Reef Discussion

[Mitchell Codey]

With advice from the friendly staff here at The Reefuge this area has been created for reviews and questions of any brand supplements that you might have queries relating to. Unfortunalty i am only a representive for the Brightwell Aquatics range of supplements so any questions to this brand of products can be directed to me in this topic!

I am not able to sell directly to you unfortunatly, and i will also not be able to direct you to your closest aquarium that stocks our great products. But be assured that we supply to almost every major Aquarium and Pet store in Australia, So the products should not be hard to find or get ordered in.

We have a large warehouse full of stock and ship Mondays through to Fridays every week so its never a long wait for products either.

I will get around to posting some threads of my personal favourite products over the coming hours/days/weeks so bear with me while i do that, but please feel free to ask anything you want.

Thanks everyone,

Mitchell Codey

 

[Mitchell Codey]

Some of them are allready in the country, the rest we are waiting for Aqis and/or Gamma

 

[Azfish]

So do you work for Aquasonic or is there a new distributor in town! anyhoo, when can you you get bacter7 in??!! I cant understand how Zeo can get their stuff in and same with prodibio but we cant get bacter7 in?!

I've always liked BW products, used them on/off for the last 2 years. Love the coral foods!

 

[MavG]

Hey Az,

Aquasonic is still the distributor. Myself and Brendore were infact employees at aquasonic, and were there when it was first taken on and we part of the importing process in regards to the AQIS restricted items, foods, etc.

The problem with MB7, is that Aqis need a list of the specific bacterial strains in the mix, and Brightwell Aquatics cannot provide us with that. As Australia is the only country requiring this information for importation of biological materials, and because we are such a small market, the risk of the formulation being released and someone else copying it is simply not worth it, this is what i gather anyway. Either Way brightwell Aquatics (or the people who manufacture the bacteria for them) are not prepared to give this information to Aqis.

Anyone who has this product and has distributed it in Australia has imported it illegally without a permit and could very well get into big trouble.

Other bacterial products may be able to provide this information to the importer (or directly to Aqis) in order to get a permit in order to import it.

there are plently of bacterial supplements out there, some work better than other and not all are created equal, i myself have used The Bio-Aid (perviously called pro-bac) from Aquasonic (again along with brendore, we actuaklly did the research for this product, we did not formulate it, but we did the trialling and dose rate development and research on it) and i know it works well. I am currently using a Aquaculture bacteria where i now work, but still use Bio-Aid, and for Aquarium use, it works very well, cheap too in relation to other bacterias.

So theres the Story, oh and mitchell does not work At Aquasonic anymore.

G

 

[Azfish]

I use bioAID myself, cost to dose on this is awesome! The MB7 would be a great product to get in and I understand why it wont be made available

 

[MavG]

speaking from experience as well as having developed it, upon further use and continued logging of parameters and visual observations i would recommend starting at the maximum dose rate of 1 drop per 5 liters, or 1 ml per 100 liters.

Even at this dose it is extremely concentrated, and very economical, i then back of this off depending on a few things.

firstly the nitrate and phosphate levels, this is course (when using it in marine aquariums) based on organic carbon availability as well. when you reach low nutrient levels, you can start tailoring the dose of both bacteria and organic carbon to suit the system.

Secondly the solid waste levels, as this bacteria (and most other bacterial supplements) contain waste assimilating bacteria to break down organics, it results in far reduced levels of mulm and detritus in the substrate, in the water column and in the filters.

Marine aquariums in relation to this are a bit tricier as the bacterial ecology and the watse watse and solids move through the environment is much more complex than a freshwater aquarium, as in a marine aquarium detritus formation ( and settling, or lack thereof) depends on circulation, assimilation by organisms (corals etc) and removal by filtration, I.E. protein skimmers.

In a freshwater aquarium, you can see the advantages simply when you clean the substrate, using bacterial products (good ones) will reduce the waste in gravel, substrate etc to almost zero, and nitrate to nearly if not complete zero. And what it interesting, the sequestering of nitrates will result in the re-release of carbonates from the process of assimilation of ammonia and nitrite, therefore rebuffering the water/replensihing the alkalinty to a certian extent, in a marine aquarium it is not so noticeable. When we saw this happen in our trials we were blown away (as nerds are when doing this sort of thing haha) but in all seriousness it was quite cool.

the point im trying to get at is, use it at its maximum dose first, dont be afraid to, i have used it (and other bacterial products) at this level and higher DAILY, not weekely (i.e using the maximum dose rate or higher per week, on a per day basis, therefore increaseing the overall dose rate per week by 7 times) with good results. Just make sure your system is up to it, and in the end, you may not need this level of bacteria and can level it down from there.

I have also noticed that using it in conjuntion with a mineral floculant such as Easylife can help to get the bacteria where it is needed, acting as a carrier, works quite well at minimizing cyno by delivering the bacteria to the cyno itself, weatehr it is outcompeteing it or assimilating the nutrient in the cyno directly and effectively starving it i dont know, but it works well, i just mix the bacteria in the water from the tank, leave it for arounbd 30 mins for it to "wake up" and then add the dose of easylife and dose it directly into the tank on top of the circulation pump to distribute it.

G

 

[brendore]

Still the salesman G man ;)

 

[MavG]

yeah you could say that, just want to help people out, as you can see, the help isnt really around regarding this product line anymore, although unlike what Mitchel has posted above, he is not the only one at Aquasonic who can help anyone who has questions, nor was he even involved in the importing or original distributing of this product, that i must pin him on, as it is simply just incorrect. There are many people (perhaps much mroe qualified) that can answer your questions at Aquasonic, but they do not have time to be on this forum, not their fault, just a simple fact, as you know bud.

Anywho enough of my rant, im bloody hungry, and there is a bourbon with my name (and indeed me) all over it.

G

 

[Mitchell Codey]

Thanks for looking after this Gareth, i just dont have the time to keep up to date in here anymore. And as he stated i nolonger work for the company, but left on very good terms. Simply had to chase my dream, i still use Brightwell A products and recommend them.