Bacteria vs Algae

I would like to discuss this topic
When we first got into this reef keeping thing we were told WATCH OUT MAN DON"T OVER FEED YOUR TANK? I say bull malarky, I believe people all over the world are starving there tank's to death, They say I don't know what's wrong man I barely feed those fish and coral and they are still dying? WHAT THE HE__ am I dong wrong? Well maybe you might be starving them to death.
When most of us got our first tank and put some sand, water and rock in there. When that water cleared we run down to the lfs and say, give me one of those blue damsels man, some of us said 2 or 3 We gotem home in 30 mintutes they were in that tank. They started swiming up and down the glass we said, what the hecks wrong with him or them to your wife and she said, I told you it was to soon to put those da-- fish in there, there stressing you fool. so, then we put 2 or 3 cubes on brine shrimp in there and say, they might be hungry??????
We did not really know at the time but, we just started the bacterial process, that this tank has to have to live.
1- fish and feces turned to ammonia
2- nitrosomas bacteria that lives in all water attacked the ammonia and started to populate.
3- One day we looked up and said my waters white what the sh-- is it. It was the nitrosomas spawning. in a day or two the water cleared. Then they got on everything in the tank the glass, sand, rocks, and filters the more you fed the more they were.
4-The nitrosomas expelled nitrite.
5-Another bacteria started to form called nitrobacter it consumed the nitrite and expelled nitrate.
6-Now those two bacts work together to rid our tanks of ammonia.

So in theory, the population of these two bacts are controlled by the amount of food and feces in the water. If we spare food we will have little, the more we feed the larger the population.
So,if something were to happen that releases a large amount of ammonia in our system the live stock suffer, and possible death.
I feed my live stock very well, coral and fish until I'm sure there full everyday and have no adverse actions from it.
does this make sense or am I in the wrong direction. I keep a very large population of algae clean up crews to manage any outbreak, from excess nutrients. James

 

Perhaps some people misunderstand the concept, but keeping your pets healthy and overfeeding are two different things. Making sure they get enough food is good. Throwing in a whole cube of food, 2 or 3 times per day, for just a couple damsels is bad. Most of it will end up uneaten by anything, and while the bacteria will feed on the ammonia and grow, the nitrate spike causes unnecessary stress on the tank.

But you are partly right, people do go to extremes in both directions, neither of which is good.

 

+1 to Mr. Bill. and good job to you for having a quality clean up crew, of course no one should ever think a good clean up crew makes it ok to let your excess nutrients build up. Your CuC may keep the blooms at bay but the corals and fish would be negatively impacted.

Over feeding is a killer of the aquarium, plain and simple. But everyone's tank requires different amounts and feeding intervals.

 

these are from my 220g 18 years old, most of the clean up crew i did'nt have to pay for they live in the rocks and sand and sump if i just put enough food in for the fish these wonderful creatures would die off. bristle worms alone will not be enough to clean the sand bed. you need serpent stars, spg worms, tube worms, star fish, copepods and the only way to keep them in abundance is to feed them. with these creatures + a great skimmer there's no build up nutrients. James

 

Beautiful tank- can't argue with that, but certainly you're not implying that such beauty will happen overnight if we just throw caution to the wind and purposely overfeed our tanks and ignore ammonia and nitrate spikes!

 

:thumb_up: Beautiful tank and I agree definitely we should not starve our tanks. Nutrition is well documented to be important for immune function and coloration in fish, and even resistance to bleaching in corals.

I also agree nutrients should be limited though as best as possible, without starving our inhabitants. Some nutrients such as phosphate directly inhibit calcification of our corals. Others such as nitrate, while not directly toxic, can be stressful to corals by promoting excess growth of zooxanthellae. This excess zoox growth, if too excessive, can be detrimental as it leads to stressful radical byproducts, and can also inhibit calcification as, apparently, the zoox begins to compete with the coral for intracellular inorganic carbon reserves.

I think your description of the bacterial processes are a bit overly simplified and for example, bacteria are asexual, so there is no spawning. However, I applaud your message. I think it's very important not to neglect our tanks inhabitants, just because we want to see a number on a test kit. Odds are the number isn't critical if our livestock is healthy and we should not risk the health of our livestock to obtain that number. Of course, the number is recommended for a reason, so, that is not to say reasonable efforts are not desirable.

 

I almost go broke feeding my tanks. They do eat allll the food.I feed all my fish from a baster so I can control who eats what and how much.and I target feed corals.before thr great power outage that killed off most of my fish I was feeding 4-5 cubs a day.everything was thriving even spawning.I was told I was horribly overstocked yet no unwante algae corals growing...my tank couldn't of been happier.the power outage did mega damage but it was 3 days long with no one home or able to get to the tanks....battery air pumps only last so long

 

No mr. bill it took 18 years to get this tank where it is I kill my first tank 75g fed them very little. now i feed my fish then i make sure the sand is fed also i drop some fish cuts down to the sand and they get at it ,its amazing to see how many you have in the sand. if there is a lack of algae on the glass and rock i tie nori to a rock and feed the crabs and snails they come a runing. when you see the life in the sand just feed them the more life you see the more food you use. i have a red flashlight i turn the big lights out and watch them for hours. i read a book by ron shimeck years ago and it took me down this past. they say he has zenith in is garage in gainsville fa. as big as your wrist, tube worms big as fingers he never cleans or vaccum his sand because it will hurt is population of critters ,you can say shemick was the forerunner in deep sand beds. mr. bill i enjoy chatting with ya thanks james

 

how thats what am talking about. it works it works it works thank you loneracer James



im sorry to here about your loss do you have it comming back yet?

 

I think the ocean knows better.

For example, if u go to the prettiest reef that is thriving the most and get a water sample to test ammonia and nitrate.... would u get 100 ppm, 50ppm or even 1 ppm of either of the two?I bet it all reads 0.

I'm not saying that a tank cannot adapt to higher than usual levels of a certain thing, but I have never seen a single salt water tank that does better than the ocean, so it is natural for me to try and imitate those conditions, and even if I could, there would be something else that would make me scratch my head and wonder what am I doing wrong.
Yes, feed them well. Yes, keep them happy. But do not risk possibly losing your fish and corals with a careless routine.

Bacterial colonization that can take and utilize high levels of nitrate for example, would take a reasonable amount of time to grow strong in numbers. And someone with a new tank and anxious to have fish and corals can get into big trouble feeding large amounts of food without a colony capable of processing it.


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