Grown your own: Nitrosomas and Nitrobacter

[smidoid]

I have an idea: growing nitrosomas and nitrobacter OUTSIDE the tank (in concentrations of nitrate and nitrite that would be toxic to fish) to see what happens and possibly use them to innocuate the system. Before I go into detail:

1) Has anyone else tried this? And what were the results.
2) Any other thoughts?

[Steven Pro]

There are people who have done what we call inorganic cycling, basically cycling a tank without fish using bottled ammonia.

[smidoid]

That's a start, Steven. What I was hoping to do was to accellerate the growth of the bacteria in order to have them ready at a moment's notice - or to increase the available load in the filters.

[Steven Pro]

You can do that. The more ammonia you add, the more bacteria you culture.

[smidoid]

Nice. How about this then. If we can culture the anaerobic ones in sufficient numbers, are we then able to recyle our old water rather than having to constantly water change with new RO/DI water?

Incidentally, are the same bacteria in fresh water?

I'm interested in desalinating some of my "mature" water to use as topup water, but the only way I know of doing that is by evaporation and that's likely to kill any beneficial bacteria and remove some nice chemicals.

[Steven Pro]

The bacteria in saltwater are different than the ones in marine. If you want to get really into it, Dr. Hovanec has written some very detailed, peer-reviewed studies on aquarium nitrifying bacteria. You should be able to still find them on Marineland's website.

[smidoid]

Yeah. That makes sense - even bacteria have to balance the osmotic potential. I'll take a look there now. I note he's mentioning Nitrospira as opposed to Nitrobacter. Neat. I'll have to digest that now. Thanks again for the head's up.

[smidoid]

Ah - so what we should be writing is Nitrospira NOT Nitrobacter. This gets wilder by the moment. If these cultures in a jar are nitrobacters, little wonder they don't work!

It just makes me think that if we can get a jar of the right stuff (even at home) then we can collect mature water, oxidise the nitrite and then (in another chamber) denitrify back to nitrogen which will vent to the atmosphere.

This is all just speculation - and I'm suggesting something that would be done outside the aquarium as a means of re-cycling maturated water. Maybe it's a pipe dream, maybe not, but what a dream!

[Steven Pro]

Do you want to try to culture nitrifying or denitrifying bacteria?

[smidoid]

Both would be handy, but the anaerobic ones are probably more useful outside the tank. My head is currently messed up right now, so getting the right name is alluding me.