element / carbon source combinations to promote bacterial diversity.

[Tmmste]

I wondered about this for some time and would like to know if there is some knowledge here about elements and/or carbon source combinations which may aid bacterial diversity / denitrification

For example; there are a wide variety of carbon sources available; glyserol, sugar, vinegar, alcohol, ascorbic acid, sodium acetate, calcium acetate etcetera. And some elements like iron (which oxidises quickly) or molybdate/silicate which might be interesting to combine with carbon sources.

Nopox e.g. uses a combination of vodka, vinegar and some molybdate as far as I know.

The VSV recipe is another favorite. Randy uses solely vinegar. Apart from that I read someone who used sodium acetate as this would incorporate more po4 in the bacteria? Another person uses glyserine as an effective carbon dosing method.

There should be some differences right. Is there anyone who experimented with this? Or can tell something about this?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’ve never seen any data from any reef tank in the bacterial species driven by any sort of dosing.

In the absence of data, I don’t accept the mantra that a mix of organics will lead to more diversity, nor would I assume that more diversity is “better”.

A mix of organics might just end up with the species/strain that can use them all.

 

[Tmmste]

I’ve never seen any data from any reef tank in the bacterial species driven by any sort of dosing.

In the absence of data, I don’t accept the mantra that a mix of organics will lead to more diversity, nor would I assume that more diversity is “better”.

A mix of organics might just end up with the species/strain that can use them all.

Hmm, yes that could also be the case. Frankly many reefers have their favorite brand which *works* for their reef (e.g. nopox). It does make me wonder if is the strenght of a product which actually made the differens.. and not the components e.g. when sugar and/or alcohol is added to vinegar it increase its potency.... while increasing the amount of vinegar could have achieved the exact same results.

I guess the same will go for elements added to carbon sources.. the excess amounts of molybdate reefers encounter by dosing nopox would indicate to me much less is used than dosed with the carbon source. All in all find this very interesting matter... have you tested any of this? I do know you encountered less cyano with dosing vinegar compared to other carbob sources of was could this also have been coincidence?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The cyano I got with vodka and less with vinegar was unlikely to be coincidence, but could have been specific to my tank and the bacterial strains present in it. But acetate is super widely used in the marine world, and it may just be that many more organisms competed with cyano to take it up.

 

[Tmmste]

The cyano I got with vodka and less with vinegar was unlikely to be coincidence, but could have been specific to my tank and the bacterial strains present in it. But acetate is super widely used in the marine world, and it may just be that many more organisms competed with cyano to take it up.

Thank you randy. I guess we have to fool around with different carbon sources. Do you happen to have an idea how potent one carbon sources is compared to the other? As you recently pointed out glyserine is about 20x stronger than vinegar.. and alcohol 8x stronger. With sugar/ascorbic acid/sodium acetate etc it would not be by volume but weight. I do wonder how many gr of e.g. sugar would equal 1 liter of vinegar. Maybe I can set up some sort of an experiment and see how my tank behaves. (I have not attemped to google or calculate this myself, maybe a stupid question if it is somewhere out there on the internet)

 

[Cnidoblast]

Isopropyl alcohol could be an interesting one as it oxidizes to acetone and some bacteria can use acetone as a food source

 

[Tmmste]

The cyano I got with vodka and less with vinegar was unlikely to be coincidence, but could have been specific to my tank and the bacterial strains present in it. But acetate is super widely used in the marine world, and it may just be that many more organisms competed with cyano to take it up.

I have another question @Randy Holmes-Farley Hopefully you find some time to help me out with one: is it possible to make calciumacetate (60ml vinegar and 1 teaspoon of calciumhydroxide if I am not mistaken) and then add 40ml of 40% vodka to prevent a bacterial bloom? (40/100ml * 40% = 15% alcohol).

I like to give the "donovan nitrate destroyer" a try and will be experimenting with carbon sources. The holy grail is to find out if it is possible to make bacteria bind more po4 in their tissue or e.g. become a vessil for iron supplementation (in the form of bacteria plankton containing Fe).

