Title says it all. I got two black mollies from Petsmart a few months back and my clownfish finally decided to bananas on them. Killed one, tore the other to shreds. I was able to get the female separated, then moved into a small nano for the moment. I feel bad about it but i only acclimated the two for an hour before i tossed them in the reef. I’m going to give her a much more gradual transition back to FW so I can give her to my buddy, who has a really nice and peaceful community tank. I have a piece of live rock in the tank to help with filtration- Will the nitrifying bacteria slowly die off as the salinity decreases? I’m planning on converting her over a week and really don’t want to do a water change! But i will if i need to. Thanks
What happens to nitrifying bacteria when converting from SW to FW?
- Thread starter Klyle
- Start date
I also would like to know the answer about the bacteria. But you can convert her much faster if you want. You could also put in prime every 48 hours to help with the ammonia. I have done this and it works. But you might consider just slowly lowering the salinity about half way during the week. This should not kill all the beneficial bacteria and then your friend could have her. Good luck. I also keep saltwater mollies in my tank. My clowns ignore them, but it is a 140 gallon.
Turns out taking full saltwater nitrifiers to freshwater is fine, but not the other way around.
Understanding structure/function relationships in nitrifying microbial communities after cross-transfer between freshwater and seawater[pdf]
"In this study, nitrifcation before and after abrupt cross-transfer in salinity was investigated in two moving bed bioflm reactors inoculated with nitrifying cultures that had adaptation to freshwater (FR) and seawater salinities (SR). FR and SR MBRRs were exposed to short and long term crosstransfer in salinity, and the functional capacity of nitrifying microbial communities was quantifed by the estimation of ammonia and nitrite oxidation rates. Salinity induced successions were evaluated before and after salinity change by deep sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons and statistical analysis. The bacterial community structure was characterized and Venn diagrams were included. The results indicated that after salinity cross-transfer, the FR was not signifcantly recovered at seawater salinity whereas SR showed high resistance to stress caused by low-salt."
Understanding structure/function relationships in nitrifying microbial communities after cross-transfer between freshwater and seawater[pdf]
"In this study, nitrifcation before and after abrupt cross-transfer in salinity was investigated in two moving bed bioflm reactors inoculated with nitrifying cultures that had adaptation to freshwater (FR) and seawater salinities (SR). FR and SR MBRRs were exposed to short and long term crosstransfer in salinity, and the functional capacity of nitrifying microbial communities was quantifed by the estimation of ammonia and nitrite oxidation rates. Salinity induced successions were evaluated before and after salinity change by deep sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons and statistical analysis. The bacterial community structure was characterized and Venn diagrams were included. The results indicated that after salinity cross-transfer, the FR was not signifcantly recovered at seawater salinity whereas SR showed high resistance to stress caused by low-salt."
I didn’t think about the prime…good suggestion. I don’t think I’m going to need it though. I’ve just been siphoning the waste out each day. Working so far! Thanks
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