Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

[Dr. Reef]

@MnFish1
I haven't changed my mind but what I am theorizing is that some of these products I tested are probably Heterotrophic in nature.
Also I believe Heterotrophic bacteria cannot cycle a tank on their own.
What I think is happening is that when I used food as carbon source for bacteria to consume, Heterotrophic bacteria also uses ammonia partially as fuel source as well.
Overtime true nitrifier bacteria from water rock air etc start to take over and become your primary biological filter.
Heterotrophic bacteria keeps the ammonia at bay for just enough time for true nitrifier bacteria to colonize.

 

[Brew12]

Overtime true nitrifier bacteria from water rock air etc start to take over and become your primary biological filter.

I like your theory. This is the one part I think I disagree with. As I learn more I think that algae and coral play a much larger role in processing ammonia than nitrifying bacteria. I have no proof of this but I would be surprised if bacteria were the main consumer of ammonia in my system.

 

[Dr. Reef]

I am back at home now and getting ready to setup a study with 6 products.
1 Fritz Turbostart 900
2 dr Tim
3 bio spira
4 microbelift
5 seachem stability
6 ATM colony

First 3 we showed in earlier studies that they can cycle a tank on their own in sterile tank while later 3 stalled until food/carbon was introduced.
I like to test all 6 with food from startup and see how fast they all drop ammonia down.

 

[Dr. Reef]

I like your theory. This is the one part I think I disagree with. As I learn more I think that algae and coral play a much larger role in processing ammonia than nitrifying bacteria. I have no proof of this but I would be surprised if bacteria were the main consumer of ammonia in my system.

That maybe very much true as algae and corals and many other types of bacteria present in our tank can and will process ammonia. Unless testing done in a professional laboratory it's hard to say in a small domestic capacity I have.
Although I have learned that there are 2 types of bacteria in bottle available in market. 1 that can cycle a sterile tank while others need live fish or food/carbon to drop ammonia to 0.

 

[Brew12]

That maybe very much true as algae and corals and many other types of bacteria present in our tank can and will process ammonia. Unless testing done in a professional laboratory it's hard to say in a small domestic capacity I have.
Although I have learned that there are 2 types of bacteria in bottle available in market. 1 that can cycle a sterile tank while others need live fish or food/carbon to drop ammonia to 0.

Agreed. I have no idea how my theory could be tested. Only that I believe it to be the case. I base it in that I believe a mature reef tank doesn't generate enough nitrate when compared to the nutrient input and that direct ammonia uptake is the most likely cause.
But... I'm distracting from the purpose of your tests. Keep up the great work, this stuff is of immense value!!!

 

[Hybrid Ken]

I don’t want to be a pedant, but since ‘we’ are trying to be scientific and all, how come your rodi water

RODI water for salt, it dropped a few words when it was posted. I don't always proof read to well after a 12 hour work day.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Getting tanks ready for the upcoming test:
6 tanks, Will dose to 1 ppm ammonium chloride. Will be testing the following:

Tank 1 and 2
Fritz turbostart 900 cold vs Fritz Turbostart 900 room temp now almost 3 months old.

Tank 3
Turbostart 900 (tank 1) vs fritz zyme 9 (non refrigerated and shelf stable)

Tank 4
Equo Bacterya (shipped from Hong Kong by @cbleehk)

Tank 5
MicroBacter 7 made by Brightwell

Tank 6
Bio Spira poured directly on sand and ceramic rings before starting the tank.
(why bio spira? its the most quickest to cycle a tank in the shelf stable products tested so far)
Will start with dry tank, place the equipment and set 2 separate piles of sand. On left pile ill add bacteria and on right side pile ill add ammonia then fill the tank with saltwater and turn equipment on.

