Great presentation Solbby

[spykes]

shaun will you be giving a speech at MACNA hehe

 

[ShaunW]

can I get a copy of the slides? I want to know how little bacteria I have in my tank .

Pierce I will email you a copy of the data from your tank. Look for it in the next couple of days, but essentially it contains 10 fold less planktonic bacteria than a natural reef.

oh, you wanted the bad too? ok, lose the fancy accent and talk like the rest of us. :tongue:

What your hearing is a modified Brooklyn accent, :p .

if you need a sperm sample, er tank sample, let me know, i'd be happy to contribute (the tank smple that is).

would you, as a result of your findings, be in favor of any of the 'bacterial additives' commercially available?

OK,

Bacterial additives do have merit, especially if they add benificial bacteria that perform nitrifying and denitrification reactions. However, live rock, fish, corals all help in seeding a new tank with bacteria. For an existing tank (mature tank) I don't see much benefit in adding bacteria UNLESS they are specific in assisting in denitrification. BUT one thing that I didn't get a chance to mention due to time is that a better approach would be to find a way to assist the bacteria in the tank to reproduce/grow more through the addition of specific supplements specific to them. In essence increasing the amount of bacterioplankton present.

 

[ShaunW]

Actually, one more question: did you take into account temperatures of the sample systems? considering that certain temps may be optimal for the bacteria?

YES we did. I asked that all samples be maintained at 4oC after being taken. This would prevent any further growth of the bacteria after sampling.

if the sample systems have temp swings day and night, it may be what affects the populations a bit.
or pH may be a variable as well.
any ideas on how quickly they generate?

sorry for all the questions. just some things that came to mind

In general I didn't see any difference between night and day in a reef tank. This was one of the surprised for me, since I would have expected difference based on exactly what you mentioned above, i.e. temp and pH. But it would seem that the swings aren't big enough to affect the total bacterial population (this makes sense actually since in reality the differences are indeed small - 80 - 84oF & pH 8.2 - 8.4 ; these differences wouldn't affect bacteria at all).

 

[cali_reef]

Thanks Shaun! Would adding some few day old NSW from the Caribbean increase the amount of bacteria in my system?

 

[Pedro]

I have always thought that blowing away detritus and suspending it is beneficial to corals to a certain extent. For one bacteria colonize these particles which when ingested by the corals help in their nutrition. After all, isn't that what marine snow is all about? A mix of detritus/plankton?

I sort of got the idea from your speech that this is true. Or am i wrong?

 

[ShaunW]

I have a question. Shaun's data showed that NSW has ten times the amount of bacteria in the water column. I wonder if the amount of bacteria living in coral is different in our tanks from what it is in nature. and is there more bacteria located in coral than you would find in our live rock.?

Who knows Jon, but it is a GREAT QUESTION!!! People wouldn't have expected my bacterial test results, so there could be differences on the rock and in the corals. In the ocean the abundance of bacteria in the mucus layer is estimated at 105-106 cfu/mL. BUT, this represents only 0.2% of the total bacterial counts from whole corals. Surface bacterial populations are estimated at 100,000 bacteria/mL. So the corals have more.

and last, shaun you stated that the bacteria in coral will break down nitrates? was that right? does that mean there are anaerobic bacteria living in the coral, or does it accomplish the breaking down of NO3 by some other means?

They won't break it down but convert it to energy by assimilatory denitrification to ammonia by nitrate reductase then incorporation of that ammonia by glutamate synthetase to glutamine. This can be done aerobically.

 

[ShaunW]

Dr. Walters,

You discussed marine snow as it occurs in the ocean. What is in the commercial product called Marine Snow?

Thanks,
Leslie

Leslie, I am not sure what is contained within the product Marine Snow, but I would be skeptical that it is the same as the real deal marine snow.

 

[ShaunW]

And do you have any recommendations on how to increase the bacterial populations in our tanks without also increasing nitrates and phosphates?

I am presently experimenting with exactly this question with my own tank. I took water samples months ago and found that it was very low in planktonic bacteria. I have been subsquently dosing my tank with various compounds used to specifically increase bacterial growth. We will see if I am able to raise the levels.

I was thinking that one way might be to dose something like phyto, but the phosphates that go along with that are problematic in the long term.

