Adding bacteria from the sea

[Paul B]

It is my belief that whatever system you run it will greatly benefit from adding bacteria from the sea. I feel that eventually, in a couple of years the bacterial diversity of our tanks will suffer and we will be left with only a few strains of bacteria many of which will not benefit our tanks.
I add bacteria from the Long Island Sound in the form of mud. I take some fresh mud and put it in a container on my substrait, after a few days I remove the mud (I only want the bacteria.
I run a RUGF so I do inject about a tablespoon of mud under there also.
My reef will be 40 years old in March and I have always done this.
I know people will want to know about paracites and diseases but I have not had a paracite in over 25 or 30 years.

How do people feel about this?

 

[JRWOHLER]

I think it is a very valid point.  They sell us "live sand", bacteria in bottles(not as stylish as yours), live rock, ect.  What your doing is an inexpensive natural way to do the same thing.  I do believe I am going to try the same thing.  Plus if it works then I can say my DSB worked.  ;D

I should note that I also have various LR, LS, and mud already.

 

[MadReefer]

Paul,
I agree valid point. How far off-shore do you collect the mud? Not sure I would trust any of the water/mud where I live. I would be concerned of contaminants from run-off water.

Mark

 

[Whitebird1]

At a club meeting at Jenk aquarium that spoke on the topic and advocated exchanging live rocks from different reef tanks as a way to keep the bacterial diversity.

Garfs site advocates their Grunge product which sounds like sand and debris from the bottom of a LR holding tank.

 

[Mbodell]

I was considering that we should do a live sand swap at a meeting sometime. As long as nobody has any worms I think it would be a neat idea.

 

[malulu]

just bewarn - some member(s) may not realized they already have red-bug, flat-worm...etc in their tank.

 

[Mbodell]

thus why I haven't brought it up.

 

[blange3]

How do people feel about this?

I'm considering it as we discussed. You also collect Natural Sea Water for the same reasons, correct?

I know you are a long time RC Icon, have any of the Semi-Scientists or real Marine Biologists weighed in on this topic?

 

[Whitebird1]

I did a search on this with regards to a possible link to local Trops mortality and was not able to find anything on this subject.

 

[SurfnTurf]

Hey Paul B, I posted this
http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=16081.msg148475#msg148475
a while ago and was referred to you!. I'm no expert, my first reef tank is only 10 months old but i had fresh and salt tanks on and off over the past 3 decades. When i decided to switch from a 12 gallon salt tank to a reef 10 months ago, I just used a basic 20g with HOB filter (chemipure) and powerheads, bought some live rock and some live sand to supplement the sand I had in the 12g. I never read anything in the past but when I started searching the web (this site is great) I was kind of blown away by all the equipment i supposedly needed. I said screw it and and just went with what I had and figured I would think about spending money on skimmers, sumps, RO units, etc. only if I needed them.

i haven't needed them and since my post above, i added live Atlantic water (from Sandy Hook in winter no less) and large coral rubble I found rolling in the surf off Miami. I have easy corals (softies, monti, hammer, favia) and a heavy bioload (2 O clowns, 1 Yellow Watchman goby and 1 pistol, 1 cleaner, 1 coral beauty, 1 firefish, mini brittle stars, snails, hermits, feather dusters, etc). The tank has experienced some explosive growth in the past couple of months especially the zoas, the goby is twice the size, the shrimp molt, the diatoms disappeared and the coraline is spreading to the tank walls.

I am no expert but I do believe in trying to get as close to the real ocean as possible.

 

[Paul B]

have any of the Semi-Scientists or real Marine Biologists weighed in on this topic?

