Where does nitrifying bacteria come from?

[swede]

I follow your logic… Saturate the media with ammonia (bacteria food) and then put it in an environment that contains bacteria. In theory the bacteria will move into the media to consume the ammonia… Seems logical…

What I think would work best using this approach would be to add a modest amount of ammonia directly to the media and burry it a few inches deep in an active garden or flower bed. Somewhere with lots of berries, fruits, leaves or flowers dropping and rotting would be best. There would already be an active bacterial colony in the soil and it would without a doubt work it’s way into the media to feed on the ammonia supplied.

While I do not think I would consider this “instant cycled”, I do think it would be just as beneficial as adding seeded material from an aquarium.

thats the basic idea, not so much to see the faster way to cycle a tank as much as see what generates the most bacteria in the shortest amount of time to determine what we could change to optimize the bacteria colonies in our tanks. my ammonia idea was kind of like baiting the bacteria with the food source (scientists do this all the time with petri dishes and sheeps blood to study bacteria of different sorts). I feel that maybe if it is found that soil, especially such with plants using the soil, optimizes the bacteria strains that we seek....... maybe we could increase the bacteria ppm using some new type of filtration. perhaps something similar to a refugium designed to help BB colonies. some of the simplest changes have had great impacts in other areas...... someone times ago decided toilet paper would be a good idea...... glad i'm not doing the research that lead to that

 

[sostoudt]

on interesting thing i found about nitrosomonas europaea, is it doesn't like light. so it will try to avoid it by clumping up into sludge, also it will attempt to be in a low light area like a filter.

nc perhaps this is the sludge i expierence with low surface area in my tanks.

 

[Toby_H]

You are reading nitrosomonas europaea doesn’t like light? I’m reading that it lives on sides of buildings in polluted cities…

But that doesn’t mean a whole lot, it could still very well not like light, but it doesn’t “need” darkness…

Also, you suggested that nitrosomonas europaea will attempt to hide in sludge… which does not in any way suggest it creates sludge, only that if sludge is around, it will hide in it.

But according to my understanding of how bacteria works, it still needs to stay in contact with an ammonia supply, namely the water. So trapped in the middle of sludge, unless the sludge itself is the ammonia supply, it would starve… and if the sludge is the ammonia supply, then there still needs to be bacteria elsewhere eating up ammonia that’s in the water…

We all talk about our bacteria as if there are just tons and tons of the stuff… But if you think about it, it a healthy / mature / cycled tank… there is no detectable level of ammonia… so how much bacteria does it take to consume an undetectable level? Probably not very much…

 

[sostoudt]

You are reading nitrosomonas europaea doesn’t like light? I’m reading that it lives on sides of buildings in polluted cities…

But that doesn’t mean a whole lot, it could still very well not like light, but it doesn’t “need” darkness…

Also, you suggested that nitrosomonas europaea will attempt to hide in sludge… which does not in any way suggest it creates sludge, only that if sludge is around, it will hide in it.

But according to my understanding of how bacteria works, it still needs to stay in contact with an ammonia supply, namely the water. So trapped in the middle of sludge, unless the sludge itself is the ammonia supply, it would starve… and if the sludge is the ammonia supply, then there still needs to be bacteria elsewhere eating up ammonia that’s in the water…

We all talk about our bacteria as if there are just tons and tons of the stuff… But if you think about it, it a healthy / mature / cycled tank… there is no detectable level of ammonia… so how much bacteria does it take to consume an undetectable level? Probably not very much…

http://genome.jgi-psf.org/niteu/niteu.home.html
the same link i gave in the other thread

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This microbe, which does not like being exposed to light, will cover itself in slime and form clumps with other microbes to avoid it[/FONT]

i take slimy clumps to be equivalent to sludge.

 

[Toby_H]

But does it produce the slime it covers itself in... or does it take existing slime from it's environment and coat itself...

I read that to suggest it takes what's already there... if this is the case then it is not the source of the slime/sludge...


I'll repost my comment made on this topic in another thread... as this thread is a more appropriate place for discussion

Yup, I mentioned above that nitrosomonas europaea is the most common AOB...

In the many articles I've read about AOB's and nitrosomonas europaea in particular, light sensitivity is rarely mentioned. Therefore I have not considered it a critical factor to any degree.

This is not to reject it as true, it's just to say it's not critical...

In general, human prefer ocean front living... but there are a lot of us who do not live on the ocean... As there are many other factors that persuade us to live where we do...

just like bacteria have other factors that will influence where they live. They are going to colonize where the resources are strongest, namely food (ammonia) and oxygen. They will also seek temperatures that suit them better. Since in this thread we are discussing an outdoor pond, the bacteria thrive in a range of 20~30* C (68~86* F)... Darker regions are more likely to be cold...


So I am not arguing that the point you made about nitrosomonas europaea not liking light is false... I'm just saying it's not the only influencing factor that will determine where the bacteria will colonize...

 

[sostoudt]

i posted the information here specifically because it sounds like swede is trying to replicate the perfect environment to grow bacteria.
swede heres my comment from the other thread it adds more info.

im doing more research and it seems, that most ammonia oxidisiers are sensitive to light, but only blue spectrum(300-375), some are senstive from 400-475, also its seems its most damaging during free floating time, with the bacteria usually being ok when attached.

so it seems you would only have to worry about the light in a planted, reef, or natural sunlight tank.
edit: i read that wrong they are photosenstive to light in general, but especially to the spectrums listed above

 

[wonword]

we set up a winogradsky column in class of mine and it showed all the different types of bacteria, pretty cool!

 

[swede]

im very happy that others have been finding this topic interesting! please continue to add what you may have seen from reading or more of what i would like to see, results from experiments

 

[Toby_H]

I've recently had to suspend an experiment I was playing with...

I set up a bare bottomed 10 tal with no decor... a Stealth 100W heater... and a single air stone...

This full set up has just under 1,000 square inches of surface area...

The tank truly holds 9~9.1 gallons of water...

Began doing a fishless cycle adding ammonia directly... to start it, I added an old sponge to 'seed' the tank... after a week or so I took the sponge out...

I maintainted the tank at 5ppm of ammonia...

It quickly reach a point where it could oxidize 5ppm of ammonia into nitrate in 12 hours time...

My intent was to begin adding ammonia twice per day... but due to unrelated issues I've suspended the experiment...


But... I've veryified that 1,000 square inches of surface area is enough surface area to process 5ppm in 9 gal of water in under a day...


I plan to redo this experiment with proper documentation begining in less than a month...

 

[swede]

the real test would be to find out what tweaking you can do to increase the PPM higher