No Mercy Supply - Bacterial

Freeze-dried cultures of nitrifying bacteria. One to two teaspoons into the tank, twice a week, and at their best if you prepare the water a day in advance.

What you buy is dormant

The pot holds no liquid bacterial culture but a freeze-dried powder. The bacteria are alive, but they do nothing while they are dry. Only when you add them to water do they get going, and then it happens fast: No Mercy state that billions of nitrifying bacteria appear within 24 hours.

That makes the 24 hours before you water the actual product. Set out a bucket and leave it a day, and you water with a grown population. Tip the powder in just before watering, and you water with powder that still has to get started in your pot. Both work, but there is a full day between them.

What nitrifying bacteria are for

They break organic material down and convert it into forms the plant can absorb. Together with enzymes and fungi, they are the reason dead plant material, root remains and unused feed eventually become food again instead of debris that sits there.

No Mercy call them waste devourers, and that is where the practical benefit sits: less flushing. What gets cleared up does not have to be washed out with water. On a medium you intend to use for several cycles that counts twice over.

The biotope comes before the plant

The order No Mercy work in is striking: get the medium right first, plant second. On rockwool you flush your slabs before you start, and you do that with Bacterial in the water. Building a good biotope before the plants go in is, in their words, a condition rather than a bonus.

Their grow schedule says the same thing: Bacterial is in there from the very first leaf, at a point where no feed is being given at all.

A fungicide sets it back

No Mercy say so themselves: using a fungicide badly harms the working of the bacteria. That holds more widely than for fungicides alone. An oxidiser does not distinguish between helpful and harmful microbial life, so anything working on hydrogen peroxide does the same. In this range that includes Aptus System-Clean, which contains 8% hydrogen peroxide.

So do not use them in the same feed. And usefully, No Mercy supply the remedy in the same breath: it is precisely after a fungicide treatment that Bacterial is the way to get the biotope back in order quickly.

In use

On hydro: one to two teaspoons straight into the tank. Watch that your filter is part of the loop when you mix the bacteria in. Your regular feeding pattern can stay exactly as it is.

On soil and other bio systems: preferably set out a bucket of water at room temperature 24 hours in advance, at a pH between 6.2 and 7. One to two teaspoons is enough. You can also mix the powder straight through a medium you are putting together.

Give your plants a dose at least twice a week. Overdosing is not harmful.

Available sizes

Technical Specifications:

• Type: freeze-dried cultures of nitrifying bacteria
• Manufacturer: No Mercy Supply
• Dosage: 1 to 2 teaspoons per tank or bucket
• Frequency: at least twice a week
• Preparation: preferably 24 hours ahead, at room temperature
• pH when preparing: 6.2 to 7
• Establishment: billions of bacteria within 20 to 24 hours
• Period: from the first leaf, right through the cycle
• Do not combine with: fungicides and oxidisers such as hydrogen peroxide
• Storage: dry and closed

Frequently asked questions

Do I really have to prepare it a day ahead?
You do not have to, but it helps. The bacteria need roughly 24 hours to multiply, and otherwise that time is spent in your pot instead of in the bucket.

Can I give it together with my feed?
Yes, your regular feeding schedule does not have to change for it.

Why not together with hydrogen peroxide?
Because an oxidiser kills living microbial life and does not discriminate. Products like Aptus System-Clean and Bacterial do not belong in the same feed.

I have just used a fungicide. What now?
That is exactly the moment for Bacterial. No Mercy name it explicitly as the way to rebuild the biotope afterwards.

Can I give too much?
Overdosing is not harmful. It simply does not achieve more than the recommended dose.