I don't know any of them that has an old enough tank to really know. Most of this hobby is conjecture and guesswork (same thing I guess) There are not too many real facts. I do my own research and have dove with just about every animal I have ever had. I have a cousin who is a marine biologist professor and for that, he had to SCUBA dive exactly once. He has never kept a goldfish and when he looks in my tank, he has no idea what he is looking at.
I go with experience.
I can only go by my own tank and being it is so old, the practice can not be too detrimental.
I also believe that if your fish are healthy enough and in breeding condition (which means they are spawning) they rarely get any diseases including ich. I personally do not have to quarantine, but almost everyone should. Unless your fish are breeding they are not in the best of health.
We tend to think of important things in our tanks as substrait, calcium levels, phosphates, salinity, lighting water movement but it is the bacteria which performs most of the work in keeping the animals alive "long term".
Anyone can keep a tank going for 5 years. You can even get away without changing water in five years but that does not mean much. The lifespan of most fish is 20 years or more, corals may live forever. But bacteria does not. It constantly replaces itself to a point. Eventually the diversity is gone and although bacteria will cover ecverything in a tank, it is not necessarilly the best bacteria for our needs.
I don't think adding rock from someone's tank is the answer. He probably has the same bacteria. I believe we need "fresh" bacteria from the sea. The Atlantic, Pacific it doesen't matter. I collect from the Long Island Sound at low tide. Forget the pollution, it is not polluted as much as you think and a few tablespoons of mud will not pollute your tank. Sometimes my reef has been almost all Sound water.
But if that bothers you, you could go to an Atlantic beach and collect some sand underwater. It is much cleaner, of course it has less bacteria in it also.

 

[SurfnTurf]

If people are all buying live rock covered in bacteria from the ocean (at different times and from various locations in the world's oceans)wouldn't swapping that rock then provide a greater diversity of bacteria than just using mud from the LI Sound everytime? Or are you saying that the very nature of containing bacteria in a tank (even for a short time) results in a reduced bacteria diversity available to be swapped?

interesting lecture on humans being mostly bacteria here if anyone is interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfm...t20155.0.html;msg2372&feature=player_embedded

 

[Paul B]

Or are you saying that the very nature of containing bacteria in a tank (even for a short time) results in a reduced bacteria diversity available to be swapped

Thats exactly what I am saying. If you could get live rock form the sea or some that has been in the sea recently, that would be great, but rock that was in someones tank for years would not do anything. I collect from the Sound and the Atlantic because I live here. I am sure the Sound has plenty of bacteria
For those with a DSB you know they work because of the creatures tunneling through the sand allowing the water to enter. A lot of that tunneling is being done by tiny worms. These worms will not keep multiplying. The gene pool runs out and you need to replenish.
Did you ever hear of that Biosphere experiment about 20 years ago where they introduced different insects, animals and plants into a sterile biosphere?
It was a failure because eventually the insect population was mostly ants, and a lot of the plants became weeds, and that was only in operation for a couple of years.
The strongest bacteria (or insect, plant or animal) will eventually prevail.

Along with the bacteria I am also getting a "by catch" of worm larvae, copepods, amphipods and an entire assortment of microscope creatures. All of our animals came from the sea where they lived in close proximity with these microscope organisims, yes including paracites. I personally have been diving from the late sixtees and have never seen a fish in the sea with ich but I am sure they all carry it.
I like my reef to be natural, natural water, natural food, natural everything if I can obtain it and bacteria from the sea is natural.
I feel most captive reefs are much too sterile. Have you ever visited some of the places where our animals are collected? Many of them don't even have sewage treatment plants. Those places may be more polluted than the Sound "used" to be. It is not polluted anymore.
There is way more life in the Sound than you will
find in a tropical sea of the same size. The bottom of the Sound is mud, very fine mud which gets stirred up from the swift tides. This mud has always been there and because of it, the Sound has always been brown. Don't confuse the color with the health.
I have raised clownfish, seahorses, pipefish and many others in Sound water.
If you let it settle, it becomes crystal clear.
I also swim in it every week 8)
If you lift a rock in the Caymans, Tahiti, Costa Rica, Hawaii, or Australia you will likely find nothing. Lift a rock in the Sound and every nook in that rock will be covered with life.

