Adding Bacteria to Established 3+ Yr Tank

[RobZilla04]

One proposed mechanism for what caused OTS can be thought of as a complex, self-feeding chain of events. What is known is that an increase in nutrients alone doesn't kill coral. However, high levels of DOC does. High nutrient levels tend to fuel algae growth. Algae release excess photosynthate (DOC) into the surroundings. High DOC stimulates the coral's resident microbes to reproduce rapidly which uses up the local oxygen. So, basically, in this scenario the corals suffocate. On top of this, high DOC also fuels microbial life in the environment, including pathogens, that negatively effect coral. So coral's die releasing more nutrients, fueling more algae/microbes...and things go from bad to worse until the system collapses.

IME, replacing a sand bed in a properly maintained reef aquarium is not necessary. I have a sand bed that is now over 20 years old and has been in two long term systems.

My sense of worry is fading now thanks to this. For a short time, my concern was growing, since my reef is in the sweet spot between established and mature, that the end was coming.

 

[RobZilla04]

extremely proactive reefer syndrome

lazy ___ reefer syndrome bwaha love it.
in all fairness the 90s crew was not lazy they just oversold natural mineralization. all that detritus was supposed to be neutralized by sand bed dynamics, and it probably is in a some percentage of tanks but not the majority.

I got a good chuckle outta that one, thx.

 

[brandon429]

I wanted to add that Diverpat's use of strains that may help reduce whole particles so that more is kicked up into suspension for mechanical devices to uptake/eventual export vs having to manually remove the larger mud particles in the cracks and crevices is cutting edge science. the system wont crash without it, but sludge digesters are cutting edge probiotics I would not knock them at all. they are likely reducing export work and Maritza the Vase reef uses them in the very old vase pico/they do not ever mess w their sandbed on a 7 yr one gallon setup (whereas Ive blast cleaned my bed 500 times as tradeoff, not getting any reduction help from added probiotics)

 

[Nano sapiens]

My sense of worry is fading now thanks to this. For a short time, my concern was growing, since my reef is in the sweet spot between established and mature, that the end was coming.

When reef aquaria are consistently maintained properly, there is no 'expiration date'. Larger tanks have the potential to be neglected longer before issues arrise, but even a small nano or pico tank has the potential to keep going...and going, just like the energizer bunny

 

[lapin]

I use a probiotic that contains 3 Bacillius species in my tank. I don’t have another tank to compare it to but my tank has been running incredibly clean. It’s still young at six months but time may tell if it’s really helping out.

We use this probiotic in marine finfish larviculture where it helps keep the tanks clean. We used to have cyano and pseudomonas outbreaks during flounder larval stages. Once we started using the probiotics, the issues stopped.

I feel it helps break down organics which common nitrifiers don’t touch. It’s hopefully outcompeting any less desirable bacteria. Our lab is trying to get grants to study the effects of probiotics in marine systems but so far we aren’t having any success.

I did add a probiotic and the catalyst to my tank to see if it would help with cyano. Seemed to reduce the amounts. But it was not very scientific. Maybe I removed more manually or cleaned the tank more????

 

[brandon429]

I would also have to vote that nano reefs are solely the best way to study tank aging, and old tank lazy syndrome, bc to do that with a 200 gallon tank you have to wait fifty years and your data plot to study such info will come from like 3 people max in the whole world or they'll be authors remarking on their own past tanks for the projection

but with an armada of ten thousand or better small tankers, gaining decades slowly, all sharing and documenting eutrophic vs oligotrophic tank conditions we will have a massive data plot to pick patterns from.

a pico reef that is ten years old acts like a 50 year old normal tank in terms of waste compounding vs surface area vs dilution

pico and nanos aren't mere novelty, they're light-speed studies relatively speaking for tank aging at least in relation to detritus.

 

[MnFish1]

I would also have to vote that nano reefs are solely the best way to study tank aging, and old tank lazy syndrome, bc to do that with a 200 gallon tank you have to wait fifty years and your data plot to study such info will come from like 3 people max in the whole world or they'll be authors remarking on their own past tanks for the projection

but with an armada of ten thousand or better small tankers, gaining decades slowly, we will have a massive data plot to pick patterns from.

a pico reef that is ten years old acts like a 50 year old normal tank in terms of waste compounding vs surface area vs dilution

pico and nanos aren't mere novelty, they're light-speed studies relatively speaking for tank aging at least in relation to detritus.

Curious why you say that - Doesn't the amount of stuff in a 10 gallon tank after 10 years = the same amount of stuff in a 100 gallon tank after 10 years? (approximately)? Just surprised you say its 10 vs 50 years

 

[Katrina71]

I would also have to vote that nano reefs are solely the best way to study tank aging, and old tank lazy syndrome, bc to do that with a 200 gallon tank you have to wait fifty years and your data plot to study such info will come from like 3 people max in the whole world or they'll be authors remarking on their own past tanks for the projection

but with an armada of ten thousand or better small tankers, gaining decades slowly, all sharing and documenting eutrophic vs oligotrophic tank conditions we will have a massive data plot to pick patterns from.

a pico reef that is ten years old acts like a 50 year old normal tank in terms of waste compounding vs surface area vs dilution

pico and nanos aren't mere novelty, they're light-speed studies relatively speaking for tank aging at least in relation to detritus.

100% agree

 

[Lukas75]

Well, what does it stand for?

