I never need to add an extra filter to a going tank to be able to move bacteria. It is much simpler and easier and cheaper to just rinse out the media from a cycled filter in the new tank.
If one can add 1/4 of the needed bacteria to a new tank by rinsing out cycled media in it, and then you dose ammonia consider the following. Under optimal conditions the the ammonia oxidizers can double in about 8 hours while the nitrite ones need more like 12. So we can assume that the new tanks is not ideal and that it will take 18 hours for both types to double. But that would suggest the ammonia once m being faster will have double in more like 12 hours So, doing this very complex math
what can we expect will happen?
In 12 hours the ammonia bacteria will be at 1/2 of what is needed and in 24 hours it should be 100%. But what about nitrite? If t needs 18 hours then one would need 36 hours to double. But the nitrite bacteria are not a bit problem when fish are present because we can block the nitrite from entering the fish using chloride. We can do that with plain old salt. And the amount of salt needed is not very much. So almost any fish can handle it.
So, if we can seed a tank with at least 1/4 of the needed bacteria and archaea to make it possible to stock a tank fully in two days. And if one uses either Dr. Tim's One and Only or Tetra's Safe Start instead of Stability which contains no live bacteria you can cut the time in half to make a tank safe. The reason for this is that these two products contain a known quantity of bacteria. If you use 1/2 half of the amount needed to make a tank fully cycled. you can get it to multiply pretty fast. I am usually happy to save money and add less than what is needed to get a complete cycle into a tank and I will add ammonia to make it double, Ammonia is much cheaper than bacteria.
If one starts with the proper bacteria and then adds ammonia, this will be the fastest way to cycle a tank, period. So lets more on to the the question of dormancy. For this I will turn Dr. Hovanec. Because his research nailed down a lot of the bacterial strains in a cycled tanks, his product (and tetras) contain the right bacteria. He is also more qualified than anybody posting in this thread, including me, to know how dormancy works. But there is also a ton of science on this from other researchers. But let's look at what Dr. H. says on this subject.
So why do so many people think that nitrifying bacteria can’t survive in a bottle in the first place? The main reason is that many hobbyists have used bottled mixtures of nitrifying bacteria and have seen poor to no benefits in terms of accelerating the establishment of the biological filter in their tank. Namely, their tank did not cycle any faster than if they had not used the nitrifying bacteria. So the thinking is that bacteria were good at the manufacturing facility but once placed in a bottle, they quickly died and became useless. Of course, this scenario depends on one main factor – that the nitrifying bacteria are the right bacteria for the aquaria in the first place.
As my peer-reviewed, published research has shown, not all nitrifying bacteria are the same. The nitrifying bacteria in aquaria are different species than those in wastewater treatment facilities (which are species bottled by many companies), and are not the typical species everyone thought were responsible for nitrification in aquaria. Thus, to put it simply, manufacturers were growing and bottling the wrong nitrifying bacteria, and no matter what they were stored in or even if they were fresh from the facility, they were not going to work in the aquaria environment. So, in reality, the bottle had nothing to do with it.
Does that mean nitrifying bacteria can last forever in a bottle? No, they cannot, but they can last for a while. And by “last,” I mean start to working quickly once poured into the aquarium to start getting rid of ammonia and nitrite (“last” does not mean live or die). Based on my research and experience, assuming the bacteria are the correct species, the nitrifiers can last for up to one year in a bottle. This assumes the bottle (and the bacteria) were not frozen (that’s a sure killer because it breaks the cell wall) or exposed to temperatures above 104°F for very long (a day or so). Think of the nitrifying bacteria in a bottle as a group of rechargeable batteries that are slowly losing power. They have a full charge for a while, then slowly the power starts to drain until after a year, there is very little power left.
from
https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/blog/nitrifying-bacteria-arent-human/
Now for the science from other researchers:
Joke Geets, Nico Boon, Willy Verstraete, Strategies of aerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria for coping with nutrient and oxygen fluctuations,
FEMS Microbiology Ecology, Volume 58, Issue 1, October 2006, Pages 1–13,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6941.2006.00170.x
Abstract
In most natural environments as well as in engineered environments, such as wastewater treatment plants, ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) experience fluctuating substrate concentrations. Several physiological traits, such as low maintenance energy demand and decay rate, cell-to-cell communication, cell mobility, stable enzymes and RNAs, could allow AOB to maintain themselves under unfavourable circumstances. This review examines whether AOB possess such traits and how these traits might offer advantages over competing organisms such as heterotrophic bacteria during periods of starvation. In addition, within the AOB groups, differences exist in adaptation to and competitiveness under conditions of high or low ammonia or oxygen concentrations. Because these findings are of importance with regard to the ecology and activity of AOB in natural and engineered environments, concluding remarks are directed towards future research objectives that may clarify unanswered questions, thereby contributing to the general knowledge of the ecology and activity of ammonia oxidizers.
