Nitrico

Nitrico FAQs

What is in Nitrico Goop?
Our goop is a complete bacterial colony, predominantly from the Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter genus of bacteria, although there are over 100 other detectable bacteria present in the colony. We have tuned our bacteria culture with the use of synthesised feedstocks to minimise the unwanted bacteria, whilst enhancing the environment for the Ammonia and Nitrite Oxidising bacteria. Our colony is the culmination of around 4 years of selective addition of bacterial strains optimised for both growth and environmental stability.

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What are nitrifying bacteria?
Fish waste is broken down from harmful Ammonia, which is extremely toxic to fish, into the much less toxic Nitrate, by beneficial nitrifying bacteria. These bacteria, varieties of Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter mainly although there are others present as well, live on all of the surfaces in the tank and filter and allow fish to be kept safely in an artificial environment such as an aquarium. Without them, keeping fish in an aquarium would next to impossible.

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How do Nitrico products stop the need for cycling?
Nitrico goop and Nitrico matured filters, contain trillions of nitrifying bacteria which are ready to break down ammonia the second that they are put in your tank. They do not need weeks to reproduce to sufficient numbers and they do not require the addition of any chemicals or extra feed stocks to be ready to do the job. They are already present in enough quantity to break down significant quantities of fish waste immediately that they are introduced to your aquarium. Essentially, we are doing the cycling for you!

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What is cycling?
Cycling is the process of running a tank, either with fish in or, with no fish and the addition of an ammonia-based bacteria feed, and waiting whilst the natural opportunist bacteria colonise and reproduce. Given time the bacteria grow in numbers to be capable of breaking the required amount of fish waste down. This process generally takes between 6 and 12 weeks depending on your system.

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Why do I need Nitrico bacteria?
In short, you don’t! Plenty of people keep fish in aquariums without the need to add Nitrico bacteria to their tanks. However, the conscientious fish keepers often spend weeks and even months, ‘fishless cycling’ their tanks in order to keep fish safely in them. Many people also use a method of ‘fish-in’ cycling , whereby they stock tolerant and hardy fish to an otherwise immature tank and let them ride out the poor water quality, waiting for the day when there will be sufficient bacteria present in the aquarium in order to break the fish waste down efficient. Sadly, many die during procedure. We developed this technology to be able to run our own fish house and avoid cross contamination by using localised filtration rather than a centralised system. It became clear that many of our customer suffered with poor water quality and that a product that actually worked would be very beneficial to the entire fish keeping community.

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Why are Nitrico products different from other bacteria products available from other aquatic suppliers?
Yes, there are dozens of products available on shop shelves that claim to break down ammonia in your aquarium. Sometimes some of them may work but, as far as we are concerned, most do not! Many don’t even contain the correct bacteria to do the job. There are other bacteria that will break down ammonia if they have no other feed source but they are not the correct type to colonise your filters or to complete a nitrogen cycle in your aquarium. These Pseudomonad based products work almost as a stop gap, helping break down the Ammonia with the hope that "REAL" nitrifies from the environment will colonise and actually start the cycle themselves, one of the issues here is that those products need to be repeatedly added as they cannot reproduce and if they aren't added the system often crashes. In our view, it is impossible to keep live Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria alive for extended periods of time in an enclosed and anoxic environment like a bottle. Our Nitrico bacteria products and filters need to be treated as living creatures as that is exactly what they are. They require food and oxygen and cannot be kept in their packaging for more than 4 days. They cannot be bottled and put on a shelf as when the bottle is opened again, only a very small percentage of the bacteria will be alive.

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My Nitrico product has arrived, but I am not ready to use it yet. What should I do?
You can keep your Nitrico goop or Nitrico filter in the packaging for up to 72 hours (3 days) after it was packed. If you are not able to use it in that period, please get in touch with us and we can arrange to have it back and send you out a fresh one. Whilst using a Nitrico product outside of this time window will not cause harm, it may not be as efficient as it was designed to be and may not break down the amount of waste that should be expected.

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How do I know that I am not transferring disease to my aquarium with a Nitrico product?
Introducing a Nitrico bacterial product is not the same as moving filter media from one tank to another. Our bacterial products have never been exposed to fish before. They are produced in an isolated ‘fish free’ facility and fed on a feed source that has been developed to be very similar to fish waste- less the solids. Nitrico products only contain bacteria and beneficial detritivores but, as they have never been in contact with fish, there is zero chance of any fish pathogens being present. The bacteria in a Nitrico product is not a pure culture, it is complete colony of all of the necessary bacteria and other microorganisms that go into creating a stable environment. We work carefully to ensure our BioReactor is bio secure and the bacteria we send remains pathogen free.

