Seachem Stability - My Experience with 72 New Tanks

[Aquatic Arts]

Hi everyone! This is my first post on AquariumAdvice, and I wanted to give you all some information on a topic that seems to have a lot of conflicting information thrown around while being discussed; Seachem Stability.

I run an aquatics store with 134 30g holding tanks, all freshwater for now. I have no association with Seachem aside from the fact that I will be carrying their products at some time in the future, purchased through a distributor and not Seachem directly.

About 6 months ago, we installed a 370gph canister filter (SunSun Brand) with 3 trays totally full of Pond Matrix on EVERY tank. No filter pads, carbon, ceramic rings/etc. Just Pond Matrix. At the same time, we retrofitted 72 of them to entirely new tanks. We saved none of the water, and before the change there was no substrate. Nothing from the old tank went into the new tank, so these tanks were truly started from scratch.

So, the setup on each tank was as follows:

30 Gallon tank
370gph SunSun Canister Filter (All 3 trays Pond Matrix, nothing else at all)
46w 7500k CFL Lighting

Water:
67-82f
Reverse Osmosis (20tds) remineralized with Seachem Replenish/Equilibrium
PH either 7.0 (Neutral Regulator) or 8-8.3 (Sulawesi Tanks, Crushed Coral)

After the tanks were set up, we double dosed Stability from day one. These tanks were stocked somewhat heavily, more heavily than most personal aquariums. They contained everything we carry including shrimp, fish, crayfish, crabs, and snails. Some of these animals are pretty sensitive. We continued to dose double for 10 days, then continued to dose every 14 days at the normal "water change" dose. We also dosed Seachem Prime every 48 hours during the first 10 days.

Not one of these tanks has even once had an ammonia spike. Not even ONE, even ONE time. We do have a lot of bio media, but it was all dry and unused. I can say with a very high level of confidence that Seachem Stability works. I have seen a lot of people say your filter will crash after a while because the bacteria cannot reproduce, but I have not experienced this in any of the tanks.

Furthermore (and I bet this will cause more of a stir), Pond Matrix WILL harbor anaerobic bacteria eventually. Almost every tank we used it in will gas off nitrates. It doesn't happen extremely fast, but it does happen in a measurable way, and these tanks have 1" substrate at best. We run almost all the canister filters at full flow.

Hopefully some of this info helps someone! If anyone wants to know more info about how we did this, I would be happy to answer questions.

David

 

[icydeath]

Very interesting. Glad to have someone with tons of experience to help others haha

Seachem Stability seems like a promising product. Please provide us with updates. Anyways, where is your store? Some people might want to swing by.

 

[brennae]

Thanks for the info. I was using a different product to start my tanks but next time I will try this.

 

[Aquatic Arts]

Very interesting. Glad to have someone with tons of experience to help others haha

Seachem Stability seems like a promising product. Please provide us with updates. Anyways, where is your store? Some people might want to swing by.

Haha, happy to help. My shop is actually online only, but I didn't mean to promote it with this thread.

I've done a lot of things unconventionally (especially shrimp breeding) with fantastic results, and I'll definitely be posting more things like this to try and help others. I'm going to get flamed for some of it, but all of my techniques are used on a LOT of tanks, so I know they work. All of it is of course based on research that I did on sites like AquariumAdvice. What a wonderful thing the Internet is, it is hard to imagine a world where information isn't at your fingertips any more.

Just picked up some L46's, hopefully I can tell everyone how to breed hundreds of them after I figure it out

 

[Brookster123]

Hey nooooob.. there was probably enough bb on all the fish you stocked to instant cycle those tanks now this gassing off of nitrates you speak of?? Care to elaborate? Totally new concept in my brain tank..
Ps... I'll be needing one of those l46. If I were to breed them.. which I probably couldn't... I'd take a 40b.. bare bottom, epic amount of moss, dw, stain that water, keep it dark, maybe through a earthworm in there once in a while.. oh yah.. Barry white. Have to find their favorite song.. i would put the tank in the back room, low traffic area... subdued lighting, leave them be and hope for the best.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Mebbid]

