Ghost feeding is a myth perpetuated only in web forums

[Squid]

Squid
What you posted had no relevance then but I can see how it's hard to discern what we're debating.

I just described your system without seeing it heh

Will
Do you have something helpful or insightful to add, lead with that

Actually I did need to recycle because new additions caused the cycle (ammonia spike etc) another instance of you assuming smh.
Sand, cycling, rock and bacteria all go hand in hand so it did have relevance you just don't have any valid rebuttals. Also your reading comprehension must be off because I already described the tank....and you only described how incorrect you are.. anyways I'm done there's no more horse left to beat

 

[Sm51498]

we have supporting claims here already, you are ignoring them. if big dog hadn't posted, you'd be ultra-sure this thread was wrong.

Anecdote is not data. you can't actually conclude anything from that. you have no clue what you actually measured because it was not a controlled experiment. you have an anecdote that could be the basis of a future experiment but it doesn't actually demonstrate anything.

If people don't understand why you need to always conduct controlled experiments, I would encourage you to research it. It is eye opening the number of times people have made erroneous conclusions on the basis of anecdote or improperly controlled experiments.

 

[brandon429]

Why conduct controlled experiments for something I've got pages of already


I realize since I didn't post a link pro, you'll be unable to link the con stance, that's how it's been for pages.
To be even, we'll need forum links where someone fallow wasn't able to reintroduce bioloading without the spike, all confounds considered (API)


My thread opened by asking for scholar level links and that's been denied not because none exist, but because i didn't post them for my side

The null hypothesis links so far were found by loosely googling the nitrogen cycle, like horseshoes kinda general but they weren't relevant to self support mechanisms which get us through fallow periods unfed just fine.

Maybe there are no formal links for the details we're hashing?


I'm sure we, participants in our rework threads, will be just fine not feeding during fallow periods and big dog stated his testing very detailed in support.

Even if I don't post a link, and my tank rework threads do not indicate ability to predict what bac do, don't let that stop anyone from showing how fallow non feeding will stop a filter. Set up the experiment and neutralize big dogs findings.

 

[dbrewsky]

look, if you don't want to design an experiment or provide data to support YOUR claim and you want to go off of anecdotal experience and hobbyist observation that's fine, but listen to your reef keeping peers in this thread then. There is overwhelming evidence from people posting here that your idea doesn't hold it's salt.

If you want to pursue this and make a meaningful argument, do the foot work and provide the supporting data.

i'm out.

 

[saltyhog]

Reefer and I cannot agree it's ok. I'm more convinced now than ever it's a myth, nothing was ever posted to sway, and we got straight confirmation here of not feeding+ biofilter preserved, and tested


When a biofilter shows ppm free ammonia reduction, you can remove the bioloading it was adjusted to, not provide anything, and it still functions when same bioload is reintroduced, we didn't have to feed during the interim, the notion we keep bac alive and without us they die is to not factor myriad alternate support options that never were called out by any detractors anyway.

You conveniently ignore at least two posts here that contradict the above, one of which I posted. In my case the biofilter was intact but it functioned nowhere near what it did before the fallow period.

 

[brandon429]

We have the confirmation just fine dbrew
your tie in was from beer

But the leap statement was when I said that because we can do all these actions across tanks, and linked them, we also don't have to feed during a fallow run

 

[brandon429]

Salty Hog

Why two different outcomes with yours and big dogs tank, plus he went years longer than your example without feeding do you at least have pics of the setup

There are rock curing threads out there same as SH but these are rare...the multitudes are following the norms and ghost feeding during fallow runs

wondering how to factor his post and yours + the one I added about being able to add fish at any time into my system, some detail is missing these are opposing findings. Was the reading .25




to use that large surface area holdover to ride a few mos on no feed is so simple compared to full tank moves I'm surprised there's so much passion against the mere possibility.

There was once a time we couldn't change out a sandbed either without that loss of critical bacteria and cycle over


Our skip cycle threads state that no post support of bacteria is required to prevent loss whe meds aren't in play... the claim should be tested further with more tank measures here as updates. If you aren't medicating your tank, any form of cleaning or moving or withholding you want to do won't stop your nitrifying bacteria from working if you keep water present



The first lfs I ever went to as a kid in 1983 refused to sell fish to beginners until they went home, filled the tank and set the heater and turned on the bubble box, then came back no earlier than 30 days later. They didn't sell bottle bac, or tell you to feed it, they said to add water and wait. Hydration/contamination does it... flake or any feeding not required.

