For what it’s worth I’ve also seen some stuff that suggests heterotrophs suffocate out nitrifyers when there’s enough organic stuff in the water. Heterotrophs are said to be 1000 times less efficient at ammonia reduction, but they multiply so dang fast.
It’s just a observation, many systems at a later stage start to depend on Carbon dosing to keep nitrates at bay. The heterotrophic bacteria that thrives under carbon dosing will also utilise ammonia, leaving less available nutrients for nitrifying bacteria. In addition I believe most of what we feed is rich in C that once again theoretically will leave nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria with less available nutrients and reduce their population that way.
That’s another thing @Garf that leads me to believe they getting replacement at a later stage, nitrifying bacteria takes up to 16 hours to duplicate and it seems that carbon heterotrophs can multiply much faster am not aware of a nitrifying bacteria bloom to ever been witnessed.
Heterotrophs can dominate a biofilm and compete for the oxygen. Agreed. They also generate NH3 and CO2 for the autotrophs to use. So the question is at what point do heterotrophs remove too much oxygen and wouldn’t that also be the point where anaerobic conditions start to develop? In other words, the system is probably going south, not simply nudging the nitrifyers out of the biofilm. We need to also consider the role of algae. They could be a problem depleting NH3.
It does makes sense, I don’t think we are losing anything for most in the process of replacing the most abundant species of bacteria at the beginning of the tank by other that will in a effect be more efficient at balancing nutrients at a later stage as carbon consumers heterotrophs can utilise P. My thinking here is would some of the most hard to keep corals in our hobby somehow benefit from keeping nitrifying bacteria as a dominant species. Taking that the replacement process will happen eventually wether we like it or not.
I don't wanna be the science ****. But Nitrifying bacteria, the ones that "cycle" your tank, are autotrophs. Dr Tim's word. Specifically:
May be wrong but autotroph need inorganic carbon to do they’re processing I don’t believe nitrifying bacteria need that. May be wrongI don't wanna be the science ****. But Nitrifying bacteria, the ones that "cycle" your tank, are autotrophs. Dr Tim's word. Specifically:
- Nitrosomonas aestuarii
- Nitrosomonas halophila
- Nitrospira Marina
There’s at least a few folks on here that add some vinegar while cycling, hope they chime in.
Look at the second slide...
Not just in those cases imo as soon as we start adding live foods to a aquarium Carbon will start to be available, and heterotrophic bacteria could start to outcompete nitrifying bacteria, making heterotrophic bacteria the dominant species after a tank is cycled.
It still doesn’t make the question wrong, even if nitrifying bacteria are chemolithotrophic, heterotrophic bacteria can still remove they’re main food source wend carbon becomes available after the initial nitrogen cycle.
Perhaps you could badger @MnFish1 to do another experiment, this time adding ammonia and a carbon source.
The experience already have been done by me @Coxey81 and @MnFish1 the lit rock outperform the dark rock by 4 times if my memory is not wrong meaning that heterotrophic bacteria has a bigger role in controlling ammonia in a established tank compared to nitrifying bacteria.
Light would need to be taken out of the equation I believe, in case photosynthetic stuff is consuming the ammonia.
I believe that was suggested during the test we done by @Lasse although after scrubbing the rock under chlorinated tap water the lit rock would still outperform the dark rock. If there was any photosynthetic algae in the rock (there wasn’t) it would of died during the freshwater rinse
