Beneficial Bacteria via "Seeded" Live Rock Trade Participants

[Sean_B]

I have reservations with this inquiry possessing zero first-hand experience with Beneficial Bacteria, Live Rock or Salt Water Aquariums for that matter.

I've been reading/researching/studying diligently over the past 4 months in preparation to starting a large Reef Tank sometime next year, I still have much to learn.

Cut to the chase, what are general thoughts on "New Tanks", as well as "Established Tanks" increasing success with their tank inhabitants through trading Seeded Live Rock? Perhaps respected tank owners that have achieved sustainability could collectively seed rock in sumps and such, then make pieces of the rock available through a recognized sticky within R2R? It seems that the community as a whole could gain tremendous advance from Beneficial Bacteria not currently available in "bottles"?

 

[MnFish1]

My guess - is that nearly everyone would suggest rock from a tank (established). This is the way things were done 30 years ago. A bunch of dry rock as 'so-called' base rock - followed by a 'cover' of 'live rock' whether ordered - or taken from another tank. IMHO - if you have the money to cover your dry rock - with some living rock - or lots of LARGE corals - you will have no problem either way.

 

[maleks.reef]

When you buy frags from your LFS or other people, there will be bacteria on those surfaces. Also, you can always do bacteria like microbacter 7. Biodiversity is inevitable in a reef tank, it's just a matter of how fast do you want to reach that level of biodiversity. Personally, I got lucky and got a bag full of small Seachem pebbles that were from a 2 year old established tank.

Dont overthink it. At the end of the day, it is just bacteria that will make its way into your tank one way or another. I never tried LIVE rock from the ocean so i cant confirm its "benefits". The most important thing when it comes to bacteria is to make sure your tank can handle ammonia, aka the nitrogen cycle which im sure you're familiar with.

Ive been contemplating whether I should start dosing microbacter 7 since hair algae is starting to appear. If anyone has any experience with that please let me know.

 

[ZoWhat]

Just have someone with covid come sneeze on your dry rock

 

[Sean_B]

Just have someone with covid come sneeze on your dry rock

hmmmmmm, your thread, is what got me thinking about a legitimate "trade thread sticky"

why is so little known by hobbyist about 80+ strains of bacteria​

 

[MnFish1]

Just have someone with covid come sneeze on your dry rock

?

 

[ZoWhat]

Just have someone with covid come sneeze on your dry rock

Satire folks.... laugh a lil

 

[MnFish1]

Satire folks.... laugh a lil

No - just dont get it lol - I'm probably dense

 

[Tamberav]

A large portion of people seem to live in fear of pests or disease.

 

[Sean_B]

A large portion of people seem to live in fear of pests or disease.

the bulk of what I've read seems to indicate Beneficial Bacteria might lessen the effect both disease and/or pest have on wanted tank inhabitants? Also seems highly unlikely to ever rid a tank from either disease or pests.
in addition, "unwanted tank inhabitants" could/should share an extremely important symbiotic relationship that doesn't seem to be considered in some aquariums?

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Biodiversity on a microbial level is the goal with living or live rock.

it’s an idea that’s pretty central to biological systems. Organisms which can out compete another succeed. In this case, the more diversity, the more competition for the unwanted things like dinos, etc.

 

[Tamberav]

the bulk of what I've read seems to indicate Beneficial Bacteria might lessen the effect both disease and/or pest have on wanted tank inhabitants? Also seems highly unlikely to ever rid a tank from either disease or pests.
in addition, "unwanted tank inhabitants" could/should share an extremely important symbiotic relationship that doesn't seem to be considered in some aquariums?

Sure but how do you convince them? You can buy ocean rock already and most people don't because they are scared of pests.

Keeping fish disease out is fairly straight forward.

Keeping other pests out not so much.

You can buy some KPA rock if you are looking for bacteria

 

[sixty_reefer]

Imo this would be a waste of time and money.

reasons:

1. Most of your rocks will be already populated with same or similar bacteria. Unless you do a bacteria test to see what you getting and what you think is missing.

2. Any rock that been collected in the wild will have all the strains needed.

3. unless you were to start with dry rock and use one piece from someone tank to fully populate the dry rock could work.

4. even if you get a piece from someone’s tank you wouldn’t be able to replicate they’re just based on bacteria. Food, nutrients and water chemistry would impact on the final results.

