Hey fishblr! I did my IB Biology IA on different bacterial supplement brands used to establish aquarium biofilters. Here are the results if you’re interested! I obtained these data by gradually raising aquarium ammonia levels to 4.0 ppm by adding a little bit of ammonia each day. I then stopped at 4.0 ppm and recorded ammonia levels using an API test kit for a duration of 33 days.
I also gram stained and photographed the different supplements under the microscope. Here’s what I found! It’s funny how Seachem’s supplement has the least going on in terms of gram stain photos, yet seemed to remove ammonia most efficiently in the graph. Perhaps Seachem is using a chemical method to keep ammonia levels low? I don’t know.
Feel free to ask questions about my methodology!
