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Bacteria cycling Question

DiscusnAfricans

Past President
Are all bacteria created equal?

For instance, when setting up new tanks, the easiest way to cycle the tank is to set it up with an established filter or used substrate. This is what I generally do and it is pretty reliable when done correctly.

Most of my tanks are African, so I'm generally setting up new African tanks. Can you use bacteria from an African tank to seed a tank that will house New World fish? Is the bacteria the same, or are different bacteria present for different populations of fish? I don't want to cycle the tank but find out the bacteria won't process waste because its from the wrong tank.

I only have AC110s on my current New World tank, but I'm setting up a 29 gallon tank for some smaller New World species. I won't be putting an AC110 on this tank so I can't just switch sponges like I'd normally do.

Any thoughts or suggestions for the easiest way to cycle the smaller tank?
 

dogofwar

CCA Members
What Jon said. The only issue might be adding a filter (i.e. bacteria) from a tank with really hard, alkaline water...onto a tank with really, really soft, acidic water (much harder to establish bacteria, if I remember from our Blackwater presenter a few months ago)...

Matt
 

mchambers

Former CCA member
Depending on the pH values, I suppose there could be a difference in the microbes that break down ammonia and nitrates. (I say microbes, because there is a school of thought, including some academic research, that it's not bacteria that do the dirty work: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0023281

Having said that, I'd go with Jon's answer. Much simpler and I think you'll get at least some microbes for your filter that will work.
 

dogofwar

CCA Members
As an aside, I'm surprised that some enterprising fish products company hasn't come up with different "formulations" of microbes for cycling different types of tanks (all, of course, the same poop in a bottle with different labeling).

Is it OK to use the "Central American Cycle" on a tank with Danios?" Better buy both formulations, just to be safe...

Matt
 

DiscusnAfricans

Past President
What Jon said. The only issue might be adding a filter (i.e. bacteria) from a tank with really hard, alkaline water...onto a tank with really, really soft, acidic water (much harder to establish bacteria, if I remember from our Blackwater presenter a few months ago)...

Matt
My New World tanks are changed with the same water as the Old World tanks. I keep driftwood in the NW tanks to lower the pH, and crushed coral in the OW tanks to raise the pH. I'm assuming the hardness is about the same in both tanks as I don't think tannins affect hardness. So I'm thinking if the same water is used on both tanks, maybe the chemistry isn't as different as I thought.
 
Here's an article that I just read recently on FishChannel.com:

Supplement to “Eight Ways to Reduce Cycling Stress”
Aquarium Fish International magazine, August 2012, Vol. 24, No. 8.

by Rus Wilson
May 30, 2012

The Nitrogen Cycle

To put it very basically, fish and other aquatic organisms excrete wastes into the water. One of these is ammonia, which is toxic to fish, as it interferes with their ability to extract oxygen from the water. However, in an established tank, there are legions of bacteria adhering to the gravel, decorations, the glass and especially the filter media. These bacteria subsist by converting the ammonia to nitrite. This by itself does the fish little good, as nitrite is also a toxin. However, another serendipitous group of bacteria, also ubiquitous in an established aquarium, then convert this nitrite to nitrate. Nitrate, though it can harm fish, is much more tolerable than the other two substances and can be kept to minimal levels through regular partial water changes.

In an aquarium that has just been set up, these obliging bacterial benefactors aren’t present, and so ammonia excreted by the fish can quickly build to harmful and even lethal levels. Eventually, a healthy number of the ammonia-eating bacteria will populate a tank, but this takes some time, from a couple to as many as several weeks. Once these bacteria have turned the ammonia into nitrite, the way is cleared for the ammonia-sensitive second group to colonize the aquarium and convert the nitrite to nitrate. This stage of the game takes time, as well, and during the transition, the fish are still vulnerable to the effects of the nitrite. Only when all detectable ammonia and nitrite have been transformed into nitrate can the fish live comfortably. This is why so many would-be aquarists fail: These toxins can exist at high levels without any visible effect on the water. In other words, an apparently pristine aquarium can in fact be a crystal clear chemical death trap.


