Looking for thoughts on organic carbon dosing and nitrate

[Dan_P]

In a normal reef tank not suffering from a substantial pest problem, I do not see what “problem” is being solved by increasing diversity.

This thread discussion has moved on.

Diversity is just another craze in this hobby. It is neither defined nor measured let alone shown to be important for aquarium maintenance. The products and procedures being sold claiming to enhance diversity have a good chance of being gimmicks. Do you notice that you have to keep dosing the bacteria product? What kind of diversity are we actually achieving if the bacteria we add aren’t colonizing the aquarium?. All we have is anecdotal data from satisfied customers. Where are the controlled experiments demonstrating the worth of these products? That’s a rhetorical question

 

[jda]

Bacterial number increase is sometimes cited as a reason, but why would it take that long?

If bacterial numbers increase is the reason, then where is the organic carbon going in the meantime? Accumulating? Being used somehow in a way that does not consume nitrate? What way is that?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

This is all just based on a bunch of reading of posts, some articles and some of my experiences. Of course, there is no direct study on this. I have also seen a slight delay before organic carbon starts to really work, but I have always gone slow. I only have used it in fish only tanks and oxygen depletion is always what worried me.

The heterotrophs use the organic carbon instantly and consume more basic bacteria and organisms. There is no build up of organic carbon. These heterotrophs get their nitrogen from the organism that they consume and not from no3, so no reduction initially. The savage massacre of these more basic bacteria and organisms takes time to build back up from to where they are consuming large amounts of ammonia or no3 directly again. Then this boom/bust cycle continues on a lesser scale until equilibrium is reached. This takes time.

So something like this:

• Heterotrophs take off with the carbon - consume the basic stuff
• Heterotrophs die back a bit after initial feasting
• Basic things start to rebound now that those mean ol' heterotrophs numbers are down and are not eating them all up - use up some direct no3 or nh4 as they rebound and this is your first sighting of lowering no3 levels
• Heterotrophs rebound too
• Later, rinse and repeat, but in smaller cycles each time, until...
• You reach equilibrium
• Eventually, other types of bacteria have to produce more to not only do their jobs, but to replace those consumed by the heterotrophs, which takes time

Basically, the stuff that you are growing with the organic carbon does not use much no3 directly and needs populations of other things to grow to where they can use it up all while being consumed.

What I do not know is why the protein skimmer production lags too. My guess is that many different kinds of bacteria have to run out of real estate on surfaces before they populate and die in the water?

Some of my basis for this theory is that I read in a few places that heterotrophs are more efficient at processing organic carbon than other kinds of bacteria. Also, that they are not much for direct use of no3 or po4. If this is wrong, then all of this is for nothing...

 

[biom]

I've wo
I've been wondering, given the fact that apparently there is planktonic life from the oceans that have shown up on the outside of the international space station, is it even possible to be putting things like a new frag in the tank without introducing a ton of organisms?

I mean, if they are scraping the exterior of a thing in space, and finding growing cultures of ocean life on it, how the heck am I gonna keep it away if its just getting distributed through space?

Is low diversity of microbial life possible over time in our tanks?

Low diversity is possible and happens. And the reason is that quite often environment we are creating in our reefs is not suitable for big variety of organisms and limiting most but some very tolerant and opportunistic species, like cyano, dino, hair algae.
That is why IMO is important to keep parameters in check without pushing the limits

 

[biom]

This thread discussion has moved on.

Diversity is just another craze in this hobby. It is neither defined nor measured let alone shown to be important for aquarium maintenance. The products and procedures being sold claiming to enhance diversity have a good chance of being gimmicks. Do you notice that you have to keep dosing the bacteria product? What kind of diversity are we actually achieving if the bacteria we add aren’t colonizing the aquarium?. All we have is anecdotal data from satisfied customers. Where are the controlled experiments demonstrating the worth of these products? That’s a rhetorical question

Fair enough let's define it, and then to find the way to measured it, and then to discuss if it important for reef aquariums or not.
My suggestion:

Diversity means having a range of organisms from various groups and from different trophic levels, none of them over dominating or replacing the other groups.

And can start measuring/evaluating visible ones.

 

[Dbichler]

All I know is 30mls of diy nopox keeps my nitrate at 15-20 and I need to dose phosphate in order to read any. I think reefers say it takes so long is because they don’t increase the dose fast enough. First week I dosed 20mls second week 40mls 3rd week all the way up to 80mls then they dropped extremely fast so I cut way back and stayed there. I think a slow ramp up doesn’t allow for a huge jump in bacteria. Just a hypothesis.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

All I know is 30mls of diy nopox keeps my nitrate at 15-20 and I need to dose phosphate in order to read any. I think reefers say it takes so long is because they don’t increase the dose fast enough. First week I dosed 20mls second week 40mls 3rd week all the way up to 80mls then they dropped extremely fast so I cut way back and stayed there. I think a slow ramp up doesn’t allow for a huge jump in bacteria. Just a hypothesis.