Eric and I talked about this at the swap and I gave him the answer to the problem with phyto (centrifugation and resuspension in non-phosphate containing liquid). But phyto and bacteria are different topics in regard to what I am doing.

 

[ShaunW]

What I thought might be interesting, would be to to get samples from tanks that use Natural Seawater, and see if they have a different bacterial count then someone using Artificial Sea Water.

I think Paul uses NSW in his tank.

Some of the guys from Boston offered up their tanks for testing. They have been using NSW for years. I am psyched to test their tanks. A tank like PaulB would be awesome to include also.

 

[ellebelle]

I wonder what the bacterial populations are in large scale aquariums versus the smaller scale ones that we keep. Do you think that something like water volume might also play a role in bacterial density? I'm just thinking that in a large, public aquarium, water parameters would be more stable overall and the diversity of organisms that could be kept might increase the diversity of bacteria present.

(As a side note, I think you work down the hall from one of my best friends. She's doing her dissertation work on SIV in one of the labs there. And one of my other friends just finished research there on the influence of Hox genes in vertebrate limb development. Small world. )

 

[daisy]

Shaun, I am betting that tanks that use NSW are going to look more like our tanks than the ocean because it's not connected to the ocean. I have a hunch that the way we "crowd" animals and rocks into our small oceans has a dramatic affect on the bacterial population in suspension. I am not sure about the effect on the bacterial population in the corals, as this is such a different situation - these bacteria have what they want - a home, food source... but the bacteria in solution in the ocean are searching, if you will - and what they are searching for they just won't find the same way in our tanks.

....I would be interested to see the difference between tanks of dramatically different size - like comparison of a 10,000 gal system (sea world) and a 500 gal system (Sanjay) and a 50 gal system... but truly, compared the the scale fo the ocean and the confounding of the way we stock our show tanks so differently from the way the ocean is "stocked," I'm thinking we'll still see an order of magnitude difference.

...would also be interesting to see the differene in a place like Sea World or Coral World (in eilat) where there are systems that are actually connected to the ocean!!! (can i get a grant to go take those samples for you?...)

-tahl

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

I was just about to elaborate on sugar usage when we had to leave the room............
quote]


ARRGH.... How sad I am waiting to see your more scientiffic findings about this topic since I have lost my access to a lab to do this research myself.

 

[meschaefer]

Talking about large tanks, how about Atlantis Marine World in riverhead?

 

[jhale]

even the largest tanks are still a drop in the ocean

I would think a tank that uses NSW piped into it would have much a similar number of bacteria as the ocean, seems logical to me.

 

[daisy]

Jon, i just don't necessarily agree - depends on how often water changes would be, i think, as well as all the other things that are added to the water. food, additives... so many variables!

 

[daisy]

what about places that have tanks that use sea water contiguous with the sea, like Atlantis in Paradise Island...

 

[fritz]

Then what about places like the Brooklyn Aquarium that use NSW and well I think we've all been there.

 

[jhale]

tahl, I was thinking more along those lines.
I believe the Monteray aquarium has water constantly moving in and out from the ocean they are next to. I think a constant supply of fresh saltwater would keep the bacteria count up.

one other thought, Shaun you said our tanks were starved in comparison to the reefs. well how much bacteria do out coral need to grow? Is the amount present in out tanks not sufficient? It seems my corals grow and are happy.

 

[alrha]

(can i get a grant to go take those samples for you?...)

i'll acompany you!

 

[alrha]

Bacterial additives do have merit, especially if they add benificial bacteria that perform nitrifying and denitrification reactions. However, live rock, fish, corals all help in seeding a new tank with bacteria. For an existing tank (mature tank) I don't see much benefit in adding bacteria UNLESS they are specific in assisting in denitrification. BUT one thing that I didn't get a chance to mention due to time is that a better approach would be to find a way to assist the bacteria in the tank to reproduce/grow more through the addition of specific supplements specific to them. In essence increasing the amount of bacterioplankton present.

Well the question here would be the diversity of the strains of bacteria.

Say a well established tank with little new introductions (which can reintroduce bacteria) might it suffer from certain strains of bacteria simply dying off? in which case it may not be a matter of improving the existing bacterial concentration, but rather introducing the strains which have died off.
Furthermore, might it be possible that our tank conditions can only support say 10% of the types of bacteria found on a reef and that the other 90% simply cant survive in our systems?