Tip of the Day – 6/20/2012

The various carbon dosing methods that have become wildly popular in recent years do a great job serving as a food source for bacteria that participate in the nitrogen cycle, but none of those methods actually add bacteria to the tank. Bio-pellet use and vodka dosing, two of the most popular carbon sources, do nothing for adding new strains of bacteria, but instead only feed existing populations that came in on live rock and sandy substrates. These methods causes their numbers to grow to a level that is ideal for handling large influxes of ammonia and nitrite, preventing large spikes in either of these two compounds. If you want to actually add bacteria to the environment, however, products like the Prodibio BioDigest and ZEOvit’s Zeobak, among a few others, are what you need to add.