If you cheated, your additions clouded the tank in 48 hours and died and smelled and they knew you cheated when you came back and described it

If you didn't cheat, your tank stayed crystal clear and handled bi monthly water changes when you added fish

Bac upscaled to meet the demands of fish with the difference of crash vs no crash, significant, by natural inclusions + water and just enough surface area in 30 days to run six platies and a few tetras

Maintaining massive surface area beyond a bubble box during no feed periods is easy to do, easy for verified bac communities, no post support required with water they'll do fine.

 

[Bdog4u2]

i would compare this to a fish-in cycle (i don't know how to say in english when you cycle your tank with a fish in it). the fish replace the amonia you dose, the dead shrimp you leave for afew days. fish poop start the cycle, amonia level cannot reach 'toxic' level by the time the good bacteria decompose it to less toxic nitrites/nitrates. unless bioload is too much for the volume of water to rely on dilution factor until nitrification process starts.
what size of fish vs 75gal of water. shrimp is low-low bioload.
in freshwater, i always did my cycle with fish. i would not in saltwater, even if i never lost a fish in doing my cycle, i dont want to risk 30 to 100$ on a fish for cycle purpose.

I put a 13 year old yellow tang a 10 year old coral beauty and 2 5-6 year old clowns. Their tank sprung a leak.

 

[Dancingmad]

As far as nutrient exchange would/do eukaryotes play a role in this (assuming an established tank)? They're there sometimes whether we want them to be or not!

 

[brandon429]

David P mentioned earlier the vast array of life

if we swabbed anywhere near an aquarium, much less in one, and plate that out on various selective media/agar and profile I vote yes on eukaryotes being in some samples

fungi will for sure be in some sources, molds, if someone found those as part of requisite aquarium biofilm inclusions I'd not be surprised in the least.

Their own life cycles are adding to mass transfer upon their breakdown and decay. They are continually getting in among the floc that lands and the direct water contaminations alone. Good call

Billions of dead and decaying viruses must contribute a little something along the way, they do have mass. thats at least carbon substrate added

The incoming feed and substrate for nitrifiers to reproduce on never stops

Both my fw and sw nano systems can take on fish loading after going years without fish, with no cycling or ammonia spiking, because of the excess surface area already primed.


If nine canister filters were installed on a starved system, in a month there would be nine functioning canister filters that will pass an oxidation test on their own because it never was starving. new bacterial mass populates the canister filters because new vital space was added, not because someone increased feeding to allow for the new colonization.

 

[david p.]

David P mentioned earlier the vast array of life

if we swabbed anywhere near an aquarium, much less in one, and plate that out on various selective media/agar and profile I vote yes on eukaryotes being in some samples

fungi will for sure be in some sources, molds, if someone found those as part of requisite aquarium biofilm inclusions I'd not be surprised in the least.

Their own life cycles are adding to mass transfer upon their breakdown and decay. They are continually getting in among the floc that lands and the direct water contaminations alone. Good call

Billions of dead and decaying viruses must contribute a little something along the way, they do have mass. thats at least carbon substrate added

The incoming feed never stops

virus don't have an impact on microbilogical activities in terms of recycling detritus.

but you are rigth when you say molds, fungi... they are everywhere. I work in a vaccine production facility with aseptic area, and it's a nightmare to keep mold and fungi out of these area... and we have many many controls in place to prevent them to get in. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE !!!

 

[cgdcinc]

Great article. Great debate. I am going to test this for myself using my Qt tank. I am leaning toward not having to ghost feed.

 

[Sm51498]

David P mentioned earlier the vast array of life

if we swabbed anywhere near an aquarium, much less in one, and plate that out on various selective media/agar and profile I vote yes on eukaryotes being in some samples

fungi will for sure be in some sources, molds, if someone found those as part of requisite aquarium biofilm inclusions I'd not be surprised in the least.

Their own life cycles are adding to mass transfer upon their breakdown and decay. They are continually getting in among the floc that lands and the direct water contaminations alone. Good call

Billions of dead and decaying viruses must contribute a little something along the way, they do have mass. thats at least carbon substrate added

The incoming feed and substrate for nitrifiers to reproduce on never stops

Both my fw and sw nano systems can take on fish loading after going years without fish, with no cycling or ammonia spiking, because of the excess surface area already primed.


If nine canister filters were installed on a starved system, in a month there would be nine functioning canister filters that will pass an oxidation test on their own because it never was starving. new bacterial mass populates the canister filters because new vital space was added, not because someone increased feeding to allow for the new colonization.

