Where Does The Bacteria Come From?

[The chilly dipper]

Hi Guys

There are things called bacterial endospores (amongst many others) that are resistant i.e. are hard to inactivate by any normal means. (wet heat dry heat, ethylene oxide,VPHP etc).

These spores (as mentioned by Melatonin) can "survive" many thousands of years in abnormal conditions, just waiting (not literally) for the right conditions to be present.. These are 1. Nutrient source 2. Degree of warmth (for most not all) and 3. water(moisture)

Take the Island of Gruignard (someone correct spelling please) off the coast of Scotland. This place was contaminated by HMG when conducting bacterial warfare studies on anthrax (Bacillus anthracis). The spores are so resistant that many years (30+) of trickling formaldehyde solution through the soil has only just rendered the island less than lethal in certain areas.

All a bacterium as a vegetative cell (techy term meaning normal cell) or as a resting stage (techy term meaning spore or similar) needs is the right conditions and boom there you are, they proliferate (how this is done varies and isn't necessary to the explanation) at an amazing rate. some can double their number ( given suffient amounts of 1,2,and 3) every 30 mins or so...

Basically, bacteria and algal spores , yeasts and mould spores etc are microscopic organisms that exist everywhere in nature. There are almost no environments (outside of a lab) in which you cannot isolate these organisms.
All they need is 1,2, and 3 then bingo.

As an aside ... there are more bacterial cells in you and on you (called commensal organisms) than there are human cells making up your body. (bacterial cells are much smaller than mamalian ones). These normally exist in a kind of stasis or dynamic equilibrium (population dynamics vary from person to person), when something unusual happens or the conditions change the population may grow of one type or another, this often results in an infection(uncontrolled growth etc).

and this is how the good bacteria in our filters and gravel occur.

i hope this is of some use or interest to you guys

 

[The chilly dipper]

 

[hanny93]

Well done dipper, i think even though it may seem a bit confusing at first, after a proper read it may help newbie's to understand exactly what the filter bacteria are!

Just out of interest, why did you decide to write this up?

Oh and v. interesting about those anthrax baceria.

I love learning about biological things, hence why i study biology, i just wish i didnt have to do the exams!

 

[waterdrop]

Excellent post! Thank you chilly dipper! I quite agree with it from what I've read and studied.

A couple of confirmations and amplifications from stuff I've read:

Our two specific genetic groups, Nitrosomonas spp. and Nitrospira spp. (bacteria vary so rapidly that it can be misleading to think of them as a species at a given moment in the same sense as many other things we study) are indeed among the bacterial types that can be found in spore-like states. Incidently, the ratio of spore to vegatative state instances we find in a particular sample of tap water is thought to be a contributing factor to the speed of cycles (in addition to the overall numerical presence of either of course.)

About the amazing proliferation (division) rates: within this thought it is good to be aware that bacterial species do vary quite a bit as to rate. The typical "bacterial bloom" one can see in a tank are an example of heterotrophic bacteria multiplying at some of the fastest rates. By contrast, our two autotrophic species we want to grow in our filters are among the very -slowest- of dividers!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[james_fish]

A good, interesting read!

Cheers, James.

 

[The chilly dipper]

boredom is everything lol

 

[The chilly dipper]

nice addition WD.
BACTERIA still remain a mystery to me lol

no ammount of research will ever get me to understand the dynamics,chemistry and biology involved in somthing like bacteria.

interesting stuff about the speed of cycle and spore water.
im glad its not just me who has a little knowledge in this feild although i did do a little infosponging to this article.

the bacteria that live in our filters ect, are among the miricles of life .
almost as if "god" wanted all life to balance things out.
fish hate ammonia-nitrospira love it
we hate bugs -spiders love them

it is this ecosystem of all things that made me look into this topical.
furthur more,the very fact that fish can breath underwater is an evolutionary question in my opinion.

i wonder what they're pourpose was before they were water borne???
and these bacteria too...
what conditions cause them to thrive,why does ammonia never get dissipated and turned into nitrite inside its original bottle?

the answers to these questions are varied on knowlege and speculation.

now this does introduce a new concept..
binary fission.
in order for our tanks to be safe for our fish we need alot of bacteria consuming the ammonia and nitrite.
in order for this to happen the bacteria must reproduce or multiply.
binary fission is the name given for this process.

the bacteria or cell will open up a replication bubble.
here the dna is split by a process of semiconservative replication.
without getting too technical,the cell or bacteria splits its dna,the cell wall elongates and a sister cell is produced.

using a collection of proteins in the heart of the nucleus or dna.
this ,however,is not an alien concept.much the same as you turning the tv on.
you flick the switch,and in turn the energy released makes pixels.

the protein is the boss in this reaction of bacteria.

i know this is a vague subject and i have touched on it very very lightly but i urge anyone to have a read and try to understyand the biology of the ecosystem we all create in our fish tanks.

this is nitrospira, our friendly neighbourhood bacteria.

