Mmmm Bacteria

[dartier]

Anyone know if you can improve the nutritional value of bacteria by changing what you feed them? Kind of like how you improve Rotifiers by feeding them algae high in HUFA. I am wondering if adding aminos to my bacteria's diet will help to make them more nutritious for my corals, or make the pods that eat them more nutritious, again for the corals.

In any case the munnid isopods in my fuge are not complaining. Here they are snacking on the discharge from my bacteria reactor in my fuge.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ftzHGYA5904" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Anyway just a thought. Let me know what you think.


Dennis

 

[Subsea]

You are what you eat. Good topic for discussion. Neat video.

Please tell me more about Munnid Isopods. With respect to the "Pod Brothers", I thought cope and amphi were good for our reef tanks and in general Isopods were carniverious feeding on coral tissue.
Patrick

 

[disc1]

I am wondering if adding aminos to my bacteria's diet will help to make them more nutritious for my corals, or make the pods that eat them more nutritious, again for the corals.

Bacteria make all the amino acids they use. If there are any that are required they would already be included in your growth media or your bacteria won't grow. If there are any that they don't make because they don't use them then adding them isn't going to cause them to start.

 

[dartier]

Please tell me more about Munnid Isopods. With respect to the "Pod Brothers", I thought cope and amphi were good for our reef tanks and in general Isopods were carniverious feeding on coral tissue

You are correct, Isopods have more tendencies to be parasitic carnivores. In the case of munnids though, they are harmless herbivores. However apparently they are also partial to bacterial films!

After I made that video this morning, by the time I got home just now, they had consumed all the bacterial matter you see in the video with only a tiny portion left. The bit left was a roiling feeding frenzy of munnids.

I plan to add Nitokra L. pods at some point as I have cultured those in the past, and they have a nice planktonic stage in the water column. Hopefully they are just as excited about eating bacteria.

Dennis

 

[Subsea]

You are correct, Isopods have more tendencies to be parasitic carnivores. In the case of munnids though, they are harmless herbivores. However apparently they are also partial to bacterial films!

After I made that video this morning, by the time I got home just now, they had consumed all the bacterial matter you see in the video with only a tiny portion left. The bit left was a roiling feeding frenzy of munnids.

I plan to add Nitokra L. pods at some point as I have cultured those in the past, and they have a nice planktonic stage in the water column. Hopefully they are just as excited about eating bacteria.

Dennis

Where do you get these different strains of pods? Including a pod variety that has a planktonic larvae stage will surely help the filter feeders.
Patrick

 

[dartier]

Where do you get these different strains of pods? Including a pod variety that has a planktonic larvae stage will surely help the filter feeders.
Patrick

The only place that I know that sells them is Reef Crew. Google "Nitokra Lacustris" for more information on them. They were used in a well known study by Adelaide Rhodes on high density copepod culturing (See http://www.academia.edu/5681703/Methods_for_high_density_batch_culture_of_Nitokra_lacustris_a_marine_harpacticoid_copepod)

I have cultured them in the past and they are quite neat (being a Harpacticoid that has a planktonic stage) and easy to culture.

Dennis

 

[dartier]

Subsea, I just talked to Reef crew, they do not ship to the US. They suggested you check with www.oceanpods.com. They can supply you (or so I am told).

Dennis

 

[Aquarist007]

Hi neighbour. Really interested in your bacteria reactor. Can you provide more information
Tks
Scott

 

[dartier]

Hi Scott. It is your typical Zeovit reactor with a mod. I have it installed in my fuge, which feeds into my tank.

This particular one has a magnetic bearing so the inner cylinder floats, and would normally be pumped by hand. I filled it full of zeolites, but I doubt it really matters what you use. I may replace the zeolites with bioballs at some point as I suspect that this would be a perfect match for them.

Because I am lazy, and know that I would never pump the unit often enough, I have automated the flushing of the unit with a stepper motor attached to the top. Figuring out how to actually attach the stepper shaft to the reactor pipe was the hardest bit.

The unit spins up and reverses a directions a few times, spinning for about 5 minutes, every 3 hours.

As you can see in the (blurry) photo below, lots of bacterial sheets are produced.

To get the bacteria to grow in the reactor, I dose the vinegar in the feed line to the reactor along with a nitrate mixture (calcium , potassium and magnesium nitrate). I would have preferred to use sodium nitrate, but my source is into freshwater planted tanks so he does not carry the sodium version.

The unit has been running for a few weeks now and I am pleased with the result. I had some GHA growing on a frag rack, some frag plugs and the back glass. First the GHA stopped growing and then slowly faded away. So it is having the desired effect on the PO4 that I have struggled with for awhile now.

Dennis

 

[dartier]

Scott, here is a couple of videos that I took tonight to show you the reactor working.

This the reactor running normally with just the feed pump dislodging bits of bacteria plankton here and there. The grey discharge tube is at the top of the frame, and the white specks shooting from the top of the frame are the bacteria fragments. they are not as obvious in the video, as they are in person. A fragment exits every 4 or 5 seconds.

<iframe width="960" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/eU0wfClOmdw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

... and as luck would have it, a flush cycle started a few minutes later. Here is about a minute of the 5 minute flush cycle. While the flush is occurring it is much easier to see the bacteria being put into the water column. Watch it in full screen to easily see the particles being ejected.

<iframe width="960" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/q4oxUoKLPjI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The immediate change that I noticed is that my candy cane LPS colonies are putting out massive tentacles at night. Some of the sweepers have been 4 or 5" long! They even managed to hit a couple of mushrooms and melt them. If they could only do that 500 more times I would be a happy reefer. :uzi: the mushrooms

Dennis