 

[Sean_B]

4. even if you get a piece from someone’s tank you wouldn’t be able to replicate they’re just based on bacteria. Food, nutrients and water chemistry would impact on the final results.

my inquiry was about sharing Beneficial(microbial) Bacteria through Live Rock from many aquariums. not necessarily replicating any one aquarium. I do see how basic water parameters could drastically impact any/everything alive within the aquarium

 

[undermind]

I think this is a really good idea. And I think it's the inevitable future of the hobby.

I hope that we can look back on the era we're in now and say "we knew so little about bacteria and the importance of microbial diversity".

Biodiversity seems to be the biggest difference between things now and reefkeeping 20 years ago. So many issues (such as dinos) weren't even an issue then, but they're plague-like today. Why would we expect to establish a diverse set of beneficial marine bacteria by filling a glass box with dry dead rock and dead sand? And the development of nitrifying bacteria is not a sign of an environment that's poised for success.

I'm not sold on bacteria in a bottle or frag plugs being enough to inoculate our tanks either. The frag plug concept is feasible, however I think it would require an enormous number of frags added in a short period though, which isn't always the smartest thing to do and certainly not cheap.

My personal experiences have led me to a pretty firm belief that adding REAL live rock is the only thing that creates an immediate impact on systems troubled by "modern" struggles like dinos and the inexplicable inability to keep SPS in a system with perfect water parameters.

To address the original concept of trading seeded live rock from established systems... I love the concept but the logistics and persuasion are the challenges. Are the trades done via shipments? How do you convince someone with a mature 10 year tank to care about the newcomer that would love to get some of their mature rock?

I would love to see these things roll out on the community level in LFS's and reef clubs. It would require people who care (reef club) or profitability (LFS) but it would be easy enough. Any LFS could start keeping 20 Marine Pure blocks in a mature system sump and sell you one when you're starting up your tank - then they drop a new one into the system to take its place.

We need to really begin supporting companies like @AquaBiomics who are doing important & interesting testing, and encourage others to start similar operations by giving them our business and interest. We saw this happen with ICP. It's also fascinating to wonder what would happen if every sample that was sent in that tested free of pathogens went into a system with sand and rubble intended for archival and propagation. You gotta think that would be about as diverse as it gets. This may require people sending in an extra sample. Of course this might also be me going off the deep end.

But I also think it's time to start grabbing the microscopes we've all bought to ID what strain of dinos we have and start using them to look at a few drops of Microbacter 7 and see if there's actually any living bacteria there. We have a million different bacterias in a bottle, along with a million people with claims of both success and accusations of snake oil. Why not look and see?

@Sean_B thank you for sharing this idea. I would love to see it happen. Until it does, keep in mind that you have access [right now] to all the good stuff using some excellent options like KP Aquatics, IPSF and Aquabiomics live rock rubble.

 

[gbroadbridge]

When you buy frags from your LFS or other people, there will be bacteria on those surfaces. Also, you can always do bacteria like microbacter 7. Biodiversity is inevitable in a reef tank, it's just a matter of how fast do you want to reach that level of biodiversity. Personally, I got lucky and got a bag full of small Seachem pebbles that were from a 2 year old established tank.

Dont overthink it. At the end of the day, it is just bacteria that will make its way into your tank one way or another. I never tried LIVE rock from the ocean so i cant confirm its "benefits". The most important thing when it comes to bacteria is to make sure your tank can handle ammonia, aka the nitrogen cycle which im sure you're familiar with.

Ive been contemplating whether I should start dosing microbacter 7 since hair algae is starting to appear. If anyone has any experience with that please let me know.

A dry rock seeded with bacteria from a bottle just gives you a couple of simple bacterial strains. A rock from the ocean potentially contains tens of thousands of strains.

The bottle bac will certainly process ammonia eventually, but it does not give the biological or genetic diversity of a rock from the local beach.

The same is true of cultured coral, which quite often is grown in tanks that have never seen a day of real sunlight.

Don't overthink it, grab some real live rock if it is available where you live and set up a tank that will have less problems, or start with dry rock, use bottle bac and expect you will in all likelyhood have problems down the track.

You can still have problems with live rock, but they are mostly related to unwanted hitch-hikers.

Regards
Graham.

 

[J1a]

I believe the non-bacteria part of the live rocks is just as important. Different species of algae, pods, worms and eggs.

While we need bacteria in the tank, we cannot underestimate the importance of other microfauna.

 

[Arego]

I'll trade, keep me posted. I have easily over 100 different types of rocks (rubble) etc. from different tanks that I have traded with over the years. Count me in.