Nitrospira Not Nitrobacter

[anon02]

I`ve been reading up on the nitrification process and found this http//aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/64/1/258.pdf. It is a bit of a heavy read but nonetheless interesting and informative.

For those still interested the paper offers scientific evidence that it is Nitrospira and Nitrospira like bacteria that are responsible for oxidising nitrite to nitrate in freshwater aquaria, Nitrobacter was undetectable in the same tests, which goes a long way towards explaining why some commercial filter aids are largely ineffective (but not useless), they have put the wrong bacteria into the bottles, but one unamed preparation could shorten the cycling process by 10 days (as I read it), due to the vitamins and minerals contained therein.

Perhaps one of our more knowledgable members could come up with one or two tweeks to the cycling process after reading the paper ?

 

[waterdrop]

Yes anon, lol, those are Tim's papers that some of us have had on our hard drives (so we have good reading when riding the bus) for years! His papers are indeed what inspired many of the tweaks you've been hearing from me and OM47 and others.

When you see the Nitrobacter centered species-sets in various charts and books that just means the info is out-of-date, coming from prior to the current era of information.

WD

 

[anon02]

Ooop! hadn`t noticed the date in my excitement at having found an aquarium based piece of research

Back to the drawing board

 

[waterdrop]

I remember their being 3 Hovanec articles of interest, haven't got the links handy but they should be available in searches. Be aware that there are many other tips and comments that Tim has made outside of the articles over the years, so the articles don't explain all the Hovanec refs we make at times. WD

 

[OldMan47]

There is no problem bringing up old research like Havonec's. It is one reason we have started to have a good understanding of what goes in during a cycle. As WD said, you will often find a reference to nitrobacter in the aquarium literature. Unfortunately, the nitrobacter is very well known, correctly, to process nitrogen in waste facilities that deal with sewerage. Early on, the aquarium people simply assumed the same bacteria were working in their tanks. Unfortunately that has meant lots of biological additive products that simply did not work. In more recent years, we had Dr. Havonec involved with a major manufacturer who was producing a product they called Nitro-Spira. It was a short shelf life bacterial booster that actually seemed to work if it was kept properly refrigerated until it was used. It is no longer being produced so we are back to having no proven bacterial boosters.
You will still find plenty of references to nitrobacter on the internet so don't be too surprised at that. In the meanwhile, the methods developed when people thought nitrobacter was the main bacteria have proven to work fine even though the wrong bacteria was identified. We have made minor adjustments, such as recommending that you never take ammonia above 5 ppm so that you don't develop the wrong bacteria but otherwise the former direction has held up very well.

 

[Doc7]

one unamed preparation could shorten the cycling process by 10 days (as I read it), due to the vitamins and minerals contained therein.

Actually, the product is named in the Materials and Methods section (article p. 260) and is Rolf C. Hagen's Cycle aka Nutrafin Cycle.

The article states that the nitrite levels reached a maxima 10 days earlier in the "Cycle-added" tank; I don't see it specify the difference in time it took to get the nitrites to 0 between the Cycle and Non-cycle tanks, though it does say that in BOTH kinds of tanks it reached undetectable levels by Day 38. It does say that the Cycle tanks developed a significantly greater population of nitrospira by day 16 though... this may have something to do with what I read somewhere else about adding a few drops of "pH down" or crumbled-up fish food, to add different nutrients the biofilter may require to develop faster.

 

[OldMan47]

I have used that particular preparation because I received it free at a fish convention. Yes I am willing to admit I am addicted to my fish. The result was that I saw no better response by the treated tank than I regularly see with other methods. For me, that meant it had no effect whatsoever. I spiked a new filter with waste from a cleaned filter and got exactly the response I have had repeatedly from a spike like that without the product. Since I was away at the convention, I had hoped it would accelerate the cycle on my temporary tanks but I saw no such acceleration. I still ended up doing daily 50% water changes to keep my fish healthy until the end of convention auction sale where I sold them. When I got home with my new purchases, I spent the next few days again doing huge water changes to keep all of my new fish healthy until my recently reproduced filters could catch up with the bioload. The Cycle product seemed to make no difference at all.
I have never used any "unnamed preparation". If I have real world experience with a product, why not give the details of that experience? After all, I am not a scientist that can cite huge amounts of research but I feel my own experiences, that I now allow to guide me in my hobby, should not be kept secret either.

