Questions about non-nitrifying bacteria and enzyme products and their ability to reproduce in a home marine aquarium

[rennjidk]

Has there been any research done in how these bacteria and enzyme stains actually reproduce? Specifically, for my use case, Microbactor 7 & Clean, as well as, "reef muds" such as AF Life Source & Miracle Mud. All of these products claim to require continual dosing in order to remain effective. MB7 claims to be a dormant bacteria and enzyme blend which is unable to reproduce in our home tanks. MB Clean claims that the bacteria are cystic and, as well as the enzymes. are also unable to reproduce in our tanks. Is there an outlying factor that would cause these specific strains to not be able to reproduce in the home environment? Furthermore, reef mud products also recommend dosing weekly, but after the recent BRS series, It would seem that you would only need to dose once in order to get the beneficial biodiversity that they offer.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Has there been any research done in how these bacteria and enzyme stains actually reproduce? Specifically, for my use case, Microbactor 7 & Clean, as well as, "reef muds" such as AF Life Source & Miracle Mud. All of these products claim to require continual dosing in order to remain effective. MB7 claims to be a dormant bacteria and enzyme blend which is unable to reproduce in our home tanks. MB Clean claims that the bacteria are cystic and, as well as the enzymes. are also unable to reproduce in our tanks. Is there an outlying factor that would cause these specific strains to not be able to reproduce in the home environment? Furthermore, reef mud products also recommend dosing weekly, but after the recent BRS series, It would seem that you would only need to dose once in order to get the beneficial biodiversity that they offer.

Enzymes can't reproduce because they aren't organisms, enzymes just catalyze chemical reactions. Also, they're probably assuming that like most tanks you lack a carbon source to support a bacterioplankton population so the bacteria just slowly die off...I'd imagine if you add a carbon source like through some type of carbon dosing, they would live and reproduce (a lot longer at least)

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Part of it is having the right microbes. The other part is having the right balance. The microbes you don’t want are constantly trying to take over and win the battle just like the good guys. It helps to bring in reinforcements regularly to maintain the good guy population.

 

[taricha]

MB7 claims to be a dormant bacteria and enzyme blend which is unable to reproduce in our home tanks. MB Clean claims that the bacteria are cystic and, as well as the enzymes. are also unable to reproduce in our tanks.

Can you show me where they claim the bacteria can't reproduce in our tanks? That's not my reading of the product info. And I don't think that's the manufacturer's position on their product behavior.

I think the descriptions of cysts, stasis, dormancy etc refer to the bottled product state, and they theoretically expect the bacteria to wake up and find lunch in your aquarium.
(no one demonstrates that this actually occurs, BTW, but that's another topic)

 

[brandon429]

All the studies are proprietary info, since no hobbyists are running identification and growth studies using micro labs we'd all be guessing. Regarding aspects of chemistry I wholeheartedly think the forums are providing legitimate counterbalance, posters here have the tools and knowledge to make and post chemistry discoveries without needing any proprietary data.

Aqua biomics reports may have some validity in the matter... what did dna sampling show to be the resident communities at year two after adding X brand bacteria

its possible to find folks on this board who used aqua biomics

click name
click find all threads

see what they used in cycling or tank cleaning events, see what the 2 year result sample showed in their biomics update post. since there are a couple hundred posts on abiomics data and we can send messages to ask entrants about bacterial dosers they may have used, I think it's the best pattern data we'll find on the matter outside secret proprietary sauce.

 

[Dan_P]

Can you show me where they claim the bacteria can't reproduce in our tanks? That's not my reading of the product info. And I don't think that's the manufacturer's position on their product behavior.

I think the descriptions of cysts, stasis, dormancy etc refer to the bottled product state, and they theoretically expect the bacteria to wake up and find lunch in your aquarium.
(no one demonstrates that this actually occurs, BTW, but that's another topic)

I think there might be two ideas hear. One idea is the continual need to dose bottled bacteria. If they are doing their job of consumption, they should be increasing in numbers, right? Could it be that bottled bacteria are strictly planktonic bacteria that are rapidly removed by skimming? The second idea is the claim which you asked about.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Can you show me where they claim the bacteria can't reproduce in our tanks? That's not my reading of the product info. And I don't think that's the manufacturer's position on their product behavior.

I think the descriptions of cysts, stasis, dormancy etc refer to the bottled product state, and they theoretically expect the bacteria to wake up and find lunch in your aquarium.
(no one demonstrates that this actually occurs, BTW, but that's another topic)

I seen the claim of can't reproduce as well. I believe the CEO says it in one of his interviews.

