Dr Tims Waste Away....?

[twhaddon]

Has anyone used Dr Tims Waste Away and Refresher products? I ordered some in and have heard some good things about it, but wanted to find out what this forum might say. I have a hair algae problem and while I am trying to get the nutrients under control I heard these work really well by dosing some good bacteria to take the nutrients up before the bad bacteria can.

Any thoughts?

 

[franciscosalazar]

subscribed

 

[twhaddon]

Not sure what that means?

 

[mcphock]

It means he's interested in following along with this conversation.

I've never used Dr Tim's nutrient control products, but his "one and only" worked well for me.

 

[twhaddon]

Ah - still a newbie at this.

Thanks for the reply. I almost picked that up as well. I ordered waste away, refresher, and the Eco balance.

 

[picoreefguy]

im not a big fan of products like that. while they may very well provide the necessary bacteria for nutrient removal if your tank does not have the proper place for them to stay then they wont last and will just contribute to the problem and if your tank does have the proper place for them to stay then it should already be colonized with those bacteria. there are really only a few ways to remove nitrates (the end result of the nitrogen cycle) from an aquarium. 1 is to have an area in your tank that can house anaerobic bacteria that can turn nitrate into harmless gasses and 2 is physical removal i.e. do some water changes or 3 use carbon to absorb ammonia before it can be broken down. but its best to use all three methods together

 

[sn4k33y3z]

Howdy neighbor!

I too had some hair algae problems a few months ago, and someone suggested I get a few turbo snails. I did and WHA-LA, no more hair algae. I put four of them in my 93g DT.

 

[cbry77]

Like the previous poster stated, avoid dosing with these products. It will only mask the problem and it will return.

What worked for me was to limit the amount of times that I feed to every other day, introduction of a 40 watt UV sterilizer with a slow pump rate, and Turbo Snails. The turbo snails eat the hair algae very well.

I have had no hair algae since. That was six months ago.

 

[redstang]

I cut back to feeding every 2-3 days a while back and while that did help I constantly worried about the health of my fish. More frequent water changes, more frequent filter floss changes, and adding a couple turbos helped me to the point where I'm back to feeding daily.

However, I now feed less per day and I try to feed non flake food as well. Currently I feed NLS pellets about once per week and a mix of Nutramar Ova and Rod's Pacific Plankton daily. I'm back to a much nicer looking tank that I'm happy to show friends.