Opinions On Soll Bactinetts

[borissimo]

Hi, we tried these at Maidenhead Aquatics' recommendation but we didn't notice any difference really.

 

[andywg]

Bactinettes will stop the ammonia spike, but are in no way an instant cycle. They contain the wrong nitrite oxidising bacteria (Nitrobacter instead of Nitrospira). Expect a nitrite spike if you use them. The make up of the bacteria is based on out of date science. The former bacteria above does most nitrite oxidising in terrestrial environments (like soil) but research in the late 1990s showed that Nitrobacter is either not present, or only in tiny numbers in an established aquarium. It is Nitrospira that does the nitrite oxidisation.

If you can get it bio-spira will be much better, though I doubt that will be available to the UK. As to the claims that bactinettes can be used for FW and marine, they are either lying, or each pot contains some marine bacteria and some FW bacteria (meaning you pay for only half useful product). a look in the brackish forum shows that moving the SG past 1.005 has to be done very slowly to prevent complete die off as the FW bacteria die and the BW bacteria take a hold. As a result of this I find it very hard to believe that one lot of bacteria in a bottle can do both.

 

[mark7616]

Bactinettes will stop the ammonia spike, but are in no way an instant cycle. They contain the wrong nitrite oxidising bacteria (Nitrobacter instead of Nitrospira). Expect a nitrite spike if you use them. The make up of the bacteria is based on out of date science. The former bacteria above does most nitrite oxidising in terrestrial environments (like soil) but research in the late 1990s showed that Nitrobacter is either not present, or only in tiny numbers in an established aquarium. It is Nitrospira that does the nitrite oxidisation.

If you can get it bio-spira will be much better, though I doubt that will be available to the UK. As to the claims that bactinettes can be used for FW and marine, they are either lying, or each pot contains some marine bacteria and some FW bacteria (meaning you pay for only half useful product). a look in the brackish forum shows that moving the SG past 1.005 has to be done very slowly to prevent complete die off as the FW bacteria die and the BW bacteria take a hold. As a result of this I find it very hard to believe that one lot of bacteria in a bottle can do both.

No offence mate but what do you base your argument on as you mentioned the other day that you have not used this product, I on the other hand have used this product to cycle 2 tanks both with very messy fish and apart from one problem which I believe was down to them not being kept cool enough have had no problems I cycled a 150g and filled it over 2 days and also cycled a convict tank with it. Now I know you have read what there website and leaflet says but I have had first hand experience with the product and know 100% that it does work.

 

[andywg]

No offence mate but what do you base your argument on

I base my argument on peer reviewed scientific journals, the same sort of research papers which explain why we don't fall off of the earth into space.

as you mentioned the other day that you have not used this product, I on the other hand have used this product to cycle 2 tanks both with very messy fish and apart from one problem which I believe was down to them not being kept cool enough have had no problems I cycled a 150g and filled it over 2 days and also cycled a convict tank with it. Now I know you have read what there website and leaflet says but I have had first hand experience with the product and know 100% that it does work.

Congratulations, you have what is known as anecdotal evidence, however, the papers I was referring to rely on controlled experiments where they can show that Nitrobacter is not present in an established aquarium. Bactinettes make a big thing of having Nitrobacter and therefore are advertising that they have the wrong bacteria. If you don't believe me, check out the microbewiki for nitrospira; it contains the details of a number of peer reviewed science papers on the matter of which bacteria are present in an aquarium.

Edit------

To save people doing research (which I know from marine discussions goes against the ideals of mark 7616 who likes to latch onto one idea and then ignore any other possibilities), I have reproduced the important points on Nitrospira vs Nitrobacter from the microbewiki below.

Nitrospira can live in marine or nonmarine habitats. It has been isolated from ocean water, freshwater, aquarium water, deltaic sediment, deep-sea sediments, soils, and an iron pipe of a heating system (Daims et al. 2001). Nitrospira is part of a nitrification process which is important in the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle. Nitrification is the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite by autotrophic bacteria of the genus Nitrosomonas and oxidation of the nitrite to nitrate by bacteria in the genus Nitrobacter or Nitrospira. This is important in marine environments because too much ammonia or nitrite can cause death in fish. However, Nitrospira and similar bacteria are slow-growing organisms, which means that a newly set-up aquarium without an established population of these bacteria can accumulate toxic concentrations of ammonia and nitrite. In an attempt to fix this problem, commercial companies have tried to market special preparations of ammonia-oxidizing and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (the mixes included Nitrobacter instead of Nitrospira) that could be put into a new aquarium to establish a healthy nitrogen cycle. However, these mixes were inexplicably ineffective so tests were done to analyze the bacterial content of aquaria water. While bacteria from the genus Nitrobacter are nitrite-oxidizing organisms and could theoretically fill the nitrite-oxidizing niche, the tests indicated relatively high numbers of Nitrospira and no Nitrobacter bacteria at all. Thus, Nitrospira is now considered the dominate nitrite-oxidizing bacterium in aquariums, (as well as in wastewater treatment systems and other reactors as shown by other similar studies) (Hovanec et al.1998). Though water that is too rich in ammonia or has a pH that is too low will inhibit Nitrospira's nitrifying activity.

And in case anyone was not prepared to read the above text, I have reproduced the most important points below in bold:

tests were done to analyze the bacterial content of aquaria water. While bacteria from the genus Nitrobacter are nitrite-oxidizing organisms and could theoretically fill the nitrite-oxidizing niche, the tests indicated relatively high numbers of Nitrospira and no Nitrobacter bacteria at all. Thus, Nitrospira is now considered the dominate nitrite-oxidizing bacterium in aquariums

The above comes from peer reviewed science; that is evidence based results that have undergone the review of peers in the field. Bactinettes works on the ammonia level as it contains the right bacteria (Nitrosomonas) but it has the wrong bacteria for nitrites, so should not be relied upon to defeat nitrites.