 

[PatW]

I started with dry rock. For a number of years, I had cyano and I tried various methods of removing it and none really worked. Then for some reason, I got a bunch of different bacterial cultures for reef aquariums and dumped them in (microbacter was one). And the cyano went away and really quickly and never came back. I think I had an inadequate bacterial flora and adding all that stuff established a much more diverse flora and put paid to the cyano. And it has gone on without any other intervention on my part.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

I started with dry rock. For a number of years, I had cyano and I tried various methods of removing it and none really worked. Then for some reason, I got a bunch of different bacterial cultures for reef aquariums and dumped them in (microbacter was one). And the cyano went away and really quickly and never came back. I think I had an inadequate bacterial flora and adding all that stuff established a much more diverse flora and put paid to the cyano. And it has gone on without any other intervention on my part.

I use zeovit bacteria, and i've put rocks covered in cyano in my tank and watched the cyano die off in a few days. I've yet to have any cyano problems. It does indeed work.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If it doesn’t reproduce at all, I’m not sure why it would do anything effective (assuming it does).

If it doesn’t survive long term, perhaps a better way to describe it is as a set of organisms poorly adapted to life in a reef tank that loose out in the race for space or nutrients to other organisms. Like a bunch of fancy flowers put into a garden that eventually lose out to weeds.

That seems to leave the door open to a better (although likely less profitable) product that does survive and doesn’t need constant repurchasing.

 

[taricha]

I seen the claim of can't reproduce as well. I believe the CEO says it in one of his interviews.

Here's Jack Kent, Brightwell CEO talking about MB7 and MB Clean a year ago (Aug '21).
At around 5:00 he describes that these bacteria "kill" algae in the sense that they consume nutrients the algae needs. They "only address nutrients" and are "outcompeting it [algae]"

Again at around 11:00 he describes that the bacteria is eating the food that a nuisance would otherwise rely on.

At around 12:00 he says that it's strains that are probably already living in your aquaria (!), and that he likes to dose bacteria to correct imbalances and "keep those strains going in the system"

at around 3:00 he says that the bacteria are consuming nutrients and by nutrients, he means organics - (so I would note, not things hobbyists can measure).

I think this gives a decent representative picture of how they expect/claim these products would behave in the system.

That seems to leave the door open to a better (although likely less profitable) product that does survive and doesn’t need constant repurchasing.

The purple non-sulfur bacteria seems interesting to me on that front, because it has a number of different nutrient strategies: nitrification, denitrification, N fixation, heterotrophy, photosynthesis. It seems like being able to do all those things, it might be more likely to find a niche and establish itself as an ongoing productive member of the microbiome, vs a grunge-eater that relies on the idea that there is digestible-but-uneaten organics laying around in a system.
(I've never played with the PNS bacteria personally, just an interesting concept)

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

The purple non-sulfur bacteria seems interesting to me on that front, because it has a number of different nutrient strategies: nitrification, denitrification, N fixation, heterotrophy, photosynthesis. It seems like being able to do all those things, it might be more likely to find a niche and establish itself as an ongoing productive member of the microbiome, vs a grunge-eater that relies on the idea that there is digestible-but-uneaten organics laying around in a system.
(I've never played with the PNS bacteria personally, just an interesting concept)

Even more amazing, they're capable of surviving in both freshwater and saltwater without or without light in either aerobic or anaerobic conditions. That being said, they can't necessarily perform every possible combination of these processes. For example, some are capable of oxidizing Fe(II) to obtain metabolic energy, albeit only under anoxic conditions in light.

Outside of their preferred niche, PNSB don't appear to be very competitive against other microbes under captive conditions, though they are found to be rather abundant and ubiquitous in natural reef environments. Aquaria rather become dominated by not very reefy (at least in the sense that they're not nearly as abundant on reefs) chemoheterotrophs such as the Flavobacteriaceae and the Alteromonadaceae. For this reason, in aquarium systems, PNSB may need to be re-dosed regularly to achieve the maximum impact in terms of water quality management.

I cultivate/sell these bacteria mainly as a live probiotic/planktonic food source, and so tend to just kind of regularly dump them directly into the water column as one would phytoplankton. But it's certainly possible to encourage them to establish permanent populations as biofilms in any aquarium system provided that they are afforded the right habitat (an illuminated anaerobic zone with dosing of a highly labile carbon source such as acetate). I always thought a "chaeto reactor" like the ARID would be perfect for this purpose, though I admittedly have yet to try one out.

I'll say though that PNSB might have a special advantage in a planted refugium environment, specifically where there might be a lot of macroalgal litter, as they are (unlike most other grunge-eating bacteria) quite capable of degrading cellulose.

To more directly address OP's question, it's not that these various aquarium microbial products cannot survive under captive conditions per se, but rather that they are often wiped out by stronger competitors. Or maybe that some manufacturers simply tell you to "rinse, repeat" to get more sales haha. The net benefit of re-dosing likely varies greatly from product to product and from tank to tank.

 

[brandon429]

Fantastic info thats appreciated.

 

[rennjidk]

Here's Jack Kent, Brightwell CEO talking about MB7 and MB Clean a year ago (Aug '21).
At around 5:00 he describes that these bacteria "kill" algae in the sense that they consume nutrients the algae needs. They "only address nutrients" and are "outcompeting it [algae]"

Again at around 11:00 he describes that the bacteria is eating the food that a nuisance would otherwise rely on.