Lazy A Reefer Syndrome

 

[brandon429]

MN that's just a rough guess nothing exact but am saying the smaller systems with less dilution and still bunches of live rock/crevices and sand to build up waste will register the effects of eutrophication much faster if they're on a full storage, no export path (eutrophic =heavy plant tendency on rocks vs coralline, matted invaders like cyano, corals stressed as NS mentioned, glass cleaning twice a day to avoid opaquing, smells bad when accessing sand or rock areas, dangerous pocketing areas we wouldn't want to disturb etc)


You can run pretty much any 100 gallon reef totally accepting of all detritus for years before it begins to give kickback

But in a hands off deep sandbed two gallon w small fish and feeding and a ton of coral? Within one year of full storage it's behaving like the 100 w be in many years, on its down slope. Don't have to wait as long to see the fruits of nonexport

 

[Nano sapiens]

Curious why you say that - Doesn't the amount of stuff in a 10 gallon tank after 10 years = the same amount of stuff in a 100 gallon tank after 10 years? (approximately)? Just surprised you say its 10 vs 50 years

The ratio of biomass to water volume in a mature small nano or pico is typically much higher than in a large tank (especially if it has a large sump, which many do).

Edit: I see that Brandon answered this already.

 

[brandon429]

Hey check out El Fab’s 3 gallon setup from 2008 until it becomes cyano wrecked / symptoms from above. This is the best documentation of a tank’s lifespan arc running fully unexported I know of. It’s the whole life of a reef start to finish, all one thread. To get a 100 gallon tank to do this we have to wait close to a decade untouched in my opinion / guess comparison


At the bell curve stage, this was among the top 3 three gallon nano reefs in the world, his pics used by countless online articles and reviews


That bell curve, unacceptable. We now demand the lifespan arc to be a straight line infinite

A three gallon reef with strong coral loading, water changes only, a DSB, and a small refugium can self sustain about three years before it goes eutrophic and if 400 people set up a three gallon tank like this and let that bed fill up with waste, they’ll get about the same lifespan before cyano takes the 100% dominant lead:

https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/180570-el-fabs-simple-guide-to-pico-tanks/

That’s best study there is in OTS because of replication. These smaller tanks have converging not diverging outcomes which makes them so so handy and predictable in nearly all they do biologically. Something about that added volume and dilution makes the larger tanks vary in outcome so much. Neat dichotomy there

If we could have changed out El Fabs sandbed, the same reef would still be alive. Not saying he had to change it to still be going, but the waste had to be mitigated in some way in increments, at least. Either by goby or by stirring or something, but 50% water changes only removes the waste that rotting sandbed filth emits, by half. That makes the bell curve. But if he did fifty percent change + a sandbed not packed in waste, the tank runs forever.

 

[RobZilla04]

If I'm following this conversation correctly, the best advice would be if you have a sand bed that doesn't get touched consideration should be to change out the sand every couple of years. At which point the addition of beneficial bacteria would be advisable. However, if regular sand bed maintenance is performed, there is no need to add bacteria ever.

?

Just trying to steer the discussion away from the "Sand Bed Wars" and back to bacteria and system longevity.

 

[Nano sapiens]

If I'm following this conversation correctly, the best advice would be if you have a sand bed that doesn't get touched consideration should be to change out the sand every couple of years. At which point the addition of beneficial bacteria would be advisable. However, if regular sand bed maintenance is performed, there is no need to add bacteria ever.

?

Just trying to steer the discussion away from the "Sand Bed Wars" and back to bacteria and system longevity.

I'd say that's a good assessment. The caveat is that no one can say definitively how long a 'no touch' sand bed can work effectively since each system is unique.

 

[ReeferReefer]

Focusing on the original question, I don't see the need to add bacteria to a perfectly functioning reef tank. It is likely that your tank already has a nice diverse culture of bacteria, probably even better than what is in the bottle.

Sand and rock comes up because its important to maintain the places where the bacteria live if you want them to continue helping your tank.

 

[brandon429]

this is how I view sandbed storage vs not: I can guarantee an outcome if there is no sandbed, or one that gets 100% cleaned at times. Everything after that varies, I cannot promise it, but someone else could.

Blusop's method works fine for large tanks who cannot easily just switch out a bed. I believe preemptive work will sustain nicely too. Its no war, all these factors tie together.

I would also add that any system storing up waste already has enough o2 competition from bacteria in the system, adding any more (even beneficial) is quite the oxygen tax. Don't be having any power outages during such experiments/recommended. The undebatable tradeoff for high organic loading systems is higher biological oxygen demand, and when these bacterial colonies die off due to oxygen starvation/outages etc that can really start a chain of events.

 

[RobZilla04]

this is how I view sandbed storage vs not: I can guarantee an outcome if there is no sandbed, or one that gets 100% cleaned at times. Everything after that varies, I cannot promise it, but someone else could.

Blusop's method works fine for large tanks who cannot easily just switch out a bed. I believe preemptive work will sustain nicely too. Its no war, all these factors tie together.

I would also add that any system storing up waste already has enough o2 competition from bacteria in the system, adding any more (even beneficial) is quite the oxygen tax. Don't be having any power outages during such experiments/recommended. The undebatable tradeoff for high organic loading systems is higher biological oxygen demand, and when these bacterial colonies die off due to oxygen starvation/outages etc that can really start a chain of events.

O2 competition brings in another highly debated topic, bubble scrubbing... Who wants to strangle me now?

Everything ties together, I totally get that. My original question has been answered. No need to add additional bacteria. Well maintained systems can keep going, and going, and going.