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Can Nitrico bacterial products be used in all aquariums and ponds?
The bacteria strains that we have produced in our BioReactor are very tolerant to water chemistry changes and a variety of temperatures. This means that they will work in 99.9% of aquariums and ponds. However, there are some ground rules. The main one is the pH of the water. The pH of your water should not be below 6.5 when introducing live Nitrico products. A low pH suppresses nitrifying bacteria. The optimum temperature for nitrification is between 28 and 32 deg C. As the temperature of the water decreases, so does the efficiency of nitrifying bacteria. At 16 deg. C. nitrifying bacteria will work at approximately 50% of their optimum speed. At temperatures below 10 deg. Centigrade, the bacteria will slow down significantly. Low temperature doesn’t kill the bacteria but it does slow them down. Never freeze a Nitrico bacterial product.

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I have new soil substrate in my aquarium. Will this affect the goop?
Most soil produces ammonia when introduced to an aquarium and can continue to do so for many weeks. It also depletes that carbonate hardness of the water and without carbonate hardness, the bacteria will not survive. It is important, if new soil is to be used, that the filter is adequately large to cope with this high ammonia loading and the amount of goop purchased is also increased to compensate. the KH levels of the water should be monitored daily and KH buffer added accordingly.

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How do I know what product to buy?
The amount of waste that your fish produce is all dependent of the amount of food, the quality of the food and also the protein content of the food that they are being fed. We have tried to provide a guide with every product to ensure that it is easy to purchase the right product for your tank or pond but if in doubt, please give us a ring.

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I wish to run an aquarium with low pH, will this affect the bacteria?
As pH drops below 7, the actions of nitrifying bacteria in your aquarium will slow. As the water becomes more acidiic, the normal aquarium nitrogen cycle will eventually stop completely. If you wish to operate an aquarium at a pH of less than 6.7, we do not recommend the use of Goop for your aquarium.

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Why do Nitrico not advise adding single daily doses of ammonia?
We understand that many aquarists like to cycle their tank with a single daily dose of ammonia. Nitrico have found major issues when testing this method of cycling an aquarium, whether using Nitrco products or not. The main aim of a cycled filter and aquarium is to efficiently break down the waste produced by the tank’s inhabitants, whether that be tropical fish, turtles or axolotl etc. Any inhabitant that will live in that tank will excrete waste 24/7 and any artificial ammonia source that may be used, should mimic this as closely as possible. Adding a big hit of ammonia in one go does not mimic this. If you add a 2ppm (or worse 4ppm) hit of ammonia, you immediately provide the Nitrosomonas bacteria with a huge amount of waste to break down. Nitrosomonas increase in number rapidly (generally doubling approximately every 24 hours) and so they immediately start to increase in number. This increase uses up valuable minerals in your water which is seen by the depletion of KH etc. and pH. As the Nitriosomonas are much faster to replicate than the Nitrobacter, you will immediately start to see a Nitrite spike in the water. The Nitrobacter will start to replicate as they have plenty of Nitrite available but they now have far less of the building blocks available as the Nitrosomonas will have already used them up. They will also struggle as the pH has dropped and they prefer a higher pH. When cycling a tank, it is important to encourage the growth of the Nitrobacter colony rather than worry about the Nitrosomonas. In order to do this, it is far better to drip feed in any ammonia additives over the course of 24 hours. This means that the Nitrosomonas will only be present in the numbers required rather than be in exaggerated numbers that are required to break down a one hit ammonia additive. Keeping the number of Nitrosomonas at a minimum will ensure that the building blocks for life are available in the water when the more valuable Nitrobacter bacteria need them. Additionally, its just not needed, we supply enough bacteria to breakdown the waste produced by reasonable stocking of fish. (Up to 2ppm/24h @ 26 deg. C) if you have very high stocking, you can up the dosage of bacteria, doubling the amount of bacteria will double the amount of waste that can be broken.

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Why do Nitrico advise that no other bacteria products are used alongside their bacteria?
There are many bottled bacterial products on the market. During our research, we cannot find any of these produsts that actually contain the correct bacteria to colonise your filter correctly. Nitrico products currently only have a 72 hour shelf life. This is due to the fact that they are a complete mature colony of live nitrifying bacteria, the same as you would find in a mature aquarium filter. They are not held in 'suspension' and they cannot be kept for an extended time in a bottle on the shelf. If you add additional bacteria that are not correct to a system containing Nitrico goop or a mature nitrico filter, we cannot guarantee that the bacteria that you are adding are compatible with ours.