At around 12:00 he says that it's strains that are probably already living in your aquaria (!), and that he likes to dose bacteria to correct imbalances and "keep those strains going in the system"

at around 3:00 he says that the bacteria are consuming nutrients and by nutrients, he means organics - (so I would note, not things hobbyists can measure).

I think this gives a decent representative picture of how they expect/claim these products would behave in the system.



The purple non-sulfur bacteria seems interesting to me on that front, because it has a number of different nutrient strategies: nitrification, denitrification, N fixation, heterotrophy, photosynthesis. It seems like being able to do all those things, it might be more likely to find a niche and establish itself as an ongoing productive member of the microbiome, vs a grunge-eater that relies on the idea that there is digestible-but-uneaten organics laying around in a system.
(I've never played with the PNS bacteria personally, just an interesting concept)

That was the video I was remembering, or maybe misremembering, which I could not find. So it's not that they are unable to reproduce, but that they are constantly being out competed and will not win long term if not continually dosed. There was another video from BRS where Ryan basically said that he used to believe that we were just seeding our tanks by adding products like MB7, but that's not longer the case. He also believes that they need to be dosed continuously in order to be beneficial, but again, I can't seem to find it.

 

[taricha]

Thanks @Kenneth Wingerter
High quality info.

I cultivate/sell these bacteria mainly as a live probiotic/planktonic food source, and so tend to just kind of regularly dump them directly into the water column as one would phytoplankton.

I've had this idea that it would be cool to look for the bacteriochlorophyll absorbance/fluorescence to see if I could track where the PNSB ended up. I've never seen any chlorophyll other than Chl A,B, C in my tank sediments.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Even more amazing, they're capable of surviving in both freshwater and saltwater without or without light in either aerobic or anaerobic conditions.

Perhaps they also survive on Elon Musk's Tesla that is on its way to alpha centauri? lol

 

[Azedenkae]

@Kenneth Wingerter, you wrote in your article on AlgaeBarn that Rhodopseudomonas palustris are capable of nitrification. I have in fact read up quite a bit on them as some auxiliary research needed done, but had not read anything on their capacity to perform nitrification. Was this something you characterized yourself, or was this in research I may have not read? If the former case, can you describe your experimental procedures or link to where it may have been written down? I would definitely be interested in reading that in detail. If the latter, well similarly, can you point me to the research that was done to identify nitrification for the species?

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

Perhaps they also survive on Elon Musk's Tesla that is on its way to alpha centauri? lol

Ha, not sure about that, but there's a team of researchers working on using them for nutrient recovery on manned Mars missions.

https://cubes.space/sites/default/files/2021-07/fspas-08-711550.pdf

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

Thanks Brandon.

Hi Azedenkae,

Yeah, I’ve since backed off from using that term to describe these bacteria altogether. Wasn’t suggesting autotrophic (chemolithoautotrophic) nitrification there, but rather heterotrophic nitrification. Rather than go too far over the heads of the casual reader in that article, I chose the more general “nitrifier.” I’ve actually come to dislike this application of “nitrification” to heterotrophs and haven’t used it in quite a while (certainly not in the years since I wrote that rather terrible article haha). To be clear, nowhere in my work with/research of these organisms have I seen any evidence of non-assimilitory ammonia or nitrite oxidation.

Thanks for bringing that back to my attention (already gone back and made some badly needed edits/updates haha).

 

[Azedenkae]

Thanks Brandon.

Hi Azedenkae,

Yeah, I’ve since backed off from using that term to describe these bacteria altogether. Wasn’t suggesting autotrophic (chemolithoautotrophic) nitrification there, but rather heterotrophic nitrification. Rather than go too far over the heads of the casual reader in that article, I chose the more general “nitrifier.” I’ve actually come to dislike this application of “nitrification” to heterotrophs and haven’t used it in quite a while (certainly not in the years since I wrote that rather terrible article haha). To be clear, nowhere in my work with/research of these organisms have I seen any evidence of non-assimilitory ammonia or nitrite oxidation.

Thanks for bringing that back to my attention (already gone back and made some badly needed edits/updates haha).

Gotcha! Yeah that makes sense, and hey fair enough, I think we all have articles we wrote in the olden days that we are not proud of now. I also don't like the term 'heterotrophic nitrification' either. I think that some people take the fact that since it is coupled with heterotrophy, and that is inherently an assimilatory process, they get to consider utilization of ammonia as a nitrogen source to be part of 'heterotrophic nitrification' too. I disagree. But anyways lol, that's a personal rant I'll reserve for elsewhere. Like you say, casual readers, probably even here on this forum, will not really understand a lot of the concepts anyways.

P.S. Points for chemolithoautotrophy lol! I am surprised by how many biologists who should be using these terminologies instead really butcher them, like, horribly.