Interesting Observation

[jdegrasse]

I'm planning to experiment with lettuce starting this weekend.

I don't think the lettuce will absorb the SELCO if you ripped the leaves. You'll need some of the stem intact. I'm thinking about how they add color to carnations. You can use food coloring to test that.

Besides, bacteria only absorb what they need via feedback loops. I don't think one can make a more nutritional bacteria by giving it vitamins (though it may produce a larger bacteria bloom, which may not be a good thing). Just the presence of an easy food-source alone should suffice for bacterial growth.

Good luck!

 

[GrahamJr]

My personal back ground is in designing and building very large plants to use bacteria to convert human waste into soil. The nutritional requirements for bacterial is very complex. They evolve to eat the available sources of food. Unique stains of bacteria are grown to consume highly hazardous waste in bioremediation. Bacteria have been used to process sewage in municipal plants for nearly a century. Industrial plants and food processors have also used them in increasing quantities during the last 20 years to reduce the amount of organic pollutants they dump into rivers or sewer systems. Bioremediation has been applied at numerous sites where petroleum products, pesticides, chemicals used to preserve wood, toluene, a carcinogenic organic compound, found in gasoline, adhesives and household solvents, mercury, and other toxic substances have dripped or been dumped.

In the last few years, however, an explosion in research on the astonishingly diverse world of microbes and a growing awareness of the costs and limitations of other waste-disposal technologies have nudged bioremediation beyond its historic nich. Researchers have discovered that certain species of bacteria can even attack metals, inorganic chemicals and compounds containing chlorine - wastes once deemed impossible targets for bioremediation...even nuclear waste.

The interesting thing is the main way the bacteria to do this is developed. As an example, DuPont may have a highly toxic waste in a lined holding pond that has been produced from a manufacturing process. It could be a form of arsenic. To develop a bacteria for bio remediation of arsenic you would sample around the sides of the pond looking for existing live bacteria, that has already evolved naturally and likes the taste of arsenic. Narrow the field down to the hungriest arsenic bacteria and then multiply them in a lab. When you have grown billions you would let them loose to feed on the pond waste.

Don't under estimate the power of bacteria. It's what this world runs on. Without it we humans would be dead in a few days.
Now let's get back to finding a strain our coral may love that comes from a leaf of lettuce.:inlove:

 

[seapug]

I was looking up the nori the other night, and the "processing" is just shredding a drying. As far as I could find the standard practice is just to shred the initial algae into pieces and press/dry them into sheets with no added chemicals. Therefore for the most part the nori should be organic.

Agreed. I'd think you'd likely to find far more chemical residues and potential pathogens on a terrestrial farmed vegetable than a dried seaweed product.

 

[Lwhite]

I plan on giving this a try this weekend. I'm thinking I will put it in the display and see how much the snails attack it, otherwise it should work just fine down in the sump I think if the use is for organic carbon.

 

[jdegrasse]

Don't forget the bacteria that live at high pressures or high temperatures. Stresses that require unique solutions for survival. I'm with you on the probiotics. My point was simply that if you pour Selcon on poop, the bacteria probably does not convert it to soil any faster.

 

[jdegrasse]

Timely article!

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blo...ire-saving-corals-from-bacteria-with-bacteria

 

[GrahamJr]

Timely article!

Good article on a most complex topic.

Thinking about the Nori to replace lettuce leaf..... I don't know if Nori, being seaweed/ocean algae, will be broken down as easily or as fast by bacteria. The lettuce works well because it virtually dissolves over about a week putting a lot of bacteria into suspension in the water column, which is the idea. Anyone trying Nori let us know how it works out.

 

[Lwhite]

Truth to that ^^. Thought that just crossed my mind relative to the nori as well. If it is a compressed product, it could theoretically break apart without actually rotting away/being decomposed by the bacteria. Vs the lettuce that is one solid piece and requires trauma/decomposition to break apart.