 

[anon02]

Thanks WD, I found the other articles, I`m assuming that if any discoveries regarding vitamins or nutrients that would speed up cycling had been made they would have filtered through to the hobby by now

Doc7, I picked up on the product info on a second more thorough reading I just assumed that seeing as the nitrifying bacteria had appeared 10 days earlier that the cycle would also finish in the same timeframe (physics 101: never assume anything)

 

[Doc7]

anon02 - link to the other articles as well please? I found some of his articles on an archived MarineLand website but I appreciate the scientific paper format for some deeper reading...the marineland stuff is basically what I have read on here repeatedly (not that it hurts!)

 

[anon02]

anon02 - link to the other articles as well please? I found some of his articles on an archived MarineLand website but I appreciate the scientific paper format for some deeper reading...the marineland stuff is basically what I have read on here repeatedly (not that it hurts!)

I just googled "nitrospira" and Tims` research is one of the first offerings, there are 3 synopses with a link to the full paper (in pdf format) with each, the 3rd article is with reference to nitrifying bacteria within a marine environment

 

[Doc7]

thanks!

 

[waterdrop]

My current feeling is that there are further complications in storing, transporting and successfully re-activating both the family of Nitrosomonas variants and the family of Nitrospira variants after they have been in the dormant state.

The basis for my saying this is that initial reports of people trying the latest product that Dr. Hovanec has put out from his new company have not yet resulted in fishless cycle speedups even as much as the old success reports from single earlier USA and the single earlier UK frozen products that did work in a handful of cases. Of course, this means next to nothing because I think we've had a grand total of one report that I can remember.

The change for me is that I now believe (based on a new and totally different article I read (many apologies, I have lost the reference, as I read scientific literature multiple times a week and was lax at noting this one, hopefully I will find it again)) that these autotrophs (and I can't remember whether it was only one of the two types or both) can indeed last for extended periods in a dormant state. I was previously unsure that this was even an observed characteristic of these bacteria as it's not something all bacteria can do. This came as quite a shock to me, that indeed the dormancy capability of at least one of these two types of bacteria is quite real.

This erased some skepticism I had about the basis for Dr. Hovanec's interest. I now see a case for his interest being both scientific and business based. For me, this moves my speculation forward a small notch to wonder about other details I have no way of knowing, such as whether low-temperature storage is necessary and whether anyone really knows very many of the details of what brings the dormant bacteria back out to an active state and what environment is needed during that transition.

For me, the idea that stored bacteria may work remains a possibility but the practical reality of any of it yet working on a widespread basis remains an area of strong skepticism. Virtually all of the reports we've looked at over the years both on TFF and other sites have remained mired in wishful thinking and timeframes that remain similar to our standard non-supplemented fishless cycling technique. But the topic, for me, does remain an interesting one to try and get peeks at.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[anon02]

I have an inkling that the conditions we are providing for AOB are not optimal for NOB. I`ve looked at a lot of cycle logs, my own 2 and the Hovanec example included and on the whole the AOB are established by day 12,13,14, from then on things get unpredictable. At the moment I am helping my grandson cycle a tank which had NH3 dropping on day 13, had nitrite off the chart by day 40 and now at day 53 we have had nitrite at 0.5ppm for 4 days. Even allowing for a 36 hour division rate I would have thought that would have reduced. He has very soft water less than 1d KH and GH and I`m wondering if that mineral defficiency has had an effect

It would be interesting to see if the addition of trace minerals after the first drop in ammonia would hurry things along any

 

[OldMan47]

If your cycle seems to be stalling, especially with very low mineral content water, check your pH. A pH much below 6.5 will virtually stop a cycle completely, the actual point where it stalls completely is 6.2 pH. We have found, along with most people, that simply using some baking soda to restore the pH to a higher value will get it going again very nicely.

 

[anon02]

If your cycle seems to be stalling, especially with very low mineral content water, check your pH. A pH much below 6.5 will virtually stop a cycle completely, the actual point where it stalls completely is 6.2 pH. We have found, along with most people, that simply using some baking soda to restore the pH to a higher value will get it going again very nicely.

Hi OM47
Ph is fine at 7.8, we did a down to gravel water change a couple of days after the nitite spike to get rid of very high nitrate. We decided to add a few drops of a liquid preparation intended to suppliment minerals and trace elements for aquatic plants to see what happens