Experiment: Does nitrifying bacteria survive a month without ammonia or other supplementation

[J1a]

I have a question though. How do we rule out that the bacteria are not "fed" by whatever dying organisms in the rock?

 

[MnFish1]

Gotcha, just trying to help out the best i can, was one tank fully blacked out or just lights off ?

It was lights out in a dark room (i.e. a storage room in the basement - that is rarely lit

 

[MnFish1]

I have a question though. How do we rule out that the bacteria are not "fed" by whatever dying organisms in the rock?

I didn't explain entirely the tank setup -

Tank 1 was rock that was in a sump always in the dark
Tank 2 was rock that was initially in a display, lit - ie. more 'stuff' on it (coralline, etc).

Both tanks have been left without any other food except ammonia for months now - and both have been completely in the dark - except for the first couple experiments (where the one with display tank rock was lit - and the other was not). After that - they were both left dark for the rest of the experiments (to take out the possibility of photosynthesis playing a role).

So if you take these items together I think it answers your question:

1. The ammonia levels in both tanks are '0'
2. No other 'food has been added.
3. No light has been added
4. Lets say I have 1000 organisms of some type lions, bacteria anything (hypothetical). They cannot continue to survive by merely eating each other. They will for a time. I.e. as bacteria die - they will produce ammonia - but they will not produce enough ammonia to keep the population 'growing'. Likewise, heterotrophic bacteria - same thing - for a while - new bacteria will grow as old bacteria die. BUT - eventually they will all die out - they will certainly not 'increase' or stay stable. Becasue of the doubling time of heterotrophs, they will die off faster than autotrophs (at least thats my theory)

Its well documented that nitrifiers can 'go dormant' - for
x amount of time. All this study shows is that after a month 2 ppm ammonia is processed the same way.

Now - is it possible that Dust, etc etc - has fallen into the tank and allowed heterotrophs to persist - and kill nitrifiers - possibly.

Obviously - I don't think that the rock is 'sterile' - there are definitely other bacteria there. BUT - the key to this is that the ammonia was processed basically the same as before (i.e. within 24 hours). I am going to leave the tanks running - and am also going to be posting nitrate data (I did not change the water after doing the last experiment - but I did before) - it will be interesting to see whether nitrate drops

 

[MnFish1]

Gotcha, just trying to help out the best i can, was one tank fully blacked out or just lights off ?

PS - Yes - I wasn't taking offense - The purpose of this forum was to generate experiments - as well as discussion of the experiments... a back and forth!!

 

[Ashy]

Did you do another month?

 

[sixty_reefer]

So here are the results - after 24 hours the Ammonia alerts are both in the 'safe' zone. I did not do an API comparison - just because - the key point is safety - and both are clearly yellow - despite the lightning.

So I t appears that even after a month of no 'feeding' - this rock can still process 2 ppm ammonia in 24 hours.

Have you got readings for no3 and po4 for the day before you added the ammonium? Would be interesting to see if nutrients bottom out at some point

 

[MnFish1]

Have you got readings for no3 and po4 for the day before you added the ammonium? Would be interesting to see if nutrients bottom out at some point

No but this time - I will have it

 

[sixty_reefer]

No but this time - I will have it

It will be interesting to see as normally we associate some species of dinoflagellates thriving with nutrients bottoming out, and I haven’t noticed if this was the case in your experience

 

[MnFish1]

It will be interesting to see as normally we associate some species of dinoflagellates thriving with nutrients bottoming out, and I haven’t noticed if this was the case in your experience

You will see from the initial pictures - the rock is crystal clean. with no algae, etc - including the rock that was 'in the sump' originally (dark)

 

[sixty_reefer]

You will see from the initial pictures - the rock is crystal clean. with no algae, etc - including the rock that was 'in the sump' originally (dark)

I’m taking that you still have one dark one lit, not sure if I miss the data, did both systems recover at the same rate on the 1 month without any source of ammonium?

 

[MnFish1]

I’m taking that you still have one dark one lit, not sure if I miss the data, did both systems recover at the same rate on the 1 month without any source of ammonium?

No I combined them both - because there was no difference - the interesting thing the corralling - was still just as pink as 3 months ago

 

[MnFish1]

I’m taking that you still have one dark one lit, not sure if I miss the data, did both systems recover at the same rate on the 1 month without any source of ammonium?

no - I put all the rock into one tank.

 

[sixty_reefer]

No I combined them both - because there was no difference - the interesting thing the corralling - was still just as pink as 3 months ago

I understand although would be interesting to see if the lit tank would still process the ammonia faster than the dark tank, as it’s all in one are you keeping it dark or lit?

 

[sixty_reefer]

I would imagine you doing it dark as nitrifying bacteria is your main goal, I can tell you now that you could go close to 12 months and still wake up that bacteria, I know that because that’s the shelf life of most live sand bags. And if you were to determine different a lot of companies would have a lot to answer. In addition most nitrifying bacteria in a bottle have a similar life shelf, live nitrifying bacteria is always in a dark bottle to not allow any light trough.

