- Over the past few weeks
we started dosing Dr. Tim's
Re-Fresh and Waste Away.
Today we are gonna walk
you through the process
of these bacteria additives
and their results.
(upbeat music)
Cyano algae is a headache that pretty much
every reefer has faced at some point.
Even just a little bit
of tank neglect can lead
to your sand bed, rocks,
equipment, and your corals,
being coated in red slime.
If left unchecked it can even
start to choke your corals
out of light and nutrients.
We've previously taken
a look at other ways
to deal with Cyano Algae
but hey, knowledge is power,
and sometimes a combination
of different tactics
is exactly what your tank might need.
Re-Fresh and Waste-Away are
the perfect one-two combo
for ridding your tank of Cyano bacteria.
They were developed by Dr. Tim
through extensive research.
Dr. Tim has used his expertise in Biology
and his PH.D in Ecology,
Evolution, and Marine Biology,
to conduct extensive research
on nitrifying bacteria.
This research has led him to
be granted a number of patents.
The culmination of this
research has resulted
in his lines of bacterial additives,
including Re-Fresh and Waste-Away.
Re-Fresh is gonna be your first method
of attack when dealing
with Cyano problems.
By dosing Re-Fresh you'll be adding
beneficial bacteria to your tank
that will start breaking
down algae and sludge,
removing them from the
surfaces of your scape.
Once the your rock and
substrate are looking clean
it's time to start dosing Waste-Away.
Waste-Away is filled with a different set
of bacteria that are
designed to out compete
any new algae and slime before
it can becomes established.
It does this by feeding
on the same nutrients
that the nuisance algae and Cyano feed on.
Once the bacteria
becomes full and bloated,
they are stripped from your water
by your mechanical filter
and your protein skimmer.
It is very important to
remember that you will need
to have a protein skimmer
when dosing Waste-Away.
We wanted to put these
products to the test
so we decided to try them out
on one of our office tanks
that was having some Cyano trouble.
Our team member Christian took charge
of dosing and documenting the process.
Christian made sure to turn
off the protein skimmer
before dosing Re-Fresh,
to make sure it stayed
in the system.
The next step was to siphon
out all of the loose Cyano
that he could find, making it easier
for the bacteria to get
to the tougher stuff.
According to the chart
below, you will need
to dose five mL for
every 10 gallons of water
in your system.
We are working on our Red Sea XL 525,
which has a total system
volume of 139 gallons,
but we rounded down to 130
gallons to make it a bit easier.
This meant that we needed to
be dosing 65 ml of Re-Fresh.
We didn't dose any additional
bacteria on day two,
but we did allow the skimmer to run
for around nine hours.
Not only did it start
pulling out nutrients,
it went a bit overboard on the skimming.
After emptying the cup of the sludge,
we shut the skimmer
back down for the night.
For day three we once again dosed the tank
and left the skimmer off.
But at this point we were
already starting to see results.
As many reefers do, we have the tendency
to over feed our tanks a
bit, so its not uncommon
for us to find a bit of
Cyano growing on our sand bed
the morning after a heavy feeding.
Despite having our protein skimmer off,
we were already starting
to seeing a distinct
lack of red slime anywhere in the tank.
Day four we cycled the protein skimmer
back on for eight hours.
We elected not to do the
optional water change
at this point as we weren't
seeing that our tank
was reacting adversely to anything.
On Day five we once again
dosed and left our skimmer off.
At this point we were very impressed
with this dosing regimen, as
not only had our substrate
been cleared, our water column
seemed to clear up as well.
Day six was another non-dosing day,
and thankfully the start of our weekend.
Day seven is when we were
supposed to start dosing
Waste-Away, but as it
also fell on the weekend,
we pushed it back to day eight.
We added a day to our schedule
to help us stay on track.
Once again using the provided information,
we calculated that we needed about 130 ml
of Waste-Away per dose.
After you dose leave the skimmer off
for between two and four hours
before turning it back on.
We had a little mental slip up, and left
it off for overnight.
Whoops!
Thankfully everything ended up just ok.
When we turned the skimmer
back on during the day,
it once again went into overdrive
and started skimming like crazy.
On day 10 we matched
our dose from day eight
and once again turned
off the protein skimmer,
but this time it was for
the correct period of time.
On day 11 and day 12 we
repeated the same Waste-Away
dosing interval as before.
Day 13 was the last scheduled
day of our treatment
and we performed a partial
water change as recommended.
All in all, we were very happy with how
this dosing regimen performed.
Even with the gaps in our
dosing and overrunning
our skimmer, we had
very noticeable results
and our tank looked the
cleanest it has in a while.
We would recommend these
products for anyone
looking to give a slightly neglected tank
a much needed cleaning.
Even if you're just noticing
bits of sludge here and there,
Waste-Away can be dosed weekly
to give you a spotless look.
We do hope you found this video helpful,
but if you have any additional
questions about Dr. Tim's
bacteria additives, let us know.
Don't forget to like,
subscribe, and share this video
with your friends.
We'd also like to hear
about your experience
about getting rid of Cyano,
so please comment below.
As always, thank you
for tuning in, and enjoy
your reefkeeping journey.
(upbeat music)
