TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
Up until Dr. Hovanec et al did the research, it was believed that the bacteria in aquariums were the same as the one in waste water treatment.
After three papers between 1996 and 2001 he identified a lot of the actual bacteria in tanks. basically paper one show that the bacterier that were assumed to be there were not. The second paper researched the nitrite oxidizers and they identified the Nitrospira in FW. In order to do this they had to design the probes to detect them. The result as a patent on bother the bacteria and how to use them. The paper was from 1998. The final paper identified the ammonia bacteria involved. Because he worked for Aquaria Inc which owned Marineland the patent belonged to both.
When Aquaria Inc was acquired by a conglomerate, Dr. Hovanec chose to part ways and start Dr. Tim's. Ther company who bough Aquaria inc owned several pet companies including Tetra. The right to Nitrospira was handed to tetra and they began offering Safe Start. These were the only bottled bacteria brands which could contain Nirtospira. But this was far from the end of bew dicoveries regading the cyle and the microorganisms involved.
Sauder, L.A., Engel, K., Stearns, J.C., Masella, A.P., Pawliszyn, R. and Neufeld, J.D., 2011. Aquarium nitrification revisited: Thaumarchaeota are the dominant ammonia oxidizers in freshwater aquarium biofilters. PloS one, 6(8), p.e23281.
The above was one of the earliest ,if not the very first, paper to deal with the Ammonia Oxidizing Archaea in aquariums. However, there are a lot of papers which have since show arachaea fominate sometimes and the bacteria dominate at other. The key the the Archase is they can thrive on pretty low concentrations of ammonia. Also, I know that some time ago Dr, Hovanec began adding AOA to his produt.
But science never stands still. In Nov. 26 and Dec. 15 2015, two papers were published. This editorial Coment appears with the Nov Paper:
I stated reading papers on the cycle and things related to it about 22 or 23 years ago. I have about 100 bookmarked. If I remember correctly the dicovery of the comammox Nitrospira was done by a group of scientist who had an aquarium in the basement if their lab building. The second paper is unrelated.
The thing about this sort of research is is is not often done for the hobby related area. it is the more dollar intesive operations that need it. Aquaculture, large scale public aquariums, waste water treament and municipal drinking water facilities that have the biggest interst and the research usually favors them. A number of the people in the scientific community arre fish keepers, some life long.
Once there was a patent on the Nitrospira other companies wh wanted to compete had to use Nitrobacter in their profducts, SeaChem's Stability is a bottle of spores. But the nitrifying bacteria do not form spores.
As for the Nitrospira, not every strain does the ammonia to nitrate process. Som just do the thr nitrite to nitrate. When I first read the paper on the discovery, it showed me why Dr. H's reseaerch showed tha the ammonia bacteria we a small percent of the bacteria in a tank. I cold not make sense of that. The nitropsira discover explained it. What I could not find was information about when the comammox bacteria showed up andhow long they took to reproduce.
Here is what makes this all so challenging. There are freshwater bodies of all sorts all over the planet. Some things are present in almost all of them but in many cases the geographic region matters as to what tend to show up in tanks. Where Sauder et al concluded the AOA dominated in all tanks, her research involved tanks from the same area and university where the folks who did the paper in the original post.
The best part of doing a fishless cyles is that one can pretty much fully stock a tank as soon as the cycle is done. I see little point in doing a fisless and then gradually stocking. It turns a fishless ccyle into a d fish in one but with a jump start at the start. If the ammonia levels in a tank are reduce, this will be followed by a reduction in the number of bacteria.
After three papers between 1996 and 2001 he identified a lot of the actual bacteria in tanks. basically paper one show that the bacterier that were assumed to be there were not. The second paper researched the nitrite oxidizers and they identified the Nitrospira in FW. In order to do this they had to design the probes to detect them. The result as a patent on bother the bacteria and how to use them. The paper was from 1998. The final paper identified the ammonia bacteria involved. Because he worked for Aquaria Inc which owned Marineland the patent belonged to both.
When Aquaria Inc was acquired by a conglomerate, Dr. Hovanec chose to part ways and start Dr. Tim's. Ther company who bough Aquaria inc owned several pet companies including Tetra. The right to Nitrospira was handed to tetra and they began offering Safe Start. These were the only bottled bacteria brands which could contain Nirtospira. But this was far from the end of bew dicoveries regading the cyle and the microorganisms involved.
Sauder, L.A., Engel, K., Stearns, J.C., Masella, A.P., Pawliszyn, R. and Neufeld, J.D., 2011. Aquarium nitrification revisited: Thaumarchaeota are the dominant ammonia oxidizers in freshwater aquarium biofilters. PloS one, 6(8), p.e23281.
The above was one of the earliest ,if not the very first, paper to deal with the Ammonia Oxidizing Archaea in aquariums. However, there are a lot of papers which have since show arachaea fominate sometimes and the bacteria dominate at other. The key the the Archase is they can thrive on pretty low concentrations of ammonia. Also, I know that some time ago Dr, Hovanec began adding AOA to his produt.
But science never stands still. In Nov. 26 and Dec. 15 2015, two papers were published. This editorial Coment appears with the Nov Paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16459Editorial Summary
Time to rethink nitrification
Two groups this week report the enrichment and characterization of Nitrospira species that encode all of the enzymes necessary to catalyse complete nitrification, a phenotype referred to as 'comammox' (for complete ammonia oxidation). Until now, this two-step reaction was thought to involve two organisms in a cross-feeding interaction. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that comammox Nitrospira are present in a number of diverse environments, so these findings have the potential to fundamentally change our view of the nitrogen cycle and open a new frontier in nitrification research.
I stated reading papers on the cycle and things related to it about 22 or 23 years ago. I have about 100 bookmarked. If I remember correctly the dicovery of the comammox Nitrospira was done by a group of scientist who had an aquarium in the basement if their lab building. The second paper is unrelated.
The thing about this sort of research is is is not often done for the hobby related area. it is the more dollar intesive operations that need it. Aquaculture, large scale public aquariums, waste water treament and municipal drinking water facilities that have the biggest interst and the research usually favors them. A number of the people in the scientific community arre fish keepers, some life long.
Once there was a patent on the Nitrospira other companies wh wanted to compete had to use Nitrobacter in their profducts, SeaChem's Stability is a bottle of spores. But the nitrifying bacteria do not form spores.
As for the Nitrospira, not every strain does the ammonia to nitrate process. Som just do the thr nitrite to nitrate. When I first read the paper on the discovery, it showed me why Dr. H's reseaerch showed tha the ammonia bacteria we a small percent of the bacteria in a tank. I cold not make sense of that. The nitropsira discover explained it. What I could not find was information about when the comammox bacteria showed up andhow long they took to reproduce.
Here is what makes this all so challenging. There are freshwater bodies of all sorts all over the planet. Some things are present in almost all of them but in many cases the geographic region matters as to what tend to show up in tanks. Where Sauder et al concluded the AOA dominated in all tanks, her research involved tanks from the same area and university where the folks who did the paper in the original post.
The best part of doing a fishless cyles is that one can pretty much fully stock a tank as soon as the cycle is done. I see little point in doing a fisless and then gradually stocking. It turns a fishless ccyle into a d fish in one but with a jump start at the start. If the ammonia levels in a tank are reduce, this will be followed by a reduction in the number of bacteria.
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