Now you know I like to challenge you in a positive way, can we bring back the light cycle as you would in a system to see if we can kill the bacteria in two weeks or under after the nutrients in the system are depleted. You already made a control in your first test and the one you about to do on the 3 month mark. I think it could make it interesting.
If your light are on I apologise and my assumption is wrong.

 

[MnFish1]

I would imagine you doing it dark as nitrifying bacteria is your main goal, I can tell you now that you could go close to 12 months and still wake up that bacteria, I know that because that’s the shelf life of most live sand bags. And if you were to determine different a lot of companies would have a lot to answer. In addition most nitrifying bacteria in a bottle have a similar life shelf, live nitrifying bacteria is always in a dark bottle to not allow any light trough.

Now you know I like to challenge you in a positive way, can we bring back the light cycle as you would in a system to see if we can kill the bacteria in two weeks or under after the nutrients in the system are depleted. You already made a control in your first test and the one you about to do on the 3 month mark. I think it could make it interesting.
If your light are on I apologise and my assumption is wrong.

The light is off - tomorrow - which will be approx 3 months I will add 2 ppm ammonia to the tank (after making the appropriate baseline measurements) - then timing how long it takes to get to zero - I'm not going to do a ton of tests - with API - instead - except for beginning and end - will do Nitrate, PO4 salinity, etc. Then - my wish is your command

 

[sixty_reefer]

The light is off - tomorrow - which will be approx 3 months I will add 2 ppm ammonia to the tank (after making the appropriate baseline measurements) - then timing how long it takes to get to zero - I'm not going to do a ton of tests - with API - instead - except for beginning and end - will do Nitrate, PO4 salinity, etc. Then - my wish is your command

I think it could be something interesting to do and will bring a lot of curiosity and answer, if the tank is lit and nutrients are down things will start to go down hill very fast.

for this test you could:

1. Add a couple of brine shrimp to the tank preferably in a low flow are on the glass to be able to observe.
2. Have it on a 8-10 hour light cycle
3. Add a small inexpensive coral if possible
4. 2ppm ammonium as standard

From there just measure parameters once a week and take a picture from the same angle daily or every other day if possible. Focusing mainly on no3 and po4 as time goes by.

you could test in this environment for the following:


1. how coral reacts in low to no nutrients import

2. Does low to no nutrients cause dinoflagellates

3. Does striping a system from nutrients kill bacteria

4. will re starting a cycle cause diatoms

5. Will dead organics cause Cyanobacteria to appear in a system.

part 2

5. will increase nutrients eliminate dinoflagellates (if they appear)

6. will coral health improve if nutrients are available (if the coral showed signs of stress or damage during test 1)

7. how long will it take for bacteria to re population a tank after been depleted from nutrients.(Looking for that 2 ppm again)

it may be a long test but you would be answering so many questions that most still discuss today in addition would be very interesting to make a system go ugly and then see if it is possible to bring it back to full glory with just time and the community knowledge. You could be helping giving important knowledge to the community
It may be a big ask but in the end of the day is up to you.

 

[GBRsouth]

The light is off - tomorrow - which will be approx 3 months I will add 2 ppm ammonia to the tank (after making the appropriate baseline measurements) - then timing how long it takes to get to zero - I'm not going to do a ton of tests - with API - instead - except for beginning and end - will do Nitrate, PO4 salinity, etc. Then - my wish is your command

Would love to know the result of this experiment, as I have just run out of ammonium chloride and considering ordering more as I am not yet ready to add livestock as I plan to quarantine additions first.

 

[The_Paradox]

Maybe I will leave it for 2 months now

An N of 1 but I fallowed a tank for two years. No light, no feeding, no heat, only BS inverts like pods, worms, only thing on was pumps. After over two years it was still cycled and I added fish, corals, and inverts on day one of testing it.

 

[GBRsouth]

An N of 1 but I fallowed a tank for two years. No light, no feeding, no heat, only BS inverts like pods, worms, only thing on was pumps. After over two years it was still cycled and I added fish, corals, and inverts on day one of testing it.

Thank you!

 

[BeanAnimal]

if I have nothing in my tank for x weeks - will it re-cycle.

But there is not nothing in the tank. There is a ton of micro and macro fauna living and dying. When you remove the outside food source, a decline begins and some of the perished become food for the living. I assume that the bacteria in a bottle start to die and that death provides food for those that are still alive. As it were, there is likely some calculable half life.

You chose an arbitrary number (unless I missed something). If my office staff can process 2 million letters a day and I cut the staff in half, they may still be able to process 2 million letters a day. Until you find their processing capacity, you can't measure what cutting their numbers means. I hope that makes sense.

EDIT: Wow did not realize how old this was. Anyway