 

[MnFish1]

@MnFish1
I haven't changed my mind but what I am theorizing is that some of these products I tested are probably Heterotrophic in nature.
Also I believe Heterotrophic bacteria cannot cycle a tank on their own.
What I think is happening is that when I used food as carbon source for bacteria to consume, Heterotrophic bacteria also uses ammonia partially as fuel source as well.
Overtime true nitrifier bacteria from water rock air etc start to take over and become your primary biological filter.
Heterotrophic bacteria keeps the ammonia at bay for just enough time for true nitrifier bacteria to colonize.

Thanks - this makes sense - So then is it also a moot point - if the autotrophs come from the air, rock, etc - the heterotrophic bacteria 'jumpstart' is basically equivalent to using autotrophs to start? because I have also read that the strains of nitrifiers that live/survive in seawater are different than those in freshwater. (meaning there shouldn't be a lot of those flying around in the air in the midwest). @brandon429 feels nitrifiers come from tap water (autotrophs). The whole topic leaves me confused. PS - I'm not sure its possible to say what bacteria are in other products (yet) - The Seneye tests will be the key (IMHO)

 

[brandon429]

Also consider the surfaces associated with tap delivery for the bacterial sourcing, not necessarily water effluent from the plant but your gaskets never changed, pipe sloughing, Dr Tim and I discussed that on initial pages, tap water vectoring.

I can't begin to communicate how many different live bacteria come out of and are alive suspended in tap water, we would have never ever used it for dilutions in our bac lab it's just filthy... try to envision nitrifers not being part of that biota.

 

[brandon429]

It's not that tap straight out of the treatment plant is contaminated, some localities do emit occasional nitrifiers however as nitrate measurements are part of most online annual water reports for a given city, they'll range a bit.

Tap water is often used in prep and the dissipation time for chlorine being 24 hours ish means the sterilization characters aren't able to overcome contamination loaded into delivered tap if it sits for any time.

Should tank water be made with tap and then offset with prime or start right, the bacteria slough off of piping and into essentially clean water dechlorinated with mineral support. Tap is a total contaminator. Whatever container we put it into as an aquarium also most likely has other vectors besides prep water, so even if the nitrifers aren't heavy in the initial setup they'll still arrive in a place already active with living and dying heterotrophic bacteria. We can't unassociate filling up an aquarium with nitrifiers, by natural vectoring means, no purchase required.

Buying bottle bac gets you the right strains in the right concentration to both handle bioloading as soon they're dosed, and to plate onto surface area very quickly as Dr Reef shows. Buying bottle bac means you don't have to wait 30 days for them to show up naturally. 30 days, a guess, we should test natural environmental seeding of bacteria solely by setting up a tank and waiting 30 days to oxidize test it... to see if 30 days is a fair estimate. Give it a slight boost of ammonia during the month, but add no bottle bac whatsoever/ideal test.

 

[Dr. Reef]

This is what confuses me.
If cities use chlorine or chloramine that should sterilize the water coming out of tap. There should be no bacteria left in that water.
If I was to setup a tank with tap water and add salt to it. That tank will cycle over weeks to maybe month. Where did this bacteria come from if tap water was sterile?
Air, sand, rock, equipment or it just mysteriously forms under certain conditions present?
After all life also JUST started with a single cell in presence of right elements.

 

[MnFish1]

This is what confuses me.
If cities use chlorine or chloramine that should sterilize the water coming out of tap. There should be no bacteria left in that water.
If I was to setup a tank with tap water and add salt to it. That tank will cycle over weeks to maybe month. Where did this bacteria come from if tap water was sterile?
Air, sand, rock, equipment or it just mysteriously forms under certain conditions present?
After all life also JUST started with a single cell in presence of right elements.

Well - we already have kind of an answer to that - you had tanks set up for 7 days and they don't reduce ammonia. My 'guess' is that Pseudomonas (which has been found in shower heads ) - a heterotroph (and others) causes ammonia to drop. But - And this is a guess - and this is where we cycle back to @brandon429 s new concepts in microbiology - How do we actually 'know' that its nitrosomonas (an autotroph) - or nitrobacteria, etc - vs Pseudomonas or bacillus cycling the aquarium in an individual tank??? How do we know its not Archaea or one of its relatives - which was relatively unknown in the 'supposedly' proven nitrogen cycle. ?

