Daragh_Owens wrote:
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.

IN AN OA TANK THERE IS A CERTAIN COMPLIMENT OF HEALTH TREATMENT THAT CAN APPEAR QUITE HEAVY/CLOUDY IN THE WATER.
A FEW CASES I HAVE SEEN WHERE PEOPLE HAVE NEGLECTED TO USE A FINE ENOUGH PREFILTER THIS HAS BECOME AN AESTHETIC PROBLEM WHICH IS ALWAYS QUICKLY REMEDIED WITH THE ADDITION OF SUCH FINE MEDIA (FILTER FLOSS IS GENERALLY CHEAPEST AND MOST EFFECTIVE).
IN RARE CASES I HAVE SEEN INEXPLICABLE CLOUDINESS, AS I HAVE IN NON-OA TANKS, AND CAN ONLY ATTRIBUTE IT TO THE USUAL THINGS LIKE- SUBSTRATE NOT WASHED WELL ENOUGH, FILTER NOT RUNNING CORRECTLY ETC.
I WOULD URGE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO EXPERIENCES THIS OR ANY OTHER DIFFICULTIES WITH OA TO POST UP HERE AND I FEEL CONFIDENT THAT A SENSIBLE CONCLUSION CAN BE DRAWN.
IN ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED CASES THOUGH AS DARRAGH HAS NOTED, THE FISH THEMSELVES WERE AT NO TIME STRESSED LOOKING.

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.

I HAVE FOR THE LAST NUMBER OF YEARS BEEN RECOMMENDING PEOPLE TO LEAVE THEIR LIDS OPEN AT NIGHT WHEN THEY TURN OUT THE TANK LIGHTS AND CLOSE IT AGAIN IN THE MORNING.
ALTHOUGH A FULL STUDY OF HOW LONG, FOR WHAT TANK SIZE AND WITH HOW MUCH BIOLOAD ETC HAS NOT BEEN CARRIED OUT, I FEEL THAT THERE IS AT THIS POINT NO REAL NEED AS THERE HAVE BEEN NO PROBLEMS WITH ANYONE WHO ADHERES TO THIS SIMPLE ROUTINE.
I AM AWARE THAT IN AN IDEAL WORLD (AND THIS IS ONE OF THE FEW 'ISSUES' I HAVE WITH OA) ONE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO KEEP THE LID OPEN AT ALL. THIS SAID I FEEL IT'S A SMALL PRICE TO PAY FOR A PERFECT TANK ALL THE TIME WITH NO HASSLE.
I AM LOOKING INTO DIFFERENT METHODS OF SUCCESSFUL GAS DISSAPATION THOUGH AND WILL KEEP YOU ALL INFORMED.

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.

GENERALLY SPEAKING THE TESTS FOR AMMONIA AND NITRITE ARE QUITE ACCURATE AND THE TEST FOR NITRATE (DEPENDING ON WHICH KIT YOU USE) CAN BE MISLEADING.
I HAVE SEEN PERFECT LOOKING TANKS WHERE THE NITRITES SEEM TO BE OFF THE SCALE THOUGH AND NOT ONE FISH IS LOOKING DISTRESSED OR ANY SIGN OF CLOUDY WATER.
I ALSO MORE REGULARLY SEE SEEMINGLY HIGH LEVELS OF NITRATE AND CAN SEE NO EVIDENCE OF IT- IE NO ALGAE, FISH ALL ACTING HEALTHY AND HAPPY.
MY USUAL LINE TO PEOPLE ON THIS IS - WATCH YOUR FISH AND WATCH YOUR TANK!!!
IF YOUR FISH ARE IN ANY SORT OF TROUBLE YOU WILL 99% OF THE TIME SEE IT IN THEM AND THEN TEST THE WATER. ADMITIDLY IT DOES LEAVE ONE IN A PREDICAMENT AS TO WHAT TO DO IF THERE DOES SEEM TO BE A PROBLEM IN THE TANK AND YOU ARE UNSURE OF THE ACTUAL LEVELS.
THIS IS SOMETHING WHICH NEVER REALLY HAPPENS IN AN OA SYSTEM AND I WOULD, AND ALWAYS HAVE MAINTAINED TO CLIENTS, LIKE YOU TO PRESENT ME WITH THE PROBLEM EITHER HERE OR BY PM OR MOBILE OR EMAIL IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT ANYTHING IN YOUR OA SYSTEM.
THE ONLY THING I ASK YOU TO KEEP A REGULAR CHECK ON IS pH.

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.

