How long will beneficial bacteria live in a fish less quarantine tank?

cgdcinc

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I am going to set up a 5 gallon QT for my 29 gallon main display. Seed it with bio media from my main display. How long will the BB live in an empty QT? No fish no inverts. Do I have to re seed it and cycle it every time I QT something if the QT has sat fallow for a period of time?
 

brandon429

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With hydration any set in bacteria will remain

The biggest misnomer in reefing is that we have to feed them and they don't have any adapted means of getting feed from the natural world without our help. The notion of bacteria being adaptive vs weak sets the boundaries for tank cleaning, moving tanks, quarantine procedure etc I find it fascinating

Aquarists control timing and ramp up of the cycle with feed additions, ramp down was set by the millennia. Even the ramp up isn't controlled beyond the timing aspect by aquarists, hydration equals live sustained bac and they self seed from the natural world

They aren't getting fed for one year as they sit hydrated in a bottle of cycling bacteria on a retail shelf...

The digestion test is the definitive measure. Any suspect tank can be zapped to 1ppm using salifert ammonia test not API, then measured 24 hours later on salifert to see if zero ammonia.
 
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cgdcinc

cgdcinc

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That seems to make sense. Especially the bacteria in a bottle statement. So I will set up the QT seed it with media and a couple days before I think I will need the Qt I could do the ammonia and test to see if the bacteria is still there and active. Thanks for the feedback!
 
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cgdcinc

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I just read your article on "Ghost feeding is a myth" great article. This is exactly the answers I was looking for on BB in our tanks. Thank you.
 

PatW

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I have run a QT tank for about 4 months with no fish and no feeding and it was fine. Bacteria are notorious for being able to survive for long periods in barren conditions. In favorable conditions, their populations can double every few hours.
 

t5Nitro

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Bump for a good thread with helpful insight. I added live, nitrifying bacteria to an unestablished tank with dry sand and dry rock and had the question of how long the bac can survive without feeding the tank or adding livestock.

Sounds like we don't need to intervene with anything and the bac population will be fine.
 

brandon429

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That's still untested territory because no feed is provided, the trace feeding from the home environment is enough to get a cycle going after a very long time but it's not like the first example up top because he provided used biomedia which is full of bioslicks and organic waste feed complexed in them, it's sticky traps for current feed + feed input from a home, that one stays full power

Nobody has tested what happens if you add bottle bac to a dry system, open topped, with no feeding at all. We don't know if the same expiration date from the bottle bac still holds, as they swirl around in low/ no feed tank water, or do they bloom and die back, we don't know unless someone with a seneye studies it

Since this thread was posted, Dr. Reef did an interesting side experiment he and I tracked in direct messages. He put dry biomedia in a vase, saltwater, bottle bac with no feed and put a lid that sealed tightly on the vase

I had him poke one pinhole in the lid, the tiniest possible inlet for home bacteria, and my bet was just that little hole was enough to keep the system fed

It was not ;)

At the end of 14 mos he tested the system and all the filter bac were dead/ non functional

It wasn't enough to feed them, I learned a new limitation on water bacteria that day~

Contrast that finding with this: page 98 onward in Dr Reefs bottle bac thread, the total opposite. MSteven1 demonstrates the true unassisted marine cycle at four months... dry rock, water, no feed no bottle bac but 100% open topped is cycled in four months


I expect your findings to fall somewhere in the middle but we just don't know until it's tested with a seneye.
 

t5Nitro

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Should I be adding Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride? Few drops. Or just add some old biomedia? I did put an old media bag of GFO in the new sump. I was going to throw in an old filter sock from the holding tank today.
 

brandon429

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Do a ground up pinch of fish food, its the best fuel match per studies from Dan, Taricha and Dr. Reef


those bottle bac strains like carbon, ammonia gives none. When we do ammonia only it still works, environmental carbon gets in via trace means, homes have carbon flecks all around, but fish food boosts it
 

OnePuffMan

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Apologies if I am being extra dense (still waking up), but I can use my old QT tank as a "acclimation tank" for shipments from Dr. Reef without too much worry even if it's 4 weeks between orders, correct? My thought is to increase the salinity over a week and get them used to eating foods before putting them in the DT. Feel free to let me know if that's a bad idea, though.
 
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