I've heard the idea behind the rampup being as slow as it is, is specifically to give the bacteria you would want to benefit from it to properly establish itself in order to consume the majority of what's being added.

If it was soley to avoid a rapid change, I would think it would be at least half as slow of a ramp, but I guess the bacterial population growth, while happens very quickly, is exponential... so maybe there is a valid reason for it being so slow.

I on the other hand knowing next to nothing, think that its probably to avoid shocking the system if you back out of the dosing schedule suddenly 2 weeks in more so the addition of carbon causing too rapid of nutrient reduction.

 

[Barks]

I started Nopox again 6 weeks ago.
I think it may take a while to work as many people start with a much lower dose than recommended.
I can’t say Nopox did nothing for 5 weeks as the nitrate didn’t rise. It just didn’t fall.
however every day for the last week my po4 Fell to zero twice a day after I was dosing trisodium phosphate enough to raise it to 0.06. As soon as I would dose it I could see it being used up and the nitrates started falling. A week of doing this and my nitrates hit 10 so I reduced the dose of Nopox. It’s now steady.
is it true that the bacteria that the Nopox feed will uptake po4 and the coral can consume them enabling them to get po4 an easier way.
barks

 

[Dan_P]

Fair enough let's define it, and then to find the way to measured it, and then to discuss if it important for reef aquariums or not.
My suggestion:

Diversity means having a range of organisms from various groups and from different trophic levels, none of them over dominating or replacing the other groups.

And can start measuring/evaluating visible ones.

Along with defining diversity, we should define what diversity doex for an aquarium. What aspects of an aquarium are “better” with a diverse ecosystem. What happens in an aquarium under high diversity?

On a slightly different topic, I have been inoculating glass microscope slides with aquarium water and then letting whatever colonizes the surface develop in Instant Ocean dosed with nitrate and phosphate. This might be an inexpensive method that is accessible to anyone to get a quick look at what is living in the aquarium, at least what is visible under the microscope and later what is visually detectable. This method is biased to detecting photosynthetic organisms, but it is a start to seeing and maybe counting the species. How would a new aquarium troubled by dinoflagellates compare to an old system with no visible pests? What would a slide look like inoculated with water from a trace element depleted aquarium?

@taricha has done continuous exposure of microscope slides to aquarium water by hanging them in the aquarium and monitoring the weight
gained by the slide from things growing on it.

 

[biom]

Along with defining diversity, we should define what diversity doex for an aquarium. What aspects of an aquarium are “better” with a diverse ecosystem. What happens in an aquarium under high diversity?

For me an aquarium with nice looking rocks covered with patches of coraline here and there, tiny turfs of many other algae species including diatoms, sponges, copepods, vermitid snails, amphipods etc makes an aquarium "better" ( not only visually to me but better for the other aquarium inhabitants too) than aquarium with rocks totally covered with cyano.

There is eDNA and microbiome testing already available for reef hobby and it is not that expensive

 

[taricha]

@taricha has done continuous exposure of microscope slides to aquarium water by hanging them in the aquarium and monitoring the weight
gained by the slide from things growing on it.

yep. it was interesting.
Three duplicate slides in upright slide holders in my lit sump. They conditioned and eventually grew visible cyano.

The flattening that happens around day 18 coincides perfectly with me starting a vinegar dose of just under 1ml/gal per day. And the sharp decrease coincides with where I approximately tripled the carbon dose by adding a small amount of methanol to the vinegar (1ml methanol/20mL vinegar).


And here's the photographic timeline to go with it.

So while one might suspect that a heavy carbon dose would add mass to these slide surfaces - the aggressive carbon dose made the cyano recede and the loss of cyano led to a loss of the accumulated mass on the slides.

(I don't recommend this. My corals didn't seem to like this much carbon/methanol, and the leather corals closed up for multiple days at the end.)

 

[biom]

@taricha is there a thread of this very interesting experiment?

 

[Dan_P]

For me an aquarium with nice looking rocks covered with patches of coraline here and there, tiny turfs of many other algae species including diatoms, sponges, copepods, vermitid snails, amphipods etc makes an aquarium "better" ( not only visually to me but better for the other aquarium inhabitants too) than aquarium with rocks totally covered with cyano.

There is eDNA and microbiome testing already available for reef hobby and it is not that expensive

Which vendors are doing this kind of test?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There is eDNA and microbiome testing already available for reef hobby and it is not that expensive

But what does it tell you that is actionable?

 

[taricha]

@taricha is there a thread of this very interesting experiment?

Nope. It wasn't intended to be that interesting. I was just trying to see if measuring the mass of a glass slide could let you track the conditioning/growth process.

The cyano / carbon dose angle just showed up along the way.

When I get data for the growth rebound cutting off carbon dosing, I'll probably post about it.

 

[Dan_P]

But what does it tell you that is actionable?

ACTION: Buy more random bottled bacteria products, or for the connoisseur, ampules, and vinegar dosing products with secret high tech sounding additives.

 

[bushdoc]

This thread is deviating now towards biodiversity discussion. Very well. Obviously there are reefers who care about biodiversity and those who prefer “monoculture” so to speak.