 

[beerfish]

Wooooaaaahhhhhh....

Suggest using LI sound water (or anything else locally obtained) if you're anyone other than Paul B, and you're flamed on most boards! ???

That said, this is an interesting discussion, but I have to play devil's advocate for a minute.

The Atlantic ocean in the NY/NJ area vaires in temperature from 38-73 degrees fahrenheit (give or take a few degrees). This means that the water temperature in our tanks is generally 7-42 degrees warmer than the water in this region. While some bacteria are tolerant of temperature variation, I think that this would be pushing the limit. Temp being the largest likely variant still doesn't account for the other differences in the water salinity, and additional elements that make up the water chemistry. So what are the odds of beneficial bacteria surviving when we add them to our tanks?

Let's also take a look at what we could be potentially adding to our tanks. Let's forget about parasites and run-off, and instead concentrate on bacteria. If you've been reefing long enough, you've probably had at least one bad bacterial bloom in your tank. Think about this... cyano is a bacterial bloom, not actually an algae.

I'm not about to tell a guy that's been doing this for 40 years that he's wrong about the way he runs his reef, and I am all about doing what works for you, but I had to jump in and bring up the potential downfalls to this method.

Now... if a bunch of you jump on this method, throw an undergravel in your tanks next to a few beer bottles and keep a moorish idol alive for years... in 40 years you can say I told you so! ;D

 

[SurfnTurf]

beerfish (good name) - it sounds like you did everything by the book yet you still had a cyano bloom - have you ever tried, or known someone that did try ocean water, and failed? How do you know you would have had a worse experience if you used ocean water? Are you saying that our local water has a completely diffferent set of bacteria that lives and dies as our water changes degrees from around 40 to around 70 each year? Regardles if its different bacteria or not, our local water has bacteria that can thrive in high 70's water (and higher if you think of summer shallows temps) so it should thrive in our reef tanks too.

Again, I'm no reef expert but I haven't had a cyano bloom yet (10 months) and my diatoms went away and my coral grew after I threw in some fresh ocean water and rock and stopped doing regular water changes. Many thing besides those factors could have happened in my maturing tank (it did have old sand from a prior tank) and the cyano may be around the corner for me but I can just call them as I see them to date. I realize that there are more difficult corals to keep than I have (and maybe Paul B has?)and that those may require more sterile, controlled conditions but it's hard to argue with real world experiences for the rest.

 

[blange3]

Let's also take a look at what we could be potentially adding to our tanks. Let's forget about parasites and run-off, and instead concentrate on bacteria. If you've been reefing long enough, you've probably had at least one bad bacterial bloom in your tank. Think about this... cyano is a bacterial bloom, not actually an algae.

Everything in moderation and be patient is my response.

Add a little of the natural bacteria and wait, just as Paul's method implies. Blooms are temporary situations until a new balance is achieved, just like the cyano blooms we all live through.

Paul also ephasizes doing this in an already healthy environment which he measures by having spawning fish. I may be a bit bold, but since most of my fish are singles and my few pairs aren't spawning that I can see; I am planning on foregoing the spawning requirement based on the fact that they are all survivors of an ich outbreak.

 

[beerfish]

beerfish (good name) - it sounds like you did everything by the book yet you still had a cyano bloom - have you ever tried, or known someone that did try ocean water, and failed? How do you know you would have had a worse experience if you used ocean water? Are you saying that our local water has a completely diffferent set of bacteria that lives and dies as our water changes degrees from around 40 to around 70 each year? Regardles if its different bacteria or not, our local water has bacteria that can thrive in high 70's water (and higher if you think of summer shallows temps) so it should thrive in our reef tanks too.

At some point, almost everyone goes through some cyano (something to look forward to ;D) but I'm not talking about a single cyano outbreak. My point is just that not all bacteria is good bacteria. The bacteria that lives in our waters is likely not the same bacteria that lives where some of our fish live, and I'm not a biologist, so I can't say if it's good or bad in regard to our reef tanks.