Arlene
 
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chriscoli

Administrator
Are all bacteria created equal?

Short answer: no

Long answer: the differences often aren't apparent while the bacteria are in a fat and happy state. When you change things up and put them under stress or competetive pressure....subtle differences between strains of bacteria will become more visible. They may all be the same type of bacteria (same genus and species) but some strains will survive better under certain conditions.


Can you use bacteria from an African tank to seed a tank that will house New World fish? Is the bacteria the same, or are different bacteria present for different populations of fish?

I have no evidence for this, so it's probably just my own personal voodoo, but I try to stick with things that have similar water chemistry for seeding tanks. That being said...the bacteria you want are probably already there anyhow under those different conditions from the established tank you're using for seeding. They're might just be there in low numbers, so seeding from a different type of tank is way better than not seeding at all. And, what'll proably happen is that one strain that can do the job okay will go to work and do the job until it's replaced by another strain (of the same species) that can do it even better under the new conditions.

I say microbes, because there is a school of thought, including some academic research, that it's not bacteria that do the dirty work

Awesome paper, thanks! The more research that's done...the more that we're finding that the Archaea (rather than the Bacteria - Archaea are like bacteria, but genetically very different, and very very very old) are major workhorses in the environment...and yet we understand them the least because most of them cannot be cultured in the lab. We're only now learning how ubiquitous they are thanks to DNA-based methods to look for their signatures in the environment. Interestingly, though, they are also some of the first to disappear in damaged or disturbed landscapes. There are some really cool papers out there showing an absence of Archaea in overfertilized cropland.
 

DiscusnAfricans

Past President
Thanks for all of the great advice guys!

Ok, so what do you think would be better? Seed the tank with a filter from an OW tank and give it an extra few days to cycle, or place a filter sponge from a NW tank in the water for a few days, with new sponges in the filter? I'm guessing the sponge in the water would let the bacteria spread to the glass, substrate, and eventually colonize the new sponge material.

Thoughts?
 

chriscoli

Administrator
I always squeeze my sponges out into the water to let the funk spread out a little faster and get into any other filters that I have running on the tank. Then depending on what I need to do, I may leave the sponge running in the tank for a while, or I put it back into the tank it came from.

If you're moving a canister or HOB filter over, then I'd just hook it up and let it run. Things will get seeded everywhere eventually.
 

dogofwar

CCA Members
I either drop a used sponge filter into a new tank or put some used fluff into a new box filter...

Matt
 

Tony

Alligator Snapping Turtle/Past Pres
Short answer: no

Long answer: the differences often aren't apparent while the bacteria are in a fat and happy state. When you change things up and put them under stress or competetive pressure....subtle differences between strains of bacteria will become more visible. They may all be the same type of bacteria (same genus and species) but some strains will survive better under certain conditions.




I have no evidence for this, so it's probably just my own personal voodoo, but I try to stick with things that have similar water chemistry for seeding tanks. That being said...the bacteria you want are probably already there anyhow under those different conditions from the established tank you're using for seeding. They're might just be there in low numbers, so seeding from a different type of tank is way better than not seeding at all. And, what'll proably happen is that one strain that can do the job okay will go to work and do the job until it's replaced by another strain (of the same species) that can do it even better under the new conditions.



Awesome paper, thanks! The more research that's done...the more that we're finding that the Archaea (rather than the Bacteria - Archaea are like bacteria, but genetically very different, and very very very old) are major workhorses in the environment...and yet we understand them the least because most of them cannot be cultured in the lab. We're only now learning how ubiquitous they are thanks to DNA-based methods to look for their signatures in the environment. Interestingly, though, they are also some of the first to disappear in damaged or disturbed landscapes. There are some really cool papers out there showing an absence of Archaea in overfertilized cropland.

nerd.
 

Hawkman2000

Members
I use the filter media squeezing method, and I add some Seachem Stability before and after adding fish to balance out the cycle.
 

samsmobb

Members
Seeding is better than not seeding at all, bacteria grows at rapid rates and as easily as that, natural selection occurs and some bacteria survives the change of water parameters. Those then multiply and expand rapidly, much faster than starting from scrap
 
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