From a post in this RC thread, someone wrote to the creator of AZ-NO3 and received this LENGTHY
response. I can't verify its authenticity, but it explains why the blooms occur:On my web page is a copy of a booklet that goes to pet shops that buy AZ-NO3 for resale. It explains exactly how the AZ-NO3 product works and gives much more data than my off the cuff explanation. It's at http://archimedes.galilei.com/raiar/
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article and all of the positive comments about my AZ-NO3 product. I do try to make it the very best it can be!
To ease your mind a little, there are NONE of what would be deemed as chemicals in the AZ-NO3 product. It is primarily a food product to feed a particular species of naturally occurring bacterium that is already present in most aquaria, just not in a large enough colony to perform denitrification. If not, we introduce the enzyme that insures this beneficial bacterium will become present.
Because the product is distributed worldwide, we did find it necessary to include an ingredient to insure no adverse affects with amoeba found in the water supplies in some Asian countries, namely Japan & China. But even so, this is more of a stabilizer than a chemical. It is found in many flake foods that we all use everyday also.
Sorry about your protein skimmer going wild. But that is the only safe and feasible way to get contaminants out of the tank, before they can break back down again.
We have the ability to test for nitrates, but not for most other contaminants. AZ-NO3 addresses many contaminants that are harmful and removes these along with the nitrates. This is why some aquaria that have low nitrate readings, still get a large effluent of waste product.
We try to keep the price as low as humanly possible! Some of the ingredients in the AZ-NO3 product cost more than an equivalent weight of pure gold. Nonetheless, we have reduced the price at this end considerably since the product was first introduced about 7 years ago. But because of the distribution chain, the retail price has only dropped about 2 bucks. Needless to say, the more we sell, the larger quantities of ingredients we can purchase at one time, which makes our costs a little lower, and this eventually gets reflected at the retail end.
The simplest way to explain how AZ-NO3 works, is to say there are two bacterium necessary. Bacterium A, which is a food for bacterium B. Bacterium B will not proliferate without having a source of bacterium A to eat. Bacterium B is what 'eats' the nitrates along with bacterium A. Sorta like a soda goes with pizza. You wouldn't want to eat a pizza without something to wash it down with.
The AZ-NO3 product is basically food for Bacterium A. To insure bacterium A is present in the aquarium, we introduce an enzyme that causes the naturally occurring bacterium A to proliferate and give them the food to do so.
Bacterium B is present in minuscule amounts in all aquaria whose salinity is over 1.015 But there is also a non-beneficial bacterium C, that loves the same food as bacterium B. So causing massive growth of bacterium A, could have adverse affects if it were not for our method of making the 'food' bacterium A non-palatable to bacterium C. Following the example above, bacterium C hates pizza, so our 'food' bacterium A tastes like pizza to bacterium C and they leave it alone. This allows bacterium B to develop large colonies. They eat the pizza or bacterium A, and wash it down with soda or in our case the nitrates in the aquarium.
I know, dumb way of explaining it! But it gets the point across.
AZ-NO3 is food for bacterium A, it also introduces more bacterium A.
Bacterium A eats this food, which makes it unpalatable to bacterium C.
But bacterium B loves to eat bacterium A along with Nitrates to wash them down.
For purposes of explaining what happens in the aquarium, Bacterium A is a fairly large, white, visible bacterium. This is why the tank turns cloudy. Very little for some aquarists and almost as white as milk for others. The amount of cloudiness is directly proportional to the number if bacterium B already present in the aquarium. Some flake foods, but especially frozen foods also become minute traces of food for bacterium A, which causes a larger colony of bacterium B in the aquaria. So many aquarists who feed quite often with frozen foods, see much less in the way of cloudiness in their aquaria, and some aquarists have no clouding at all when using the AZ-NO3 product.
Chemical products tend to work fairly instantly. AZ-NO3 works very slowly, for several reasons. The primary reason is shock to the livestock. The slower you change water parameters of an aquarium, the safer it is for the animals therein.
Take a hypothetical pure aquaria with no bacteria and 100ppm of nitrates.
Although this does occur concurrently, for this example it doesn't.
But first, look at the nitrogen cycle. Saphrytic bacterium breaks down proteins and organics into Ammonia, Ammonia is the 'food' for the next bacterium, which breaks ammonia into nitrites, nitrites are 'food' for the next bacterium, which breaks nitrites into nitrates. Nitrites are 'food' for the fat little bacterium B and if not removed from the aquaria, would produce protein which would break back down through the nitrogen cycle all over again and your nitrates would never be lowered.
Back to our hypothetical aquarium!
When you introduce AZ-NO3 into this sterile aquarium (meaning no bacteria present) an enzyme in the AZ-NO3 product insures that the naturally occurring bacterium A will proliferate, and have the necessary food they like to live on. At the same time, the particular food we feed them, makes them taste bitter to bacterium C, which is not a beneficial bacteria.
Bacterium B is also a naturally occurring bacterium and found in most aquaria, except our hypothetical sterile aquaria.
Although bacterium B is naturally occurring, we introduce an enzyme for this bacterium also, to insure they grow and proliferate on the food being produced as bacterium A.
Bacteria is a living thing. Technically no living thing can be bottled, stored on a shelf and sold, and the buyer expect what's inside to still be living. So we can only introduce an enzyme or catalyst that causes certain events to take place that insure the proper bacterium develop naturally. Like, if you put yeast into bread, it will rise. Or if you mix baking soda and vinegar, it's going to fizz.
After we introduce the enzymes and the food, it takes a specific amount of time for the bacteria to develop and grow. If the hypothetical aquaria is sterile, it would take 10 to 15 days for bacterium A to occur and grow big enough to become food for bacterium B. Once food palatable to bacterium B is present, bacterium B will begin to grow. The more bacterium A that is present, the more bacterium B will proliferate to consume this wonderful delicacy. Bacterium B takes another 10 to 15 days to grow and develop to be large enough to consume adult bacteria A. But in real life, bacterium B is growing concurrently as bacterium A is proliferating.
When you hear reports of the AZ-NO3 product showing nitrate reductions in 5 to 10 days, you can only assume that both bacterium A and bacterium B were already present in the aquarists aquarium and giving the existing colony the proper foods caused them to multiply more rapidly than if one started with a sterile environment.
Leather corals like to snack on bacterium A, however, we change the taste of bacterium A to one that is bitter, so bacterium C will not eat it and grow. When a leather coral tastes this bitter bacterium A, it closes up temporarily, until the bitter tasting bacterium A has been consumed by bacterium B. Some other corals are affected in this same way, but not as adversely. Realize that bacterium A is ONLY a snack, like potato chips to leather corals, it is not their primary diet. So leathers do open back up even with continued use of AZ-NO3 for long periods of time. They are just not as happy without their potato chips.
Well, I guess I bent your ear long enough.
I just felt that sometimes it helps when aquarists know what a product is actually doing in their aquarium.
Our original pictures showed one enzyme, changing into another enzyme and then the latter enzyme became real fat (large).
In essence, this actually how the AZ-NO3 product works. Eat too much pizza and drink too much soda and you will not only put on weight, you will also get gas and float to the top.
If you don't clean that skimmer cup, it would be more akin to eating hard boiled eggs and drinking a six pack of beer, hi hi.....
- Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr. (AZ-NO3 Creator)
