Catalina BioSolutions’ Bioremediation Products

We pride ourselves on delivering our microbial products with enormous plate counts. All products out here on the market are not the same, so when making a purchasing decision, check out the plate counts and compare!

Here’s an example:

My friend, Dick Marshall, produces a product called Quellz (937.435.3126), which is like a steroid for microbes. He uses our microbes with his Quellz to clean swine manure lagoons. Smelly stuff!

We’re achieving great results in lowering bottom sludge levels, removing odor, and clarifying the water. Recently he called me and after a few battleship stories (he served on the Iowa in Korea) told me that he compared our product with a well-known bug manufacturer that I told him about. He found that to get the equivalent number of microbes that 20 pounds of our infamous Biocritters contain, he would need 1,400 pounds of their product! We use just 20 pounds of our carbon Biocritters to treat 3,000,000 gallons. It is slow release and has a plate count of over 600,000,000,000 CFUs.

We offer different blends for different contaminants but all have this same high plate count.

If you’re not sure if we can clean your problem, call us and we’ll prove it to you (and us!) because we don’t want to get into something that won’t work. We haven’t had a failure if you do what we tell you to do! (since 1990). And we want to keep that record intact.

Nothing will happen in a bioremediation treatment unless you can get the microbes and nutrient in contact with the contaminant. Simple enough. You should strive for a moisture level of at least 20%. How you achieve that goal varies from engineer to engineer.

A good rule is to set up inoculation points at six-foot intervals in closely packed soil. So drill at 6-foot centers and inoculate with the mixture of microbes and nutrient, and you will get a good horizontal overlap. Frequently, the inoculant will overflow out of the adjacent hole, which is a good indication that there is excellent horizontal disbursal.

Here is a review of some basic soil moisture facts:

• A cubic yard of soil contains the equivalent of 201 gallons of water.
• 20% of that is slightly more than 40 gallons.
• So in perfectly dry soil, you would need 40 gallons to achieve a 20% moisture level.
• Most soil already contains a moisture level, so you may need less than 40 gallons and that can be easily calculated.

The selection of the drill type is important as well. While a GeoProbe is a useful and inexpensive piece of equipment, it is important to know that in closely packed soil, the drill can actually pack the soil around the bore hole even tighter, and can, in fact, pack the soil so tight that fluid can’t penetrate it. This makes it difficult to properly disburse the microbes, nutrient and the water. Your driller will help you with this.

Our Passive System

This simple, passive, gravity system works really well when used in conjunction with our Carbon Biocritters. In one of our popular products, we grow our microbes on and in small carbon pellets. The resultant plate counts are enormous. Since a tablespoon of carbon pellets contain the surface area of a football field, you can imagine the nooks and crannies available for the microbes to live and breed in.

When you are drilling your inoculation points (remember, 6 foot centers) simply line the holes with slotted PVC, capped at the bottom end with the slots placed in the contaminated zone, and leave the surface end either slightly recessed if you need to drive over the property (as in a gas station) or leave the stubs exposed. Either way, you can cover the top end with removable caps so you can continue to make inoculations during the life of the project.

Before insertion of the slotted PVC pipes, or right after insertion, add some of the dry Carbon Biocritters, about 6-8 inches from the bottom. This will contain billions and billions of microbes perfectly at home in the carbon. They will continue to grow and multiply when you add water and nutrient to each PVC tube. The carbon pellets do not dissolve and merely are the carriers for the billions of microbes. The microbes will last month after month and when you add more water and nutrient, there will be so many microbial colony-forming units that the excess will sheer off and make their way through the slots in the PVC and disburse into the site.

You can keep the site moist, well supplied with nutrient, and continually add more mixture of microbes and nutrient whenever you can. One man can keep a site active once every week or two. You can inject the solution of microbes under pressure for even better horizontal disbursement. But check with your regulators as they may object to “pushing the plume” outward.

We like this system and have used it successfully many, many times.

Please call me if you have any questions. I answer all calls personally. Jerry at 520.299.9808.

In this business you hear a lot about “plate counts” or CFUs (colony forming units). These are simply the numbers of microbes in 1 gram. A plate count of 5 billion is a lot less than a plate count of 670 billion microbes per gram, for example.

So when you are buying a product of 5 billion per gram, it is obviously going to be less expensive and less effective then one which has 670 billion. But, is it really less expensive if you have to use a lot more? Obviously, and logically, not.

We sell both products, but by far our best seller is the 670 billion microbes per gram product.

If price per pound is important, buy the lower plate count. If your COST to clean a cubic yard is important, buy the higher plate count product. CALL US to help you decide. 520.299.9808

Here’s a tip for successful bioremediation:

Another thing to consider is the carriers for the microbes. Some commonly used carriers (what the microbes are dried on) are ground corn, wheat bran, zeolite and clay or bentonite). Some carriers have an inherently high plate count even without adding to good degrader microbes. Corn, clay and zeolite are examples of this. So, when speaking to a bioremediation products manufacturer or distributor, the key question to ask is “What percentage of the total plate count are the good degrading bacteria?”

Prices

We sell a low plate count product for as little as $12 per pound. We sell a high plate count product for $100 per pound. We sell some in between. We can help you decide which is best for you and your particular remediation requirements. And we have calculated the different application rates for you to help you decide. But the key factor is to determine the cost to clean a cubic yard or the cost to clean a gallon of contaminated water. So if you opt for a cheaper, lower plate count product, you will need much more of so your cost per unit will be the same or maybe more.

We would appreciate the opportunity to quote a job for you, and we promise to not drive you crazy with nagging sales calls!

Thank you,

Jerry Coon
Catalina Biosolutions, LLC