Whasmack
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2016
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- 249
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- Vancouver, WA
- What state or country do you live in
- Washington
The test results came back!
Awhile ago I ordered Triton's STN-X because I had an acro displaying some STN. Before getting this product, I did dose Dr Tim's Eco Balance.
I followed Triton's dosing program - 1 big initial dose followed by a 21-day treatment.
@AquaBiomics supplied the test kits to take microbiome samples before & after the STN-X. And it had some interesting results -
And a summary of the analysis:
In any case, here is the short version. It appears that the product you tested here did in fact alter the microbial community in your tank. Interestingly, it left the diversity completely unchanged, while changing the composition of the community pretty substantially. I think this is pretty much in line with the claims of the manufacturer. I found no evidence of proven coral pathogens in your samples (although see below for more details), so it's hard to evaluate whether to expect these changes can be expected to reduce any disease symptoms. But it certainly appears to alter the microbial community.
First diversity. Your diversity scores are remarkably similar before and after treatment (467 vs 464). This is about the level of variation I see between duplicate tests on the same sample -- so the product had no effect on diversity. And your tank has a very nice high diversity. I consider diversity valuable (a) because ecologists generally find that diversity is associated with productivity and resilience in many ecosystems, and (b) since we don't know exactly which microbes are ideal for a reef tank, maximizing diversity is a strategy for trying to catch as many of the beneficial microbes as possible.
Next balance. This score measures how similar your community is to the typical tank. Low scores indicate communities that are not like the typical reef tank. Both before and after the clean, your tank has a fairly low score. This doesnt necessarily indicate any kind of problem, it is just a measurement of similarity or difference in the community composition.
Before the treatment, your community had a perfectly normal balance score, right in the middle of the distribution. It was pretty similar to the typical reef tank community. Viewing the community composition barplots (part 2) reveals the reason for this score. All of the five most abundant families in the typical reef tank (Alteromonadaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, Pelagibacteraceae, Rhodobacteraceae, and Vibrionaceae) were clearly present at reasonably similar levels in your tank.
In contrast, after treatment your balance score dropped almost to the minimum possible score. The community barplot shows why. And I think comparing these plots may be the best way to evaluate "did the product affect my microbial community?" In my view, the answer is a clear yes.
Two of the core families that were present at relatively high levels before treatment, were much lower after treatment: Pelagibacteraceae and Rhodobacteraceae. Interestingly, the family Vibrionaceae which includes most of the known coral pathogens was not reduced at all by this treatment. This group was strikingly similar before and after.
The bigger effect of the treatment was that it appeared to promote the growth of a family that is not normally present at high levels -- Pseudoalteromonadaceae. This was initially present at typical levels but bloomed in your tank after treatment. I looked into the species composition of this bloom, and it appears to be entirely by two types of unclassified Pseudoalteromonas (i.e. types that were not classified to the species level, only to the genus Pseudoalteromonas). I note that both types were present in your tank before treatment, so it looks like most of the effect on your community is driven by the increase in these two types of Pseudoalteromonas.
Now on to the groups of special interest. Prior to treatment, your tank showed a diverse comunity of ammonia oxidizing microbes (AOM) including both bacterial and archael types. And the relative abundance of AOM was high. After treatment, the relative abundance was lower -- but I emphasize that this is relative abundance. This effect could be entirely explained by an increase in Pseudoalteromonas rather than any decrease in the absolute numbers of AOM. Similarly, your nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) showed a decrease in relative abundance after the treatment that are probably explained by the same effect.
Together, these are positive results -- many tanks lack detectable NOB, so the levels we're seeing here indicate a tank with relatively high populations of these important groups.
Before the treatment, your tank had moderate levels of one type of cyanobacteria. After the treatment, the cyanobacteria community changed, and developed high levels of a different family. I will be very curious to hear if you observed any changes in visible cyanobacteria in the tank. This is another piece of evidence that the product affects bacterial communities, but I'll be curious to hear from you whether this was a positive change.
There were no proven fish or coral pathogens in the tank either before or after treatment. I do want to add one interesting note here, though. I've previously (on R2R) described four bacteria associated with SCTLD, a disease wiping out caribbean corals. These are not proven pathogens, so theyre not shown on the coral pathogen page. Your tank had convincing evidence of one of these (the SCTLD-associated Fusibacter sp) before the treatment, and this was not detected after the treatment. If this turns out to be a pathogen, as the studies suggest it may be, then this would be an example of the product acting as it claims, but reducing the relative abundance of pathogens...