People don't debate that bacteria will colonize any available space. I believe that is very well established. The debate is essentially around nitrification capacity. I'm not sure anyone can state definitively for any system that the available nitrification capacity is sufficient without testing. The variables are simply too many for a definite universal statement.

I do know a way to guarantee it though and it only costs a couple bucks.....

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, API is cheap and calibrated to .25=0 should be gtg.

I tested it all through the eighties like this:

Buy guppies and tetras in a rush, put in ten gallon tank + painted rocks + fake coral cave with API stress coat, check back in 24 hours all fish dead water cloudy.


Do over after I didn't do what the lfs man said:
Fill tank up with tap water only, decor, wait thirty days before fish.

fish live and i got baby guppies in a month because the biofilter both seeded and self fed over that painfully long wait.


We also have been chatting in other cycle threads about how the nature of these bacteria allow them to remain viable on the retail shelf for a year or better, in only a hydrated solution, no aquarists adding feed to prevent their demise.

My lfs uses the no ghost feed tenet in their large purple cured rock vats. Not one ghost feed for ten years, pumps out rocks that always pass a digestion test. Agreed about testing, anyone can verify its just fun to make predictions

 

[Lasse]

Hi all

Sorry I jump in late in this thread.

@brandon429 I support your thesis

When I first saw the term Ghost feeding I did not understand what it means. We do not – among Swedish aquarist - have a similar word in Swedish. If it is critical – why are we never debating this?

If we start with bacteria groups – the nitrifying bacteria are autotrophic organisms – it means that they use inorganic carbon as carbon source. They are alike photosynthetic organisms, the difference is that the nitrifying bacteria do not use light as an energy source – instead they use the energy differences between ammonia/ammoniac, nitrite and nitrate. They grow rather slowly – one source that I use to quote state a doubling time (in pure media) of 13 hours. They are – according to my experiences - able to cyst themselves in an inactive stage. Will comeback with examples of this later on.

The second bacteria group is named heterotrophs. They can exist as aerobic and anaerobic organism. Some can change between the different environments. If we concentrate at the aerobic heterotrophs – they need organic carbon (dissolved organic carbon for fast growth), oxygen, a place to sit on, phosphorus and nitrogen. They often double their population in 15 – 60 minutes if there is enough of fast organic carbon source. In our tanks – organic carbons exist but there is normal a lack of the fast ones. This fact is used in the different “vodka” methods that we use. It is also important to emphasize that the heterotrophs break down organic matter and that one of the waste products is ammonium/ammoniac

Two of the common needs for this two bacteria groups is important – the need for oxygen and the need for places to sit (chairs) If the space is limited and there is lot of dissolved organic carbon in the water (high BOD) – the heterotrophs will concur out the autotrophs because their growth faster.

This a well-known fact in waste water treatment and in fish farms. The biofilters are often constructed in a way that they are self-polishing – leaving a thin active film of nitrification bacteria and therefore a very low organic load. In the old drowned filters (at fish farms) that was in use when I was young – there was a need of back flushing every second to third day – just in order to minimize the organic load (a thick – not active – film of nitrifies will in itself be a part of the organic load and promote the growth of the heterotrophs)

In one of those filters that I was working with we did a very large survey in order to understand what’s happen. If we start a cycle with back flushing - we could see a good nitrification (98 – 100 %) day 1, end of day 2 – it was down to around 60% and day 3 to less than 30 %. After a backflush day 3 – the nitrification rate was up to nearly 100 % after a couple of hours, day 2 down to 60 % and day 3 – around 30 % - backflush again and it starts over. In this case it was wastewater from a folk college (around 200 PE) with a content of app 3 mg/l ammonia in ingoing water.

The autotrophs did not die because the load was high and the recovery time of the filter was short – they just was inactive (cysts ?) during the time of high organic content in the filter. As soon as the majority of the heterotrophs was gone (and the most of the organic load) the directly start to do their work – and there was active biomass that was large enough to the same job (in the same load) as 3 days before – the only different was that the heterotrophs and the organic load was gone.

According to nitrifying bacteria – for me ghost feeding (when the tank once have cycled) is a myth and is not needed. There will be a small active Culture - because the heterotrophs will work as long as there are organic matters in the tank – and produce ammonia for the nitrifies. There will also be enough of cysted bacteria

If you have a good bio filter (For me – LS is not good enough – I always use bio filters I one or another way) – and this tank is cycled once – you can vary the load rather much.

I have been working in shops and we never put down any feeding when we add new fishes to the stands. It could be cycled aquaria with a few fishes that suddenly had 100 of fishes and get a feed the next day for nearly 100 fishes. Nema problema. My best trick when I started new fresh water aquaria (and it had been some ) was to take the content of a working filter to the new aquaria and with a little bit of caution – the cycle was done rather soon.