OA DOES SEEM TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE AT A HIGHER pH AND THE MAIN PROOF OF THIS IS ITS SUCCESS AT RUNNING COMPLEX SALTWATER SYSTEMS WITH VERY BASIC EQUIPMENT.
ALSO IN AFRICAN CICHLID TANKS PEOPLE HAVE HAD RESOUNDING SUCCESS USING OA.
WITH REGARD TO LOWER pH RANGES I HAVE FOUND THAT RUNNING A SYSTEM BELOW 6.0 CAN BE DANGEROUS AS THE BACTERIA DON'T SEEM TO DO VERY WELL IN SUCH ACID CONDITIONS.
THE GUIDELINES ON THE PRODUCTS THEMSELVES ARE NOT SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR USING THE PRODUCT BUT RATHER RECOMMENDED PARAMETERS (WITH PARTICULAR REF TO PONDS) FOR MINIMAL ALGAL GROWTH.

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.

SEE BELOW

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?

WHETHER USING OA OR NOT IN AN EXISTING SET UP, THE CASE OF A POWER CUT MEANS THE USE OF A BATTERY OPERATED AIR PUMP IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
IF YOU ARE ALREADY USING OA THEN SIMPLY CHANGE YOUR AIRLINE FROM THE MAINS POWERED AIRPUMP TO THE BATTERY OPERATED ONE AND PLACE A BATH TOWEL OVER THE TANK (IF TROPICAL) AND DONT WORRY ABOUT GAS DISPERSION.
IF NOT ALREADY ON OA THEN ADD IMMEDIATELY AND ADHERE TO STEPS ABOVE.
IN MOST CASES HERE THE POWER COMES BACK VERY QUICKLY BUT FOR PEOPLE WITH VERY EXPENSIVE SYSTEMS OR WHERE YOU FEEL THE POWER MAY BE OUT FOR MORE THAT A FEW HOURS THEN ADHERE TO STEPS ABOVE.

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??

SIMPLY PUT, PLANTS DON'T GENERALLY LIKE TOO MUCH OXYGEN IN THE WATER AND WHEN USING OA THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU GET!
AS SUCH THE PLANT TREATMENT HAS BEEN DEVELOPED TO COUNTERACT THIS BY PROVIDING NON NITRATE OR PHOSPHATE BASED FERTILIZERS AND ADDING VARIOUS PLANT BASED EXTRACTS THAT HELP THE PLANTS TO ABSORB ANY AVAILABLE CO2 TO GREAT EFFECT.

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.

I HAVE HEARD MANY REPORTS OVER THE YEARS FROM PEOPLE (GENERALLY JOE BLOGGS TYPES WHO WERNT EVEN TRYING TO DO SO) WHO HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BRED EVERYTHING FROM CICHLIDS TO SEAHORSES USING OA.
MORE DETAILED DOCUMENTATION OF THIS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED IF ANYONE OUT THERE HAS FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN THIS REGARD.

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…

ONE FINAL NOTE I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE HERE IS IN REFERENCE TO THE MISCONCEPTION THAT THE HEALTH TREATMENT IS SOME KIND OF SALT THAT IS USED TO CONTROL THE WATER PARAMETERS.
IN A NUT SHELL- THE BBAC AND GENERAL TREATMENT USED ALONE MAINTAIN THE HEALTHY WATER AND AS SUCH THIS MISCONCEPTION MUST BE IMMEDIATLY DISCREDITED.

Daragh

PLEASE NOTE THAT IN ABOVE POST THE CAPPED TEXT INDICATES RESPONSE FROM ME.
NOT REALLY USED TO ALL THIS FORUM QUOTING BUSINESS... ;D

CHEERS STEVE

Acara wrote:
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

Yes, I am not saying not to use it, I think its a great idea when cycling a new tank,its a interesting idea that you are adding a "different" stain of bacteria to conventional bacteria: If this is true then these "different" bacteria may need a additional source of food from apart from ammonia and nitrite, this would expanding the chemicals (white stuff), I am a bit secptical as I recall what the trade is capable of getting up to e.g in minireef who when bough out by International Sea Board(Philippine marine importers in the states I used to work for in the early 90´s) They marketed a food source for de nitrating bacteria and sold it in a nice plastic bottle with a nice sticker (more professional designs than Organic Any way it ways just tap water with a kind of sugar dissolved in.

Now Organic has a suspicious has a trade addressee with P.O.Box number short of having a hot mail email address it looks doggy, but if you are will to pay the money for it I have no problem with it.

For those of you that live in Cork (or surrounding areas), the guy from OA is in Petstop tomorrow!!!

