Finished listening. I'm very intrigued with/inspired by the idea, seriously fascinated! The case you laid out is convincing IMO. I like the parallels to other industries (fish farming, agriculture, etc).
Here are some topics/questions that I would be very keen to dive a bit deeper in (some may be nonsensical/dumb due to my ignorance on this topic...) I wouldn't be surprised if some are beaten to death already in academic papers too.
1) What biological attributes delineate a "good/probiotic" bacteria strain from a "bad/pathogenic" strain? Can we dive deeper into the specific qualities each have and what makes one more palatable for coral?
2) Can we reliably measure the prevalence of each (probiotic vs pathogenic or neutral) in a sample environment (aquabiomics etc)
3) What are the detailed biological mechanisms which coral undergo to metabolize bacteria? What is the interplay with calcification, zoX, tissue, photosynthesis, etc?
4) To facilitate calcification in SPS, dosing alkalinity / calcium is ubiquitous. Can we draw a parallel/quantify/measure the content of bacteria in the water, how corals uptake it, and how corals may use it in a different way than calcium/alkalinity (i.e. plumpy tissue). Kind of like 2), but 2) I'm more discussing the proportion of each. Can we examine/postulate the ideal "density" of bacteria in water?
5) You mentioned something like 80/20 light/"coral snow" in the video in terms of how corals receive their (nutrition I believe?)... I wonder if this ratio can be explored more to determine how much a reefer misses out on if they are neglecting the nutrition side of things, or sub optimally addressing nutrition (just dosing N/P, dosing additives haphazardly)
6) What exact ratio of ingredients (calcium carbonate, seed bacteria strain, nutrition supplements, carbon, etc) lead to the most robust, ideal bacteria culture?
7) Are some probiotic bacteria strains better than others? I.e. is zeobak better than prodibio? Can we formulate/discover the "broccoli" of bacteria strains when it comes to coral nutrition?
8) Bringing it all together, an awesome goal would be to minimize mortality of imported corals. Can answering these questions help us grow acros ex situ that we wouldn't otherwise be able to, as hobbyists?
Just some food for thought... Thanks for all the work here Allan. You have been super generous in sharing your time and findings with the reefing community!
