Cycling tank

[phish1627]

Building my first reef tank and planning the best way to cycle my 55 gallon system. How important is building a strong population of good bacteria early on in relation to having less issues overall in the tank’s first year?

Maybe I am overestimating it, but I am planning on using pre seeded bio media in my sump, about 5lbs of live wet rock and microbacter start. Is this overkill/not necessary?

I’ve had one lfs owner tell me a strong cycle is incredibly important and another tell me to just use Dr Tim’s “one and only” and that’s all that’s needed.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I did a Dr Tim's one and only cycle for my tank. However, I think live rock is the best route for cycling a tank. You get an incredibly diverse microbiome and can skip some of the ugly phases that are common when you start with dry rock.

 

[ScottJ]

The more live, wet rock you can get the better! And yes, you do want to establish a strong beneficial bacteria community right at the start. If you use bottle bacteria AND live rock, it is kind of redundant, but it won't hurt anything either.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree that real live rock is better than bottled bacteria.

Overall, I do not think there is evidence that the bottled bacteria folks use are even the types present later in a reef tank, and one does not want an overly strong nitrifying population since they steal ammonia from corals.

 

[Freenow54]

I agree that real live rock is better than bottled bacteria.

Overall, I do not think there is evidence that the bottled bacteria folks use are even the types present later in a reef tank, and one does not want an overly strong nitrifying population since they steal ammonia from corals.

So could you please direct me to that study ?

 

[Freenow54]

To be clear the study where Ammonia benefits Coral

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are studies that show corals take up
Ammonia and not nitrate when both are provided, and studies that show the benefit of ammonia over nitrate to corals.

Here’s an example of the latter:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5c13276

 

[Brocksamson7]

I put live rubble from gulf live rock and a bunch of copepods and dr Tim’s. Tank was all good in a few weeks.

 

[Freenow54]

There are studies that show corals take up
Ammonia and not nitrate when both are provided, and studies that show the benefit of ammonia over nitrate to corals.

Here’s an example of the latter:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5c13276

Thank You it will be Tomorrow Mornings read

 

[Dan_P]

…one does not want an overly strong nitrifying population since they steal ammonia from corals..

Are you implying that coral growth rate (or maybe less specifically, coral health) is inversely proportional to the population size of AOB and AOA in an aquarium?

 

[Freenow54]

Are you implying that coral growth rate (or maybe less specifically, coral health) is inversely proportional to the population size of AOB and AOA in an aquarium?

Please what is AOB I assume AOA is Amonia but what is the first A " amount " ?

 

[Coral pop]

Whats the general consensus on copepods? Right from the start or after nitrogen cycle is complete.

 

[ScottJ]

Whats the general consensus on copepods? Right from the start or after nitrogen cycle is complete.

I wouldn't think copepods would have anything to eat right on day one of a tank. You would need to wait till there was some algae and other bacteria growing.

 

[dangles]

This is a “good, better, best” kind of question. Bottled bacteria can work ok, but there are definitely better options. Cycled rock/rubble from another established tank is definitely better. Absolute best/fastest is live rock/sand from some place like Tampa Bay Saltwater or Aquabiomics (there are others). Option 2 may come with microfauna like copepods and amphipods. Options 3 definitely does and depending on the amount of material you add, you can start adding fish right away. That is definitely not the case with option 1. If you do option 2 or 3 adding bottled bacteria on top is a waste of money.

 

[Dan_P]

Please what is AOB I assume AOA is Amonia but what is the first A " amount " ?

Sorry, ammonia oxidizing bacteria and ammonia oxidizing archaea

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Are you implying that coral growth rate (or maybe less specifically, coral health) is inversely proportional to the population size of AOB and AOA in an aquarium?

Maybe not that precise mathematical relationship, but yes, too much nitrifying capacity may lead to poorer outcomes.

 

[Dan_P]

…one does not want an overly strong nitrifying population since they steal ammonia from corals.

Just rembered this…

An overly strong nitrifying bacteria or archaea population might not be a concern based on the study of bacteria eDNA of a newly set up Shedd Aquarium seahorse display rank (we had this discussion with Hans and Lasse not too long ago). In that study, the proportion of AOA DNA (and presumably the bacteria population) declined with the addition of live stock to the aquarium. We are left with wondering if the amount of AOA DNA was just diluted with a bunch of other bacterial DNA or whether the AOA population declined. Maybe both given that most if not all reef aquaria examined by Aquabiomics exhibit a tiny portion DNA for ammonia oxidizing organisms. A University of California study also showed a decline in ammonia oxidizing organism DNA as the system aged. If I recall correctly, the amount of DNA observed was tiny, so there might be some doubt about what was observed. I don’t have a clear idea about how to think about the AOA or AOB impact on coral growth.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I expect the following things are likely:

1. Ammonia processing bacteria and archea cannot sustain populations higher than the total availability of ammonia will allow. Thus, if you add a huge amount, it will decline to match the availability.

2. In a reef tank, lots of things are trying to get ammonia. The more you make the tank otherwise suitable for each organism, the more it can expand in population and the larger fraction of the total ammonia each type of organism will take. That is the excess media argument I make.

3. Directly adding more and more of such organisms, whether corals or macroalgae or bacteria or archea, gives them an advantage over other competing organisms. This is why adding nitrifiers is undesirable. Same could be said about macroalgae, but it allows N and P export than nitrifiers do not.

 

[Dan_P]

I expect the following things are likely:

1. Ammonia processing bacteria and archea cannot sustain populations higher than the total availability of ammonia will allow. Thus, if you add a huge amount, it will decline to match the availability.

2. In a reef tank, lots of things are trying to get ammonia. The more you make the tank otherwise suitable for each organism, the more it can expand in population and the larger fraction of the total ammonia each type of organism will take. That is the excess media argument I make.

3. Directly adding more and more of such organisms, whether corals or macroalgae or bacteria or archea, gives them an advantage over other competing organisms. This is why adding nitrifiers is undesirable. Same could be said about macroalgae, but it allows N and P export than nitrifiers do not.

I follow the rational. Number three seems strange to me.

Adding more coral or macro algae seems like a slam dunk for creating a large change to the nitrogen cycle. Is there science behind the idea about dosing nitrifying bacteria being a detriment to coral growth, or that the microbiome changes substantially, or even that the percent ammonia available in the system permanently declines?

I add for later discussion the question whether the availability of ammonia is all that important?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I follow the rational. Number three seems strange to me.

Adding more coral or macro algae seems like a slam dunk for creating a large change to the nitrogen cycle. Is there science behind the idea about dosing nitrifying bacteria being a detriment to coral growth, or that the microbiome changes substantially, or even that the percent ammonia available in the system permanently declines?

I add for later discussion the question whether the availability of ammonia is all that important?

The “science” is just based on corals preferentially taking up ammonia over nitrate, nitrate stressing corals in some scenarios (corals in nitrate and elevated temps fare worse than corals in ammonia at the same elevated temps), and nitrate taking extra energy to use as an N source.

Do corals in ordinary reef tanks fare better in some way when they have all the ammonia they need vs when they must use nitrate? That is very hard to test since we cannot know what exactly they are using in our tanks.