When I start a new aquaria (saltwater) today – if I can´t use the trick of used filters I start like I did with my last aquaria – see my thread – rather fast. One fish day 2 or 3, Cleanup crew as fast as possible. Feeding 4 or 5 frozen adult artemia every third day first week, every second day week 2 and the same amount every day the third week. I also use

I also put in nitrifying bacteria every day for the first 3 weeks if I cannot take gravel from a cycled aquarium (or squeeze a functioning filter every day and then pouring the filtrate in the new aquarium)

I never use probiotic in other cases. In the long run your aquarium will get the strains that suit your way of handling the Aquarium. To ad some benefice bacteria will in 99 of 100 cases not change your bacteria culture. The existing bacteria will concur out most of the newcomers. In a new aquarium - it could work if you are happy – at least in the beginning
Sincerely Lasse

 

[saltyhog]

You lost me a "viruses have mass".

brandon if I understand correctly you are making the statement that feeding the biofilter is never needed, no matter the length of time or surface area. I can assure you while it may not be needed on many or even most occasions, in a cycled QT with only a couple of rocks and ceramic media in a HOB filter it does need to be fed . Not often, and not a lot but a little bit a time or two a week. I've proven that at least 3 times when fallow periods of 4 weeks to 2 months showed the tank failed to be able process ammonia adequately.

 

[brandon429]

My point SH was that upon degradation the rna in viruses contributes building blocks for others to uptake from the soup the same as any other protein denaturation and decay would contribute. I'm not convinced their mass isn't reutilized given their quantitative measures in nature.

The greater tie in was that bac seed themselves/myriad live organisms get in and die and become ripe pickings in the water for assimilation and feed for those bac aquarists feel aren't adapted to getting by just fine without some pellets.


The death and decay of heterotrophs as Lasse mentioned is a huge natural feed repository for nitrifers, their scum layers attract and hold other mass for breakdown, and they're by rule closely associated in nature such that the communal benefit is always there. I'm claiming it doesn't go back to sterile when feed input is changed. Or when I blast clean a tank with peroxide. Or when many people dose bleach directly to their tank to attack X invader. Withholding feed is a walk in the park for organisms who can seed feed and spawn in an oil slick puddle in the street.

The complexes on matured substrates benefit nitrifiers such that they have their feed sources intertwined, and we don't have to feed them since most setups use an excess of required active surface area. It is true the withholding of feed will modulate bac colonies but not to an impactful degree given the areas typical for our tanks.

A major theme here was that aquarists see themselves as ultimate controllers of bacteria by what they give and withhold...not the case.

There are threads kicked up now showing opposite of your findings salty
http://reef2reef.com/threads/how-lo...ish-less-quarantine-tank.283677/#post-3452576




Why can isolated nitrifiers in a room temp bottle of fluid last a year or more on a retail shelf unfed but all of a sudden in an aquarium with measurable surface area and reserves -and constant input by natural means- they are claimed weak? API caused that assumption for many I'd bet. The ole .25/stalled cycle post.

 

[brandon429]

One additional point salty hog

Bacteria behave the same in my home as they do in Pat's tank in post five in that thread I linked. For your findings to be different means something big is up, natural biology doesn't change between tanks.


Would you happen to have a thread on your measures so we can read it? Somehow Pat gets twice the length of time you've posted with no ghost feeding

 

[cgdcinc]

This has to be one of the most interesting threads. I want to learn more. So much better than my blah blah lights. My blah blah fish. My blah blah algae.

 

[david p.]

People don't debate that bacteria will colonize any available space. I believe that is very well established. The debate is essentially around nitrification capacity. I'm not sure anyone can state definitively for any system that the available nitrification capacity is sufficient without testing. The variables are simply too many for a definite universal statement.

I do know a way to guarantee it though and it only costs a couple bucks.....

sry, i did not read all the post since my last, might have missed a few replies that answer that.
as an answer to your comment, nutrification capacity is a fonction of food available. Nitrification capacity will decrease if less food is available, bacteria population will adjust. so if no food, no (or less) nitrification. if you add fish or start feeding, lag time before nitrification capacity matches the food supply. lag time can be short or long depending of bacteria population.
as some mention, nitrifing bacteria are 'slow' vs other bacteria, but generaly speaking, unless we are speaking of a new system/dry rock, starting population will always remain 'relatively' high, there is always something decomposing in a reef or detritus.
trying to simplify to a maximum to avoid long explanation...