 

[Paul B]

The Atlantic ocean in the NY/NJ area vaires in temperature from 38-73 degrees fahrenheit (give or take a few degrees). This means that the water temperature in our tanks is generally 7-42 degrees warmer than the water in this region. While some bacteria are tolerant of temperature variation, I think that this would be pushing the limit.

Beerfish you are totally correct in saying I am adding "unknown" chemicals, algae's and creatures along with possably cyano into my reef. I can't argue with that.
But I am saying (IMO) the good outweighs the bad. I do sometimes have a short red algae in my tank that looks a lot like cyano but it is not. It does not bunch up or cover corals but some people may not like it. I have also had hair algae many times over the years, I attribute that to other things and not my practices of mud or natural water. Hair algae to me is normal and natural as it grows on all healthy reefs all over the world but that is a long discussion for another thread. I have not had any in years.
As for the temperature, the tide pools where I collect mud, pods and shrimp reaches the 90s in the summer. The Sound gets so hot that millions of bunker (menhaden) die from lack of oxygen.
Bacterial blooms do not happen in my tank. I can't say if it has anything to do with mu bacteria or just luck but if something big dies, nothing will happen, no bloom. My power was out for 5 days, no bloom. I used to have a sea urchin collection business
(urchin Searchin Enterprise) and I had 24 local purple urchins all spawn in my reef at the same time. The water looked like whipped cream and my skimmer which has a 5 gallon capacity for effluent overflowed about 10 gallons. I diatom filtered the water and nothing happened. My town added zinc orthophosphate to the water system killing almost all of my corals in an hour, no bacterial bloom, just dead corals.
I believe, and not being a scientist, that it is my bacteria population that has protected this tank.

Blange, sorry but if your fish are not even exhibiting spawning behavior, they are not as healthy as you believe.
I have a 16 year old fire clown and for the first 14 years he was the only fire clown in there. For all those years after he became mature, he maintained a nest and would bite the hell out of me whenever I put my hand near it.
I have three mature watchman gobies, two are constantly spawning and the other one is maintaining a nest but the pair keeps chasing him.
Most bottom dwelling fish and damsels like clowns will exhibit spawning behavior when healthy even if alone. In this case (IMO and only my opinion) they are practically immune from disease including ich. Again, that is a long story for another thread.
My tank is no different from any one elses except that it uses a natural approach
(and a RUGF ;D) Another thread again.
Besides bacteria, of course there are other things that promote health in a captive system. To me it is marine fish oils but don't get me started on that because I could go on forever. :-X

 

[beerfish]

Let's also take a look at what we could be potentially adding to our tanks. Let's forget about parasites and run-off, and instead concentrate on bacteria. If you've been reefing long enough, you've probably had at least one bad bacterial bloom in your tank. Think about this... cyano is a bacterial bloom, not actually an algae.

Everything in moderation and be patient is my response.

Add a little of the natural bacteria and wait, just as Paul's method implies. Blooms are temporary situations until a new balance is achieved, just like the cyano blooms we all live through.

Paul also ephasizes doing this in an already healthy environment which he measures by having spawning fish. I may be a bit bold, but since most of my fish are singles and my few pairs aren't spawning that I can see; I am planning on foregoing the spawning requirement based on the fact that they are all survivors of an ich outbreak.

I'm not really saying it's a bad idea, or that it doesn't have any merit to it. Just wanted to present the other side of the argument.

 

[beerfish]

Paul,

Not to discount any of your methods, and correct me if I'm off base, but I think another important consideration is your overall husbandry. Based on everything I've read on RC, MR and here about your reef, you have exceedingly good husbandry practices in general, and spend a good deal of time working (directly or indirectly) on your tank.

Mud from the sound or not, I think it's important for people to understand that this is probably the biggest factor in your success.