I'm also enjoying this discussion.I havnt seen anybody mention any actual negative experiences with this product,so I will be down to you Thursday eve Dayo to pick some up.

Dave

another area that organic would be a huge asset is show tanks at exhibitions fishshows etc. in the past mature water and established filters would have to be lugged along to fill tanks and even then it was a bit hit and miss. but with organic its just heat the water, add the product and an airstone, and we have a guaranteed instant and healthy tank for the duration of the show.

For some reason, the thread seems to have been split in two (bug in the forum s/w I think).

This post has been posted by Davekie :

I've been using this product for as long as Steve has had it and I feel it's about time I give Steve and Organic aqua some credit.

My tank is approx 1500L (closer to 1750L if you take the sumps into account). I set it up the conventional way but since Steve introduced me to Organic Aqua I have had no biological filtration of any kind. My water is crystal clear, my fish are extremely healthy and vibrant and I get very little algae. The small amount of algae I do get is only in the Summer and is attributable to the fact that the only place in my house big enough for the tank (which is 8x3x2) is in my living room which is South facing and gets the sun for most of the day - when we have sun, of course

I cannot recommend Organic highly enough. There are many people on this forum including some who have posted on this topic who have seen my tank for themselves and who, I'm sure, will back up everything I say about my tank and it's inhabitants.

What Derek said about Organic being a 'get of jail free' card reminded my of something that happened a couple of years ago:

In early 2006, my tank suffered a serious plumbing problem which resulted in the filtration being shut down for 3 days (just over 70 hours in total). The only things I had in my tank were the heaters, which I temporarily moved out of the sumps, and two air stones.
Before this problem, I had about 65 fish. 3 days later, I still had 65 fish. I did not suffer one single casualty and the only thing I can attribute this to is Organic.
Why people are still sceptical about Organic is beyond me. How much proof do people need? I have been running a 1500L tank for nearly 4 years on nothing but Organic. If that is does not qualify as proof that this stuff works, then I don't know what will.
Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable

And this one has been posted by Nonie :

davekie I have to agree, I have been using the stuff for the last few months and it is fantastic. I did set up the tank at the beginning of the year and used it once so I could put the fish straight into the tank. After that I went the usual root and did the water change every wk (in a very small apt it is not so easy). Now I only do water changes once a month and it saves so much time.

Aswell as that the fish have never looked better and are very healthy.

IMO it is money well spent and for those of you that are sceptical about it, give it a go and IMO you wont look back!!

Thanks Valerie for combining these treads.

but this has highlighted some thing which we don't see to often
A product that can help both our marine and fresh water systems. I have not seen many post were we can all take part and have the same understanding of the product involved.

i would be very interested in seeing who is using this product in what types of tanks and set ups and maybe giving it marks out of ten.

Mickey

see my post below

I hope this isn't getting confusing ...

Here is a post by JohnH that got split from the main thread too :

Why people are still sceptical about Organic is beyond me. How much proof do people need? I have been running a 1500L tank for nearly 4 years on nothing but Organic. If that is does not qualify as proof that this stuff works, then I don't know what will.

I'm one of those sceptics you allude to Davekie - your account is exactly what I was hoping to hear - one from someone who has used the product from start-up, through one potential disaster, right up to the present day. Obviously a very satisfied customer, likewise with Nonie...great, I'm delighted for the two of you.

But...would I use it? No, for the amount of tanks I have I wouldn't be able to afford it.

If I could afford it, however, would I use it then? - probably not...

But, if asked, would I recommend people don't use it? - No, although I hear both your's and others' endorsements of the product that would be advice 'too far' for me to give.

Would I, with no practical first hand knowledge of it recommend it (if asked) - of course not!

If it works for yourselves and you're happy with it, all well and good - work away.

In all of this my greatest objection has been the way the wholesaler of the product has hi-jacked as many threads as he could find to advocate the use of it.
This Forum does not, and never has done, exist to be a platform for anyone wanting free advertising...and I feel inclined to add AV2 into this category too.

John

And finally another post by Yasser

I have to put in my 2p's worth regarding the Organic Aqua. I've been using it for about 3 years (or possibly longer) and I've nothing but good to say about it. I run it in my 250 litre freshwater tank and I also run it in a tank I run in my local school.

My own tank get's well looked after and there's never a trace of algae or any problems with my fish (barring a non organic related tank wipe out a year or so ago ).

The tank I run in the school doesn't get the attention that my own tank gets but the Organic's has been a god send. All I need to do is go around once a week, put the few drops in and the teachers can be trusted to do the feeding. Once a month I go around to the school and do a water change and the tank is looking really well and again there's not a problem with fish or algae.