 

[Tmmste]

Isopropyl alcohol could be an interesting one as it oxidizes to acetone and some bacteria can use acetone as a food source

Hmm, I am not sure about the additives like bitter compounds or toxins added to it.
I think I will stick with foodgrade stuff to be on the safe side.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Calcium acetate is a fine product, line Salifert All in One.

You can just put in excess lime or excess acid to prevent bacterial growth. I used vinegar plus excess calcium hydroxide for vinegar dosing once a day manually.

 

[Tmmste]

Calcium acetate is a fine product, line Salifert All in One.

You can just put in excess lime or excess acid to prevent bacterial growth. I used vinegar plus excess calcium hydroxide for vinegar dosing once a day manually.

Yes, I would make it more alkaline if I would add it to the ATO (15ml - 45ml per teaspoon) However, I believe acetate was more readily available for bacteria when it reacted with calciumhydroxide.. I do not recall where I read that though. The extra calcium/alkalinity is just another bonus. If I decide to go skimmerless with this device, I prever to use kalkwasser for both topoff and in the vinegar source to prevent a rise in salinity. That is why I liked to know more about salifers all-in-one as I wondered which elements I can add to an all-in-one (totally different topic though, I tagged you in there but maybe you missed it or I ask to many questions haha). Hope to be hearing from you again Randy!!

 

[Cnidoblast]

It would be nice if BRS started stocking pharma grade sodium and calcium acetate - who in BRS can I suggest this to!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Once added to the aquarium, the acetate is completely independent of any calcium ions it may have come from in the top off. It makes no difference what it was once combined with.

 

[Cnidoblast]

But some may not want to dose calcium ions into there tank with there carbon source - I think brs selling pharma grade NaOAc would be super useful

You could just make a stock solution of known molarity and run from there

 

[Tmmste]

But some may not want to dose calcium ions into there tank with there carbon source - I think brs selling pharma grade NaOAc would be super useful

You could just make a stock solution of known molarity and run from there

I see. In NL I have no access to BRS though. I think I will just make a carbon source which contains 15% alcohol.. just to prevent bactial growth in the stock solution.. maybe CaCO3 is formed if calciumacetate is dosed to an extremely low flow area.... that would clog a reactor. If the carbon source itself does not make much of a difference for denitrification... then I am more interested in how to make bacterial plankton more nutritious (if that is even possible in the first place...)

 

[Tmmste]

I see. In NL I have no access to BRS though. I think I will just make a carbon source which contains 15% alcohol.. just to prevent bactial growth in the stock solution.. maybe CaCO3 is formed if calciumacetate is dosed to an extremely low flow area.... that would clog a reactor. If the carbon source itself does not make much of a difference for denitrification... then I am more interested in how to make bacterial plankton more nutritious (if that is even possible in the first place...)

I did not knew this, but I just checked the DIY nopox recipe.. and there is 375ml vodka 40% in a liter NoPox. 0,375 * 40 = 15% alcohol for probably the same reason [emoji4]

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I see. In NL I have no access to BRS though. I think I will just make a carbon source which contains 15% alcohol.. just to prevent bactial growth in the stock solution.. maybe CaCO3 is formed if calciumacetate is dosed to an extremely low flow area.... that would clog a reactor. If the carbon source itself does not make much of a difference for denitrification... then I am more interested in how to make bacterial plankton more nutritious (if that is even possible in the first place...)

Dosing calcium acetate should not be any more likely to cause calcium carbonate precipitation than is calcium chloride.

 

[Tmmste]

Dosing calcium acetate should not be any more likely to cause calcium carbonate precipitation than is calcium chloride.

Thank you Randy, I have been thinking about combining an iron source with a carbon source and dose this in a bioreactor (the Donovan Nitrate Destroyer). Is there a possibility that bacteria in our tank bind to iron (e.g. via siderophores) and make it bioavailable for corals? If I remove my protein skimmer the bacterial plankton increases and it would be nice to make iron available this way. I wonder what you think about this as I read in one of your articles these type of bacteria might be present in our aquaria.