Bacteria Question

Joined
28 Dec 2007
Posts
12,781
Reaction score
31
Location
JHB
I understand the importance of bacteria in our Marine tanks, especially in DSB's.

My questions are as follows:

Diversity - Is this created by introducing new LR and Live Sand, or can one change the dominate bacteria by changing things like livestock, feeding regime or carbon sources.

Carbon Sources - It looks like alcohols and certain carbon based acids seems to be the preferred dosing supplements for bacteria. My question is, I use vinegar all the time for Kalk dosing. Vinegar is a Carbon source and will feed the bacteria. Am I going to eventually have a monoculture due to the vinegar, or does it promote all bacteria ?

Any other ways of changing and diversifying the bacteria cultures in a Marine tank ?
 
Hi Warr - bacteria is only fed by carbon sources. This means all bacteria is fed by it. BUT, bacteria outcompete each other for food sometimes (very quickly though). Only when some "Stronger" (more dominant strains) of bacteria has "killed off" the other bacteria strains, you can end up with mono-cultures.

Look at the way Zeovit does things. In this type of methodology, bacteria is added on a constant basis. So, the bacteria is replenished constantly.

I think is it a very good method to subscribe to. Adding new culturs of bacteria at least once a month or once every two months.
 
I believe the possibility for mono-cultures occuring in our systems form a Microbiology perspective is almost impossible. The interactions between populations is very dynamic and certain successions and consoriums can be expected.

I do belive introducing new culures are benificial though since our systems are ever changing and will allow for certain strains being advantaged and certain points.

I do not believe though that adding a single carbon source like vinegar cab result in a mono-culture. Firstly because it is not the only carbon source in your system...secondly because a whole range of different bacteria can use the same source and rather than form mono-cultures they form specific consortiums...
 
Andreas - usually when there's one dominant strain of bacteria (not usual to happen, but it can), then the denitrification cycle cannot complete it's full process as it should. Then you end up with some water parameters that go out of sync in your tank's water.... And this usually have some bad effects (ie. nuisance algae, stress on the fish and corals, etc).
 
How does the depth of the DSB effect the diversity of bacteria? when one talks about a monoculture is this a monoculture in the sence of the entire system or only in the sense of a particular set of paramaters (depth within the DSB for example) Is it possible for one bacteria to dominate the system despite the differing oxygen environments?

Does one target feed the bacteria with vinegar?????
 
I believe the possibility for mono-cultures occuring in our systems form a Microbiology perspective is almost impossible. The interactions between populations is very dynamic and certain successions and consoriums can be expected.

I do belive introducing new culures are benificial though since our systems are ever changing and will allow for certain strains being advantaged and certain points.

I do not believe though that adding a single carbon source like vinegar cab result in a mono-culture. Firstly because it is not the only carbon source in your system...secondly because a whole range of different bacteria can use the same source and rather than form mono-cultures they form specific consortiums...

Lappies what are the other carbon sources in the tank ?
 
Warr, all the other food sources you feed the fish and corals...All om them will be broken down by the consortiums to their most basic components...

In our systems it is a case of aerobes and fungi have the first go at the food and then the anaerobes... But they are all dependant on each other..

If you use CO2 in a calcium reactor even that can be fixed by some bacteria..

Thats why I say a mono-culture is highly unlikely. If a system crashes I would rather think that one link in the chain has been pushed ot hard by the introduction of too much organics to be processed snowballing in high amonia ect...

Thing with bacteria is, if the niche is there they will fill it. If you leave your soup on the counter for two or three days it will go frot...how did the bacteria that made it go bad get there? ... see my point..
 
Hi Neil - no - bacteria is everywhere. In the DSB, in the live rock, in the water.... The type of bacteria (an-aerobic or aerobic) found differs in the actual depth of the DSB. Plus-minus below 5cm deep in the DSB, the an-aerobic bacteria starts to live...

No - vinegar is just a carbon source that gets added to calcium hydroxide (acetic acid) to break calcium hydroxide to calcium and hydrogen/oxygen molecules). BUT, that said, it is indeed a carbon source, which would/could indeed feed the bacteria.
 
Nice point, Lappies :thumbup:

I am not going stress about bacteria, let them do their thing and let life happen.

I will try and get LR from different locations and other reefers tanks just to keep the diversity on it's toes
 
Sounds good...I think the diversity introduced by LR is more all the msall critters that form little cycles in our systems. But then since the systems are closed they die out and need to be replenished... These would probably be things like nematodes or bacteria predators..
 
Lappies, how does marine bacteria effect our fresh water systems? Reason I ask if I dispose of skimmate and water changes via the domestic drainage/sewer system, can this cause problems ?
 
It shouldn't. The some species can survive in both systems but not on the norm...
Our sewer systems are actually very good in the sense of how they are treated before they are dumped into the natural water systems...on paper anyway...

In general most environmental bacterial species keep themselves in check and have predators that feed on them in turn. We only get worried with human pathogens when it comes to the drainage systems.. So unless you have some Vibrio swirling around in your tank you good ;)
 
And trust me when i tell you there is lots of vibrio swimming creeping and crawling around in our systems...
 
tell you there is lots of vibrio swimming creeping and crawling
vibrios are amongst the most common marine bacteria. Not many of them are actually pathogenic, and the ones that are tend to be opportunistic pathogens anyway. If you do a bit of reading on probiotics used in aquaculture quite a few of them are actually vibrios. You must be doing something seriously wrong if you have enough bacteria in your tank to cause you harm.
 
So you basically saying that flushing marine tank water into our human water systems won't cause any problems ?
 
Nice point, Lappies :thumbup:

I am not going stress about bacteria, let them do their thing and let life happen.

I will try and get LR from different locations and other reefers tanks just to keep the diversity on it's toes

I also find removing some live rock and adding some `fresh` works well for keeping the diversity up. Btw, have you ever seen under a microscope what our tanks water looks like? Loads of differnt organisms, not just bacteria.
 
Back
Top Bottom