 

[The chilly dipper]

i have more on this soon !

 

[The chilly dipper]

I am Bumping this thread just incase you guys want to read it, i have been absent for a long time and wish to help you new guys out there

 

[keastclan]

lol, as a microbiologist (bacteriologist) I love reading this post. Especially as I am a fish novice. 

 

[The chilly dipper]

lol, as a microbiologist (bacteriologist) I love reading this post. Especially as I am a fish novice. 

was it accurate ? can you add to it at all ?

im glad you like it

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Unfortunately, it does not apply to the autotrophic nitrifying bacteria. These bacteria do not form spores. The enter our tanks via the water supply system and are alive when they do. They are most likely to arrive in bits of their bio-film which has been sheared off a surface by current.
 

 
Many think that nitrifying bacteria cannot live in a bottle and will say the reason is because nitrifying bacteria don’t form spores like other bacteria. This is a half-truth. Nitrifying bacteria don’t form spores, but that doesn’t mean they can’t last in a bottle (think about it – if nitrifying bacteria could not survive poor conditions, how would they have survived for millions of years?)

From Dr. Timothy Hovanec, Ph.D. microbiologist responsible for identifying the nitrifying bacteria at work in aquariums.
 
Also- the Nitrospira are not the ones which consume the ammonia, rather they consume nitrite. It is Nitrosomonas that oxidize the ammonia.

 

[the_lock_man]

i have more on this soon !

 
Good job I didn't hold my breath waiting!!!!!!

 

[snazy]

Interesting read. Thanks guys.
 
Also, when it comes to fish tanks, no one mentioned the available research suggesting that it's not bacteria but archaea predominant in our aquarium filters.
 
http/www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0023281

 

[TwoTankAmin]

snazy- that study is not particularly valid for a number of reasons. The first is lie it is based on. The authors claim that it was the failure of the Hovanec team to identify the ammonia oxidizers which led them to conduct this research, the problem is they cite the very study in which Hovanec et al did identify them. It is their reference #7 in the 2nd paragraph of the paper. But later they then cite his initial paper from 5 years early where the ground work for discovering the exact AOB was done. this basically said what folks thought was doing it was not and it took another 5 years to identify it.
 
This is how they described that paper which is titled "Identification of Bacteria Responsible for Ammonia Oxidation in Freshwater Aquaria"

 
Subsequent studies determined that Nitrosomonas spp. could indeed be enriched from freshwater aquarium biofilters [7], suggesting their potential involvement in ammonia oxidation under in situ conditions.

 
 
1. The peer review process for that part of the PLOS company is a joke, imo.
2. Some of the methods in that paper are not well controlled. Look at some of the tank numbers in depth and how they tested. Look at the fact that many of their samples came from tanks in places where there are 0 controls for cross contamination between tanks.
3. If this were a truly ground breaking piece of research, it would be cited someplace meaningful. Consider that Dr Hovanec et al produced 3 papers on nitrifying bacteria in aquariums. A quick check of Google Scholar shows the first paper being cited in 159 other articles and research papers, the second one is cited 143 times and the third 67. Then look at that PLOS One paper- 7 citations- one of which is by the lead author in another paper she later wrote- so she is citing herself. Another is from a film company.
4. There is a ton of other research which questions a lot of this study as well- I have about 15 bookmarked so far.
5. The methods used to reach conclusions about ammonia nitrification have relied heavily on counting genes for amoA- these directly relate to the conversion process, however more recent work has challenged this method. It presumes that all these genes indicate nirtification happening. But research shows the Nitrosomonas appear to be able to ramp up their oxidizing capacity significantly before needing to reproduce. This is not the case for the archaea. If you want to know more about this look into "ammonia monooxygenase".
6. The real truth about the bacteria vs archaea, from what I can see, will relate to how much a single archaea can convert vs what a single bacterium can convert. Think of in terms of how one nitrosomonas can convert what it takes a million or so hetertrophic nitrifyers to do. Because the AOA can only handle the lowest level of ammonia and because they can process so little on an individual basis, there must be a lot more of them to do the same job, so more amoA genes will be there to be counted- but the more genes does not equal more ammonia processing by the archaea.
7. Most studies seem to indicate the archaea do best in the lowest ammonia environments and also the lowest oxygen levels. There is an evidence that higher oxygen and ammonia levels may inhibit them. At the very least the favor the bacteria over the archaea.
 
While the archaea discoveries are quite significant in terms of global nitrification cycle, they are far from being so in terms or aquariums and especially fw ones.
 
The gist of this all is the whole archaea being the dominant ammonia oxidizers in aquariums is far from being certain. I have yet to see another study involving aquariums which comes to such conclusions.