Awhile ago I ordered Triton's STN-X because I had an acro displaying some STN. Before getting this product, I did dose Dr Tim's Eco Balance.
I followed Triton's dosing program - 1 big initial dose followed by a 21-day treatment.
@AquaBiomics supplied the test kits to take microbiome samples before & after the STN-X. And it had some interesting results -
And a summary of the analysis:
In any case, here is the short version. It appears that the product you tested here did in fact alter the microbial community in your tank. Interestingly, it left the diversity completely unchanged, while changing the composition of the community pretty substantially. I think this is pretty much in line with the claims of the manufacturer. I found no evidence of proven coral pathogens in your samples (although see below for more details), so it's hard to evaluate whether to expect these changes can be expected to reduce any disease symptoms. But it certainly appears to alter the microbial community.
First diversity. Your diversity scores are remarkably similar before and after treatment (467 vs 464). This is about the level of variation I see between duplicate tests on the same sample -- so the product had no effect on diversity. And your tank has a very nice high diversity. I consider diversity valuable (a) because ecologists generally find that diversity is associated with productivity and resilience in many ecosystems, and (b) since we don't know exactly which microbes are ideal for a reef tank, maximizing diversity is a strategy for trying to catch as many of the beneficial microbes as possible.
Next balance. This score measures how similar your community is to the typical tank. Low scores indicate communities that are not like the typical reef tank. Both before and after the clean, your tank has a fairly low score. This doesnt necessarily indicate any kind of problem, it is just a measurement of similarity or difference in the community composition.
Before the treatment, your community had a perfectly normal balance score, right in the middle of the distribution. It was pretty similar to the typical reef tank community. Viewing the community composition barplots (part 2) reveals the reason for this score. All of the five most abundant families in the typical reef tank (Alteromonadaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, Pelagibacteraceae, Rhodobacteraceae, and Vibrionaceae) were clearly present at reasonably similar levels in your tank.
In contrast, after treatment your balance score dropped almost to the minimum possible score. The community barplot shows why. And I think comparing these plots may be the best way to evaluate "did the product affect my microbial community?" In my view, the answer is a clear yes.
Two of the core families that were present at relatively high levels before treatment, were much lower after treatment: Pelagibacteraceae and Rhodobacteraceae. Interestingly, the family Vibrionaceae which includes most of the known coral pathogens was not reduced at all by this treatment. This group was strikingly similar before and after.
The bigger effect of the treatment was that it appeared to promote the growth of a family that is not normally present at high levels -- Pseudoalteromonadaceae. This was initially present at typical levels but bloomed in your tank after treatment. I looked into the species composition of this bloom, and it appears to be entirely by two types of unclassified Pseudoalteromonas (i.e. types that were not classified to the species level, only to the genus Pseudoalteromonas). I note that both types were present in your tank before treatment, so it looks like most of the effect on your community is driven by the increase in these two types of Pseudoalteromonas.
Now on to the groups of special interest. Prior to treatment, your tank showed a diverse comunity of ammonia oxidizing microbes (AOM) including both bacterial and archael types. And the relative abundance of AOM was high. After treatment, the relative abundance was lower -- but I emphasize that this is relative abundance. This effect could be entirely explained by an increase in Pseudoalteromonas rather than any decrease in the absolute numbers of AOM. Similarly, your nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) showed a decrease in relative abundance after the treatment that are probably explained by the same effect.
Together, these are positive results -- many tanks lack detectable NOB, so the levels we're seeing here indicate a tank with relatively high populations of these important groups.
Before the treatment, your tank had moderate levels of one type of cyanobacteria. After the treatment, the cyanobacteria community changed, and developed high levels of a different family. I will be very curious to hear if you observed any changes in visible cyanobacteria in the tank. This is another piece of evidence that the product affects bacterial communities, but I'll be curious to hear from you whether this was a positive change.
There were no proven fish or coral pathogens in the tank either before or after treatment. I do want to add one interesting note here, though. I've previously (on R2R) described four bacteria associated with SCTLD, a disease wiping out caribbean corals. These are not proven pathogens, so theyre not shown on the coral pathogen page. Your tank had convincing evidence of one of these (the SCTLD-associated Fusibacter sp) before the treatment, and this was not detected after the treatment. If this turns out to be a pathogen, as the studies suggest it may be, then this would be an example of the product acting as it claims, but reducing the relative abundance of pathogens...
