter vital

I wouldn't depend on it. The idea that a new tank needs to go through a Nitrogen cycle is an outdated concept and there are several ways to do it. You may have read the information before, but it wouldn't hurt to go over it again. See the thread linked in my sig line below.

Also, it's been along time since we had Marc here, but his products and his presentation made me think of "Snake Oil". There are several bacteria culture products out today that may be better than the Marc Weiss stuff. There is even a thread about it where one of those products is being discussed. http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=44375

I think more people like the MB7 

I like biological and chemical methods to jump start a tank.

For me it's Seachem's Stability.  I've used it to cure 100# of LR in two week and no water changes.  Smelled like crap for the first week.

But for a tank, I like to use LS, LR, and LW plus macro's.  But at the same time, I dose Stability.

I'm sorry to read that you had problems with your previous aquarium. You must have got something from someone that you believe caused the problem. I can understand that. In the past, due to my own ignorance I have added problems to my tank and again because of ignorance on both our parts, I have passed on problems too. All because of not knowing.

It's good that you came here asking about Bacter-Vital. When hobbyists come asking about a product all we can really do is give opinions good or bad. That's it. But what about the rest of the story? What about the root of the problem? The reason we begin to ask questions is because getting to the root of the problems is the ultimate way to resolve and even avoid them. Talking about it has a very positive effect. It increases the knowledge and understanding of everyone that reads it, making it possible for all of us to better avoid similar problems in the future.

In light of what I just said, "tank crash" is a vague term. How did the tank crash? Algae? Pests? ?


Edited by Mark Peterson - November 29 2010 at 8:09am

Because there are many variables that can combine to cause problems, narrowing it down and seeing which parameters were off is sometimes quite difficult. SPS coral are particularly difficult because they are just a thin layer of flesh covering a stoney skeleton. SPS can be adversely affected by many variables. We can test only a handful but there are a lot more variables that there are no water tests for. You may notice that I often ask about Alk and Ca and sometimes Mg, but never bother asking about Nitrogen, Phosphate, etc. I always ask for a pic of the tank and to know about the biofiltration. These are the things that give me a clue as to what is causing the problem.
At the time, did you bring the situation to this MB for help?

I see nothing that should be a cause to doubt the efficiency of using LR and LS to help avoid the startup cycle. A tank that was started by adding bacteria from a bottle and dead flesh to feed it, still needs to have LR and/or LS to provide a start of bugs and algae for the complete biofiltration.