Tropical Fish Forums

[unissuh]

Something thats been bugging me for a while...

'Bacteria in a bottle' products (lets say Cycle or StressZyme), contain mainly bacteria which are heterotrophic - Pseudomonas spp and Bacillus spp as well as others. These are generally mineralization bacteria, adept at breaking down waste (read mulm, poop, organic products) into ammonia...they are not 'true' autotrophic nitrifiers although will perform the process somewhat inefficiently under the right circumstances.

The bacteria (or spores) which will eventually become the denitrifiers of a DSB are present in the air, but only perform denitrification once they have sufficiently populated the bottom of a sand bed that has become anaerobic. From my reading, this process appears to take from about 6 weeks to over 6 months. Surprisingly it seems Bacillus spp and Pseudomonas spp both perform denitrification, particularly the latter which is thought to be the dominant genus involved (at least thats the gist of it that I get).

Ready for my probably stupid question?

Would the use of Cycle (or likewise 'useless' bacterial nitrification product) help the development of a DSB? In particular, if injected via syringe or otherwise into anaerobic regions in the depth of the sandbed to prevent oxygenating those regions.

Has anyone tried this? Am I just stark raving crazy?
_________________
Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[Oscer]

I don
_________________
Years of fish keeping = Good advice

[unissuh]

Both Pseudomonas and Bacillus spp appear to be involved in denitrification (NO3 -> N2) in anaerobic regions - the former more so than the latter.

When we refer to Bacillus and Pseudomonas spp being 'useless', this is referring to nitrification (NH4 -> NO2 -> NO3). This usually takes place in an aerobic environment.

I haven't actually gotten around to checking down to the species level on this, it's on my list of things to do though. I couldn't find any discussion on the topic so I thought I'd see whether anyone has heard of it.

Just note that it's fairly likely that the bacteria will survive the transition to saltwater just as well as if you put them in a freshwater tank too, and probably work similarly. These bacterial products appear to be targeted towards the mineralization (organic -> NH4) process rather than the nitrification process - an important step on it's own but hardly what it is advertised as.

Probably a crazy idea and I don't expect it to be substantiated, but hey you never know.
_________________
Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[SLACkra]

just thought I would quote a few sentences from Dr Shimek's article on DSBs:

[unissuh]

Agreed that there is no point in using bottled bacteria for DSBs at this point, why bother when the tried and true method works?

This idea is purely theoretical for me at the moment (I don't have a DSB and am not planning on utilizing one in the near future), a common complaint with DSBs is the amount of time taken to establish one and I can see that a reduction in the amount of time taken to establish denitrifying activity would be handy in certain situations. I attribute the amount of time taken mainly towards the establishment of anaerobic areas and bacterial growth time - basically from what I understand, it sounds possible to speed up the DSB maturation by inputting bacteria.

Offtopic: I've been planning to go get some samples from the bay this summer, do you know of any good spots?
_________________
Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[SLACkra]

not sure how legal it would be but the beaches around seaford are really nice. went there once and it was sparklin. not sure how far you would want to wade out to get some good stuff. ATJ recomends collecting around seagrass beds but no clue where I would find one in port phillip bay! I'll ask some of the masov people. anyways them more places yiou collect from the higher the biodiversity of sandbed organisms you'll get.

andrew

[Oscer]