It really is a great product and for new fishkeepers I would highly reccommend it. It makes the hobby a lot easier and safer (for the fish).

10 out of 10 in my book

Great to see so many people taking part in this discussion.

I don’t think OA or anything else is a good substitute for good fish husbandry, all fishkeepers need to learn about the environment they maintain their fish in, understand their fishes requirements and how to provide these, they need to understand the nitrogen cycle and how a biological filter works etc etc. I always work on the principal that I don’t keep fish I keep water, if you provide the right conditions the fish will look after themselves 99% of the time, the obvious exception being disease, but disease outbreaks are much reduced by maintaining fish in the right conditions to start with.

What OA does for new fishkeepers is allow people read, get involved in forums and learn while their fish do not suffer. How many new tanks are sold to inexperienced fish keepers and then stocked within a short period resulting in fish stress and death? Unfortunately even when a shop 100% accurately explains to a new customer how they need to go about cycling a tank or getting used filter media and starting with small numbers of fish that does not guarantee disasters will not happen either through the impatience of the new owner or the inability to spot early signs of stress, over feeding etc.

There are a few other things about OA that should be mentioned, some already covered above others I have not seen mentioned, it would be good to get some feedback from the distributor on these points.

OA clouds the water?

I have not found this to be a problem generally, although one tank did go cloudy for a few days after I started using OA, the fish showed no sign of stress and it cleared in a couple of days. I would be interested to know what causes the clouding, is it a bacterial bloom. Other tanks I started at the same time in the same way did not cloud at all.

OA tanks need to have their hood left open?

OA tanks need an airstone to assist the dissipation of nitrogen gas for the water, there needs to be room for the gas to escape and not sit on the surface blocking oxygen take up. How much does the lid need to be open by, for how long.

You can’t test OA tanks?

Traditional Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia tests will not give useable readings. The reason for this was explained before to me, but I would like to hear that again.

OA and pH?

You can test water for pH when using pH and the effectiveness of OA depends on the pH of the water, it is most effective at higher pH levels with an optimum at 8.0, ideal for African cichlids, below 6.5 it is not effective at all. Those figures need to be confirmed, it would be interesting to understand why too.

You can use OA in a power cut?

Someone asked me before if OA would keep their biological filters alive in a power cut, my understanding of how OA works work suggest this would be a bad idea. OA bacteria would compete with traditional bacteria in the filter. OA requires washing tradition filters in tap water to destroy the traditional bacteria. However in the event of a long power cut where the traditional bacteria filters have died OA could be used to get the tank going again, rather than recycling.

In a power cut what happens an OA tank?

With the airstone turned off, how long until the build up of nitrogen take before it starts to adversely affect the fish? What’s the best thing to do in this circumstance?

OA and plants?

As I don’t active grow plants I have no experience on the effects of OA on a planted tank. I understand there is a separate OA product for planted tanks. Why does the original not work with plants, if that is the case??

Breeding fish in OA?

My only personal experience of fish breeding in OA is Corydoras schultzei, they spawned unexpectedly and I raised some fry, there did not appear to be any difference from fry raised in a traditional environment, I would be interested to hear have other people bred fish in OA and did they find existing breeders more of less likely to do so.

Some people are giving out about the lack of information on how this product works. There are enough people on the forum here that have used it or are using it to build up quite a bit of information.

I am tempted to do another test of two side by side tanks with identical fish in each and run one traditionally for 6 months and use OA in the other and monitor the results, maybe I will put that on the short finger…


Daragh

I have used Organic Aqua (OA) once to start up a quarantine tank which wasn't planned. The water turned milky/greeny in that tank but so did simultaneously my other tank which didn't have OA ... Bacterial bloom due to water was my conclusion - nothing to do with OA.

While I find the concept of OA very interesting, I too would advocate the 'traditional' way of cycling and maintaining a tank. Indeed, it is a great if steep learning curve when you have never been exposed to it. The education value of the fish-keeping aspects is definitely of great value. In my opinion, the challenge and the fun of learning/understanding how the bacteria develop, the impact of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate/pH, the cycle of white spot, biotopes, etc... is what I find the greatest about fish keeping. Granted, in my short fish-keeping experience, I have so far been lucky in that I have had no disasters (this forum has a lot to do with it) but research has taught me so much ... I would never have learnt all this, had I been using OA from the start.

However, OA would probably be an asset in the case of an emergency for a hospital tank or the typical impulse buy with no quarantine tank ready back home!

Valerie