Reef Chemistry Thought Experiment #1: Bacteria

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The thought experiment perhaps was possible to make in the real world? It would be helpful to know what bacteria are alive in this tank as certainly not all were killed by the application of the two antibiotics, or were they?

No, they wouldn't be. But this sort of dosing and chemiclean dosing help guide some of the expected effects, if not the most extreme ones.

 

[MnFish1]

The thought experiment perhaps was possible to make in the real world? It would be helpful to know what bacteria are alive in this tank as certainly not all were killed by the application of the two antibiotics, or were they?
Interesting that the yellow cascade of organic material is observed, and not just a thought apparently.
I’ve got more thinking to do to understand this question, a lot more than I “thought.”

Amoxicillin and cephalexin have similar spectra, and they would not kill all of the bacteria in the tank. The yellow color may also be a byproduct of the antibiotics being broken down.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Amoxicillin and cephalexin have similar spectra, and they would not kill all of the bacteria in the tank. The yellow color may also be a byproduct of the antibiotics being broken down.

Or, IMO, some of the huge assortment of biomolecules made by bacteria and released to the water that absorb light even in their original state.

 

[Dburr1014]

Clearly the “cycled” tank is going to become an uncycled tank as the bacteria that were present to process nitrogen wastes all died with the antibiotic treatment. The rock and sand are functionally dry rock, although we don’t know if they have coralline or macro algae or corals growing on them, nor do we know what fishes or other organisms are present in the “normally” functioning reef.

For the typical reef aquarium we have at least a few species of fish and various invertebrates present that are interacting with the nitrogen cycle end products, or just fish releasing ammonia.

The ammonia level should begin to rise and be measurable on our testing.

Yet, A tank with corals and clams only may not show any immediate signs of ammonia since they take up ammonia from the water for energy and nutrients.

A shark tank may show ammonia but the presence of ammonia is not as significant for these fishes since they have urea in their blood.

Still, for the typical reef the fish present are going to show signs of ammonia poisoning and may be surface breathing and showing general signs of distress but if the antibiotics are still effective there will be no bacterial bloom and cloudy water that we usually see when excess ammonia is present in an aquarium.

I don’t know if gut bacteria were eradicated from the treatment? If they were I would expect the fish would start showing symptoms including lack of appetite and diarrhea as well.

Uptake of alkalinity may slowdown or speed up depending on what the inverts are doing with the excess dead bacteria in the water?

What he said!

 

[MnFish1]

Or, IMO, some of the huge assortment of biomolecules made by bacteria and released to the water that absorb light even in their original state.

In the case of the person using amoxicillin and cephalosporin I'm just not sure that there would be that many bacteria killed. But I agree with you - there is certainly a yellow color that develops after Chemiclean (which unfortunately is also a yellow powder)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do not doubt that some color can come from molecules dosed, or impurities in them. But most pure drug molecules are not themselves colored.

Back in 1980, I had a summer job at Kodak, working in a lab synthesizing molecules that might go into future film formulations (magenta couplers, IIRC, for those who may be techno film geeks). The last step of every synthesis was to lightly oxidize the final product to remove colored impurities since coloration was extremely important, and the main molecules were not themselves colored, just the random impurities.

 

[MnFish1]

I do not doubt that some color can come from molecules dosed, or impurities in them. But most pure drug molecules are not themselves colored.

I believe it's the excipients as well

 

[GARRIGA]

Wouldn’t that be the end to diversification and the main advantage of acquiring live rock? Bacteria in a bottle can jump start the process which now has one no better off than having started with dry rock. Regardless, I’m not one to be eager to place antibacterial anything into an established environment.

 

[taricha]

Thinking about this question from the standpoint of how would our water change if we excluded bacteria from the water for a long time - I kept trying to imagine how weird our water would be if large dissolved organics just stuck around in the water with no bacteria to degrade them, super-hard to imagine.
Then I remembered this scene from "Planet Earth"
In Lake Baikal, Attenborough narrates - the cleanup work on the bottom is done by hordes of huge freaky amphipods because "water here is just too cold for the bacteria that normally decompose the dead."
Also the upper reaches have tons of green sponges that possess an algae symbiont - likely the sponges can exploit the accumulated dissolved organics that the bacteria are just too cold to break down in any rapid way.

 

[LadAShark]

Thinking about this question from the standpoint of how would our water change if we excluded bacteria from the water for a long time - I kept trying to imagine how weird our water would be if large dissolved organics just stuck around in the water with no bacteria to degrade them, super-hard to imagine.
Then I remembered this scene from "Planet Earth"
In Lake Baikal, Attenborough narrates - the cleanup work on the bottom is done by hordes of huge freaky amphipods because "water here is just too cold for the bacteria that normally decompose the dead."
Also the upper reaches have tons of green sponges that possess an algae symbiont - likely the sponges can exploit the accumulated dissolved organics that the bacteria are just too cold to break down in any rapid way.

Yeah, eventually some sort of organism would take advantage, however in the case of our reefs, that might not be detritivores and might instead be dinos, yeasts, amoebas, etc., which could have unforeseen consequences (aside from missing coral symbionts, it could even end up being good, but we have no real way to tell).

 

[Hans-Werner]

In a low nutrient tank not much may happen at all. Much of the degradation and ammonia oxidation is done by archaea, thraustochytrids and other protists, and fungi.

I am sure there are reef tanks treated with antibiotics, intentionally or unintentionally. What happens in real life trials?