 

[brandon429]

Dr Reef
Since there is no physical action to dislodge floc and sediment in pipe delivery systems to the home, the upper limit of human consumption safety sets the max chlorine/amine amounts they can use and these are not sufficient levels to dislodge scums and biofilms sometimes inches thick of living material inside pipes (see one of Paul B's home aquarium posts, he saws open a typical delivery pipe to his fish room to show decades accumulation, excellent for us here)

These scums always slough off living bacterial aggregate sheets, tiny clusters, for re delivery and seeding of nitrifiers and associates, even if mainly associates elsewhere.

Where goes water outside a positive pressure microbiology lab goes an ecosystem given any decent wait time

The water plants are not pumping suspended items to colonize and fill up these pipes; the nature of water traveling and contamination points along the way + roughened surface inside piping for any reason (begins a surface area expansion point) is all that's required... Delivery pipes to your home are thriving biosystems of living cells and colonies.

The output water having some chlorine, is measurably cleaner than having none.

none of this even accounts for aerial contamination transfer to tanks filled with tap... though aerial transfer of nitrifiers may be low, depending on location (not low for homes around Niagara for example) it's certainly not low for other strains of bacteria that contaminate and bloom in new waters because temporary sustenance is found.


They die due to not being adapted, their mass is capitalized by a new succession, pretty quickly. In my opinion this best describes the totally unassisted cycle physicality, for whichever strains accomplish the performance needed to run a tank after sufficient hydration time

At some point in the unassisted cycle, likely when adding fish and plants, enough nitrifiers are added such that the succession of underwater colonies shifts towards nitrifers in the way we think of them

 

[MnFish1]

Dr Reef
Since there is no physical action to dislodge floc and sediment in pipe delivery systems to the home, the upper limit of human consumption safety sets the max chlorine/amine amounts they can use and these are not sufficient levels to dislodge scums and biofilms sometimes inches thick of living material inside pipes (see one of Paul B's home aquarium posts, he saws open a typical delivery pipe to his fish room to show decades accumulation, excellent for us here)

These scums always slough off living bacterial aggregate sheets, tiny clusters, for re delivery and seeding of nitrifiers and associates, even if mainly associates elsewhere.

Where goes water outside a positive pressure microbiology lab goes an ecosystem given any decent wait time

The water plants are not pumping suspended items to colonize and fill up these pipes; the nature of water traveling and contamination points along the way + roughened surface inside piping for any reason (begins a surface area expansion point) is all that's required... Delivery pipes to your home are thriving biosystems of living cells and colonies.

The output water having some chlorine, is measurably cleaner than having none.

none of this even accounts for aerial contamination transfer to tanks filled with tap... though aerial transfer of nitrifiers may be low, depending on location (not low for homes around Niagara for example) it's certainly not low for other strains of bacteria that contaminate and bloom in new waters because temporary sustenance is found.


They die due to not being adapted, their mass is capitalized by a new succession, pretty quickly. In my opinion this best describes the totally unassisted cycle physicality, for whichever strains accomplish the performance needed to run a tank after sufficient hydration time

At some point in the unassisted cycle, likely when adding fish and plants, enough nitrifiers are added such that the succession of underwater colonies shifts towards nitrifers in the way we think of them

Most people use RODI water - not tap water. (to set up a tank)
There are lots of articles out there suggesting that heterotrophs (especially pseudomonas) can grow in shower heads, faucets, etc. There is no evidence to show that autotrophs do the same. Biofilm or not. So again it comes down to (IMHO) - which bacteria you're talking about.

@brandon429 What do you think of the information that salt water nitrifiers are different than freshwater nitrifiers? Do some of your opinions come from establishing fresh water tanks? or is it all marine?

 

[brandon429]

Aware of RoDi as a tank tuner. We were discussing the irony of tap still bringing out living cells with it.