from
https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/58/1/1/468326?view=extract
Rather than fill the thread with more Abstracts I will cite a few more studies and just offer a link:
Bollmann A, Schmidt I, Saunders AM, Nicolaisen MH. Influence of starvation on potential ammonia-oxidizing activity and amoA mRNA levels of Nitrosospira briensis. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2005 Mar;71(3):1276-82. doi: 10.1128/AEM.71.3.1276-1282.2005. PMID: 15746329; PMCID: PMC1065156.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1065156/
Wang, X., Zhang, H., Yang, F., Wang, Y. and Gao, M., 2008. Long-term storage and subsequent reactivation of aerobic granules.
Bioresource Technology,
99(17), pp.8304-8309.
https://www.academia.edu/download/52659853/j.biortech.2008.03.02420170417-3454-117ylis.pdf
French, E. and Bollmann, A., 2015. Freshwater ammonia-oxidizing archaea retain amoA mRNA and 16S rRNA during ammonia starvation.
Life,
5(2), pp.1396-1404.
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/5/2/1396
It can all be summarized as follows:
The bacteria can survive starvation conditions by going dormant. How long they can last this way and still remain viable for seeding a tank or bringing it back to its previous state depends on several factors. The most important is how well fed they are when they go dormant. The better this state is is, the longer they can last and the faster they can recover. But there are multiple strains of bacteria in our tanks and research has shown they have differing recovery times.
As a rule the longer the bacteria are dormant, the more time is will take for them to recover to the same oxidizing capacity the colony had when it went dormant. So, a tank without fish or an ammonia source (or oxygen, inorganic carbon etc.) cab wake up and recover, but it matters how long they have been dormant. The biological processes slow dramatically but there will be a loss o bacterial number over time- aka decay rate. Some number of cells will die very day. This means the time will come when there are not enough cells left to resume nitrification at the same levels as when they went dormant.
For us this means a tank with no ammoia can be fine for a number of months in terms of recovering farily fast when ammonmia returns. But this will depend on what shape they were in when they went dormant. For healthy well fed bacteria this means we can leave a tank without ammonia for some time and have it recover pretty fast.
However, it is also important to understand that dosing a bit of ammonia now and then means you will not have the bacteria going dormant. Instead, the death rate will exceed the repdroduction rate by enough to bring the colony size into balance with the food source. For us that mean no ammonia will keep the dormant colony in better shape then adding small amounts of ammia as what that does is cause the bacterial number to decline raher than to go dormant
What I can report anecdotally is when I run my biofarm to cycle mu;tiple filters or if I have a fully cycle ank with no ammonia production, I will add ammonit 2 -3 times a week and can keep the tank or filters fully cycled. By I am adding a full dose of ammonia not a reduced one. if I reduce then the result will be will cause the bacyerial numbers to decline. The reason I cycle filters rather than tanks is it is much easier to feed one tank with a lot of ammonia than to have to dose smaller amounts into multiple tabks.
In multiple tanks I need to water change in them all to minimize nitrate accumulation. In the bio-farm I change water mmore often but in only single tank. This takes less time and less water.
So, if you want to have the bacteria go dormant and survive for the longest amount of time, do not add ammonia or anything that will make ammonia until you are ready to resurect the tank so you can add fish fairl quickly. You will know your dormant ammonia has woken up and then to how well it has recovered by how long it takes to process a full ammonia dose, It is easy to determine this, just test for ammonia.
I should add that I do not change water every dayin a tank with no fish etc. as suggested above, I change it at most weekly and more often less frequently. I also wonder how many potental pathogens may arrive with our tap water. And pathogens usually have to have a certain concentration in the water before the immune system of fish cannot protect againt them. it depends on the fish and the specific pathogens.
in there and be prepared to dilute and reduce them.