Hey nooooob.. there was probably enough bb on all the fish you stocked to instant cycle those tanks[emoji14] now this gassing off of nitrates you speak of?? Care to elaborate? Totally new concept in my brain tank..
Ps... I'll be needing one of those l46. If I were to breed them.. which I probably couldn't... I'd take a 40b.. bare bottom, epic amount of moss, dw, stain that water, keep it dark, maybe through a earthworm in there once in a while.. oh yah.. Barry white. Have to find their favorite song.. i would put the tank in the back room, low traffic area... subdued lighting, leave them be and hope for the best.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

In oxygen free areas of aquariums there is bacteria that will grow. This bacteria will pull in nitrate, consume the oxygen that's attached to it, and excrete the nitrogen as a gas which gasses off. Its the same way that live rock works in salt water aquariums.

The seachem matrix works for that, but its nothing but pumice. They charge a fortune for it. I've been considering using a grill brick in a filter as it will have the same function. If i can find one that's a decent size and not dyed black I will be using it.

 

[Brookster123]

In oxygen free areas of aquariums there is bacteria that will grow. This bacteria will pull in nitrate, consume the oxygen that's attached to it, and excrete the nitrogen as a gas which gasses off. Its the same way that live rock works in salt water aquariums.

The seachem matrix works for that, but its nothing but pumice. They charge a fortune for it. I've been considering using a grill brick in a filter as it will have the same function. If i can find one that's a decent size and not dyed black I will be using it.

I run lots if matrix in my cannisters, am I gassing off nitrates?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Mebbid]

I run lots if matrix in my cannisters, am I gassing off nitrates?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Possibly, it depends on how good the canisters are tbh. The sunsun don't have an even flow through of the media so it's likely that a lot of the media is getting that anaerobic space. If you have an eheim, youre out of luck.

 

[Brookster123]

Sunsun, same as op though.. 2 trays of matrix, not 3 though..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Mebbid]

Sunsun, same as op though.. 2 trays of matrix, not 3 though..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Yeah, you possibly are gassing some off.

 

[Brookster123]

Yeah, you possibly are gassing some off.

I've got gas!!! Now.. in a high tech planted tank.. i kind of want my nitrates, now I really need to test. I've been supremely lazy with the testing lately..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Delapool]

How can you tell if you do have anaerobic bacteria working away? Do nitrates substantially drop?

 

[Mebbid]

How can you tell if you do have anaerobic bacteria working away? Do nitrates substantially drop?

In short, you can't really tell if there are fish in the tank. It isn't a huge difference unless you have a large amount of anaerobic bacteria.

Beforead I moved my corals over the live rock in my tank was my only source of nitrate export. With 5 fish in the tank my nitrates were constantly 0. But that's with around 70lbs of live rock.

 

[Delapool]

In short, you can't really tell if there are fish in the tank. It isn't a huge difference unless you have a large amount of anaerobic bacteria.

Beforead I moved my corals over the live rock in my tank was my only source of nitrate export. With 5 fish in the tank my nitrates were constantly 0. But that's with around 70lbs of live rock.

Thanks! Don't think I can get that much in the canister

Thought this statement below from seachem was interesting as well.


http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/PondMatrix.html


Since the majority of the bacteria are internal, Pond Matrix™ may be rinsed when needed without damaging the filter.

 

[Aquatic Arts]

How can you tell if you do have anaerobic bacteria working away? Do nitrates substantially drop?

In my experience, it is not so much that all of the nitrates eventually vanish, it is that nitrates stay stable at a certain level. I still have to do water changes in some of my tanks that are more heavily stocked, but I have some tanks going over 2 months without a water change (still using Seachem Replenish occasionally).

I'm definitely not bad-mouthing Eheim filters, but I've had 2/4 of them fail on me. I've had a Cascade (360, I think) and a Fluval 404, too. The SunSuns are my favorite. It is true that the flow is not as even, but the advantage to that is in being better for anaerobic bacteria as Mebbid pointed out. Plus, I run over 100 of these things and have had only one of them break down on me due to a badly machined impeller shaft. In my opinion, there is nothing better for the price. They seem to have become better designed in the last couple years as well. I would recommend getting one larger than their ratings say are necessary, you can always turn the flow down if it is too much.