Searching shows marine and freshwater nitrifiers are different, and deep searching shows a genetic study by dr Tim on a freshwater filter community where 99% of sampled filtration bacteria were freshwater

The other portion, a marine nitrifer. You'd have to search it out I never kept it, but it was eye catching at the time. An incredibly small portion of the sample was marine species. I probably found that on scholar looking under terms possibly Timothy Hovanec nitrifer study or TH nitrifer genetic study, something along those lines. Does that mean universal vectoring for both types in various water samples? Don't know, but it was neat to see at least some mix available in natural settings.

Both a marine tank and a freshwater tank will complete an unassisted cycle if you set them up with tap. Even if you don't bother to dechlor.



You did catch it well earlier that Dr Reefs current test is only a test of self sustenance, feeding from the environment, vs seeding from it. We still have seed and source testing work to do to get some updated proof.

Someone set up dry materials circulating in tap water salt water and in sixty days add precisely .5 ppm ammonia and see if it oxidizes in 24 hours. We still want end proof on how long this takes for marine tanks, in freshwater it's about 30 days, less for any samples stored opened and outside.

 

[MnFish1]

Aware of RoDi as a tank tuner. We were discussing the irony of tap still bringing out living cells with it.

Searching shows marine and freshwater nitrifiers are different, and deep searching shows a genetic study by dr Tim on a freshwater filter community where 99% of sampled filtration bacteria were freshwater

The other portion, a marine nitrifer. You'd have to search it out I never kept it, but it was eye catching at the time. An incredibly small portion of the sample was marine species. I probably found that on scholar looking under terms possibly Timothy Hovanec nitrifer study or TH nitrifer genetic study, something along those lines. Does that mean universal vectoring for both types in various water samples? Don't know, but it was neat to see at least some mix available in natural settings.

Both a marine tank and a freshwater tank will complete an unassisted cycle if you set them up with tap. Even if you don't bother to dechlor.

Remember this isn't up for debate, as we've collected several posters who also did unassisted/contamination only cycling back in the day and were comparing outcomes, from a known method easy to repeat

It's ok if you disagree with those multiple claims, we allow for complete unacceptance of the methods discussed. We already did the tests showing unassisted cycles work, you'll have to log a retest to prove they don't.

I never said unassisted cycles didn't work (did I?) Im only trying to figure out why they work. Apparently you don't care? IDK - Either way - What does it matter if unassisted cycles work or not? Based on the studies here - I would choose a bottle of bacteria every day - as compared to waiting potentially weeks with an empty aquarium and then going through all the issues with algae, etc - because there is no coral, CUC, etc. JMHO.

 

[brandon429]

I fully thought you were against them based on the other thread, I'll go edit that's fair.

 

[MnFish1]

Remember this isn't up for debate by you, as we've collected several posters who also did unassisted/contamination only cycling back in the day. It's ok if you disagree with those multiple claims, we allow for complete unacceptance of the methods discussed. We already did the tests showing unassisted cycles work, you'll have to log a retest to prove they don't.

LOL. well - actually the results may not be 'up for debate' - but the rationale behind the results certainly is. Again - I never said unassisted cycles 'don't work'. Unassisted cycle (as a definition) is only in your universe not the general public - I'm not even sure what it means.

Cycle is also a broad term. Does cycle mean decreased ammonia? What exactly have you 'proven'. What is your definition of 'cycle'? Is there a standard definition? The study by @Dr. Reef has done a lot to clarify some of these things IMO.

 

[brandon429]

What good is editing if you're going to post grab everything lol

Ok then, this is where things degenerate for a few pages lol nope I have a neato Sunday ahead, happy bowl day!
B

 

[MnFish1]

What good is editing if you're going to post grab everything lol

Ok then, this is where things degenerate for a few pages lol nope I have a neato Sunday ahead, happy bowl day!
B

I posted the 2 posts directly apart. Just forgot to make a point. I merely thought it was funny that you decide whats up for debate and whats not.