He might be afraid to go there if all the doubting Thomas's turn up! Just kidding! He actually has a wealth of fishkeeping experience too, so could be interesting. I doubt all the conversation would be around OA,or at least I hope it wouldnt be solely on it,fishkeeping is far more expansive than a packet of readymix!
Gavin

I agree fishowner but I think that there is alot of critics out there when it comes to OA (even though some may have never used it!!). This is a great oppurtunity for ppl to get to talk to Steve and see what he has to say!

although i have enjoyed reading and respect the different viewpoints of all contributers to this topic, i remain convinced that everyone who uses this product will be amazed and pleased at it's effectiveness. It can be a painfree road for all beginner tank owners and their new pets. Setting up a new tank can be a daunting task with the vicious circle of new tank syndrome (overfeeding, ammonia, nitrite etc..) leading to stressed fish contracting diseases and parasites and the inevitable medicines and so on.

Any product that eliminates this hassle and unnecessary suffering and mortality has to be welcomed and I imagine if the fish could talk they would opt to avoid the experience of toxic ammonia and whitespot.

There may be negative aspects to long term use that i am not yet aware of and there may be equally good or even better products out there waiting to be discovered, but until such time as they become known I will actively encourage fishkeepers to try it and make up their own mind.

hi, very interesting thread,

and darragh good idea.. i think im also going to trial OA.
I currently have lots of fry on the grow
so what im thinking of doing is diving the
fry into two seperate tanks.

Same amount of fry,
same amount of water,
same amount of feed

and try to keep one tank running the good old fashioned way, and one using OA.
and ill post the results in a new thread.

I used to use OA a couple of years ago when i was running this tank

I never really had a complaint, the fish seemed to be happier, grow
fast, and seamed to eat less frantically whatever this means.

this was early days in OA terms however and i wasnt aware that
i had to get rid of my nitrifying bacteria by not cleaning out the filter.
The only complaint i had about it was that test kits didnt seem to work
at all. nitrate readings going through the roof but again this could have
been false and it freaked me out so i stopped.

However i did go away for 3 weeks before and had a randomer
staying in the house.. was great to be able to just get her to feed
(which she overfead of course) and the amount of drops to add weekly.
came back, food all over the tank but all the fish were fine.

Anyway now i think with a fishroom almost set up i think ill give
this another go from scratch. ill document my experience and include photos
where possible.

ive got the following fry that i could trial this with

calvus (very young)
occelatus (fairly old)
nigripinnis (fairly old)
leptosoma
leleupi (fairly old)

i could even mix a few to see if one tank has more aggression than the other
..what would be the most beneficial test do you think? test begins next week
all vote now!

I'm sorry to announce that in fact I will not be in Cork today.
I had planned on being there today or tomorrow but unfortunately cannot make it til next week as I'm too busy with all the new shops taking product on.

Dayo from PetStop Blanch will be there today and tomorrow and will be happy to field any questions anyone may have.

I can also be contacted by mobile - 087-9115073


Cheers,

Steve

Having read this thread with interest I thought I'd add my tuppence worth to the debate. I'm new to fishkeeping having only set-up a tropical tank in July....(I never did get around to introducing myself so hi everybody!) This I did using OA and I have to say that for this purpose I couldn't fault it in any way. I simply filled my tank, heated the water and dropped my first fish in that very day. Brilliant! I ran OA for the next four months with great success and no fatalities but have since reverted to traditional methods. The reasons for this were twofold....

1) The price of OA is still a bit on the high side for me.

2) I felt the need to clean the tank every week anyway (for aesthetic reasons only) so wasn't seeing the benefit of monthly waterchanges.

As an aside, I also had some plants that did not seem to grow well while using OA and were outcompeted and covered by hair algae. This I put down to my water at the time as it is everything you don't want for plants (high PH, high hardness, low CO2 etc).

Now this may be all coincidental due to the tank maturing but since I stopped using the product my plants have taken off and are looking healthier. This may be for a couple of reasons and is probably unrelated to the OA but it may also be because I was running an airstone as required with OA and this was removing what little CO2 was in my my water. There is however an OA plant additive that you can get for this reason but it requires that you keep your PH at ~6.8 if I remember correctly, mine is about 8 so no chance of that at the moment.

So, for me OA was a godsend when setting up my tank and for the first few months as it bedded in. It gave me the leeway I needed to overfeed etc and basically to learn without killing my fish. I moved away from it for my own reasons but would not hesitate to recommend it to anybody for either long or short term use.

Ronan