I often browse through various threads and have an impression that those who established their tanks on a dry rock and commercial bacteria products are subject to more problems with Dinos, GHA and similar “plagues”. It is constant fight to fixed one problem by miraculous chemical or other intervention. Many reefers are unhappy or even angry that there is no instant treatment for those issues. My 150 Gal mixed reef is far from perfect, I still have issues with growing SPS, but I never really had problems with Dinos, Diathoms or Cyano. Rocks and bottom are covered mostly by coralline algae. Tank was established with some base, dry rock, but on top of that TBS and Aussie Live Rock are dominant here. I strongly think (and this is more of an educated guess), that biodiversity is increasing stability of reef tank and that attention to chemistry itself is not enough to have successful tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

This thread is deviating now towards biodiversity discussion. Very well. Obviously there are reefers who care about biodiversity and those who prefer “monoculture” so to speak.

To be honest, it's a bit of a stretch to say anyone "prefers" a monoculture, at least not that I have ever seen. I certainly never claimed that.

The issues, IMO, are:

1. Does anything we do actually lead to a monoculture (no, IMO), or to less biodiversity than before the action was taken (likely yes, but of undetermined extent, IMO).

2. Does the level of bacterial biodiversity lead to different observable outcomes, and if so what and when?

IMO, the last question has no answer with any supporting evidence.

I do not see any reason to think issues from dry rock can be attributed to lack of biodiversity as opposed to many other related ideas, such as lack of the one or two or thirteen bacterial species needed to outcompete dinos, lack of coralline to block pests, lack of phosphate from binding to the rock, or excessive phosphate from the rock releasing it, etc.

 

[bushdoc]

To be honest, it's a bit of a stretch to say anyone "prefers" a monoculture, at least not that I have ever seen. I certainly never claimed that.

The issues, IMO, are:

1. Does anything we do actually lead to a monoculture (no, IMO), or to less biodiversity than before the action was taken (likely yes, but of undetermined extent, IMO).

2. Does the level of bacterial biodiversity lead to different observable outcomes, and if so what and when?

IMO, the last question has no answer with any supporting evidence.

I do not see any reason to think issues from dry rock can be attributed to lack of biodiversity as opposed to many other related ideas, such as lack of the one or two or thirteen bacterial species needed to outcompete dinos, lack of coralline to block pests, lack of phosphate from binding to the rock, or excessive phosphate from the rock releasing it, etc.

Biodiversity denotes not only various bacteria, but also meiofauna, pods, ostracods, algae etc.

It is one of the premises of Ecology that biological systems with less biodiversity are more prone to problems and deviation towards less stable system. Reef aquarium is not different from let’s say Banana plantations threatened by fungus pest. I live in Central Valley, CA, surrounded by orchards which must be sprayed with various chemicals in order to maximize yield.

Since running my reef tank is my hobby, not a source of income (not to me at least), I prefer to have biodiverse aquarium.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I've been approaching this from the idea that once you have something that can survive in the conditions of your tank introduced, that in most cases it is never conpletely gone. That some sort of dino, cyano, or microalgae, once beaten, is still in the tank, just not able to gain its footing to thrive again.

It makes sense to me that its a constant warzone, and a lot of these organisms have ways to hang on in some sort of very small population. This is with exceptions in circumstances of complete eradication being acheived by making the environment chemically uninhabitable to the organism to the point where their dormant states can't even srlurvive.

If eradication happens when letting the microbiome cause something to recede into invisibility, then I am completely wrong in my assumptions. Basically, I figured every organism i let go through its boom and bust cycle in my tank, is always there, and by letting it fade out on its own, I am cementing the "food chain". But if I were to take measures for eradication, I am removing the pest from my system, but then not allowing organisms that counter them to thrive off of them, making me susceptible to its reintroduction or some other pest that fills the same niche.


From the marketing around carbon dosing I have consumed, I am convinced that it will absolutely help achieve a stasis of all the good and bads in a fight that will keep them all off from my obesrvation of them.

This may be why diversity comes up in the topic of carbon dosing. If carbon dosing was only for nutrient control and nutrient control alone, I wouldn't have gotten into it. Which might say more about the purpose of the marketing rather than being based on fact.

As someone who with very limited knowledge in biology or biological chemistry, the logic makes perfect sense, but this says nothing about how correct it is.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Biodiversity denotes not only various bacteria, but also meiofauna, pods, ostracods, algae etc.

It is one of the premises of Ecology that biological systems with less biodiversity are more prone to problems and deviation towards less stable system. Reef aquarium is not different from let’s say Banana plantations threatened by fungus pest. I live in Central Valley, CA, surrounded by orchards which must be sprayed with various chemicals in order to maximize yield.

Since running my reef tank is my hobby, not a source of income (not to me at least), I prefer to have biodiverse aquarium.

Yes, I’ve taken ecology classes.

But I have yet to hear what visible detriment or risk my tank suffered from dosing only vinegar.