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I have a nitrite spike in my tank a few days after introducing the goop? What should I do?
It is very difficult to accurately estimate the amount of goop that you should put in a tank and whilst we have given a guide, the amount of bacteria actually required in individual to every tank and bioload. If more bacteria are added than required and they do not have enough waste to break down, then a die off of Nitrosomonas may be briefly experienced. This will show as a temporary spike in nitrite. This is not a major issue and a water change to bring the levels down will rectify the problem. The bacteria will quickly settle to the required level for each situation and once settled, the water will stay stable again.

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Can I use goop or mature nitrico filters with axolotl?
Yes, it is no problem to use goop with Axolotl. However, there is often a misconception that Axolotl produce more waste in an aquarium than they actually do.

Axolotl only produce waste from the food that they are fed. A small Axolotl that may only eat 3 grams of worm in 24 hours will not produce 4 ppm of ammonia in a 100 litre tank. If they did then it would be impossible to keep Axolotl in tubs (as is often done) as the amount of ammonia produced overnight would kill them (which it doesn't).

Fully grown or larger axolotl can eat quite high volumes of high protein food and may produce high levels of waste from this feed rate but a small one does not produce anywhere near the amount as it doesn't eat anywhere near the amount.

One important consideration to make when using Goop with Axolotl is that the cooler temperature of your tank will have a marked effect on efficiency of any nitrifying bacteria in your filter. Please take a look at the FAQ regarding temperature but in short, at 18 deg C, Nitrifying bacteria operate at approximately 50% of the speed that they would at 28 deg C.

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Does Temperature affect the efficiency of Nitrico Goop?
Yes. Temperature effects all nitrifying bacteria whether it is goop or just the existing bacteria in your filter. The optimum temperature range for the growth of nitrification is actually between 28 and 36 degrees C.. At a temperature of 16 deg C, Nitrification happens at approximately 50% the speed that it would at 28 deg C. Our goop pouches are calculated to break down 2ppm ammonia in the given volume of water at 26 deg C. At 20 deg C, the bacteria in a pouch of goop is likely to only break down 1.2 ppm Ammonia and at 18 deg C. it will be closer to 1 ppm Ammonia. This needs to be taken into account when calculating the amount of goop that you need for your tank

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Is Nitrico Goop suitable for all filter media?
Goop is suitable for all filter media but there considerations that need to be taken into account. In order to properly colonise a filter, the bacteria need to adhere to the surface of the media in your filter. How quickly this is achieved depends on exactly which media you have in your filter. Sponge filter foam is great for the goop as it is caught very effectively if it is massaged into it or sucked through it. This is because there are very few open channels of water flow for the goop to escape through and into the tank. If your filter does not contain foam and the media has open water ways through it, then a percentage of goop will not get trapped and will end up in the tank. If this happens then we advise to regularly stir up any residual goop in the tank so that the filter can take it in. If you are using a plastic media such as K1, this is a very smooth media that is also, possibly, covered with a release agent left over from manufacturing. New, untreated, plastic media can take much longer to mature with bacteria than any natural media or foam. When it is mature, it can be a superb filter media but we advise using additional foam in the filter to initially house the goop bacteria while they colonise the plastic media. If you are able to pre-prepare the plastic media prior to adding the bacteria, this can help massively. Some advise the use of Potassium Permanganate to chemically strip the surface of the new media and also tumbling the media with an abrasive sand to etch the surface can help a lot as well.

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Why do Nitrico not advise using their products with new soil or active substrates?
Most active substrates leach large quantities of ammonia for a number of weeks after using them. They also, often, absorb KH from your water. Whilst Nitrico products will break the ammonia down without issue, if the KH drops to below 2 deg. then the effectiveness of nitrifying bacteria in your filter will be reduced, including the effectiveness of goop. If you KH drops to zero, then all nitrification in your filter will cease and so the ammonia levels will rise. We advise that, if you are using any ammonia leaching or KH depleting substrate, then you initially carry out water changes to remove the excess leached ammonia and supplement the available KH for the first few weeks. Once your KH depletion stabilises then you are safe to use a Nitrico bacterial product. We do not want your new nitrico bacteria to die off because of a zero KH!

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Will Goop work with all filters?
Goop will work with all conventional filters that rely on bacteria to break down the Ammonia and Nitrite. We are aware of a filter called Hydra that uses a different method to break down fish waste. Due to the way that this filter works, it will cause issues with the goop and so we do not recommend the two are used together.

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Sales Hotline 01732 243444

Sales Hotline 01732 243444