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What exactly causes BBA? Part 2 - Bacterial imbalance

I recall when I first began keeping fishes(forty yrs ago) which were large South American cichlid's.(Oscar's,Dempsey's,etc)
No plant's,no nutrient dosing in these tank's ,very low lighting but left on 24 /7.
The BBA thrived in these tanks .(other kind's too)
I over stocked,over fed,and seldom cleaned the filter's .Changed water maybe once a month or two.
As my tank husbandry improved,I lost fewer fishes ,and seldom had any algae or cyno.
Led me to believe that organic matter was big contributer.
I ain't sure nutrient's alone are the boogey man.
 
roadmaster said:
As my tank husbandry improved,I lost fewer fishes ,and seldom had any algae or cyno.
Led me to believe that organic matter was big contributer.
I ain't sure nutrient's alone are the boogey man.
Click to expand...

In this thread, the original suggestion was that heterotrophic bacteria breaking down organic matter was producing ammonia and substances needed for the BBA to thrive (e.g. Vitamin B12).

Roadmaster, I don't disagree with your comment.

What I would really love to understand now is whether unhealthy aquatic plants release organic carbon molecules into the water?

I don't think anyone on this forum would disagree that if you shine too much light onto an aquatic plant with too low CO2, you'll have trouble.

I'd love to understand what happens to the plant when the environment is no longer ideal for it. For example, does it begin to release molecules it can no longer use, to change and match the new conditions in its environment. Autumn leaves change colour due to the break down of chlorophyll as the plant adjusts to the shorter day length / lower intensity.

Rubisco is thought to be one of the most common enzymes in the world, as it is critical to photosynthesis in plants.

What I found interesting in what Fablau was saying was that too high a concentration of metal ions may be toxic to the enzymes in plants.

If high concentrations of metal ions (e.g. Mg) and bright light / low CO2 (photorespiration) can both cause the enzyme Rubisco to become inefficient, can this lead to aquatic plants releasing organic carbon molecules which the bacteria and BBA benefit from?
 
Believe I read where plant's respire protein's,enzymes, and perhaps struggling plant's would respire more of everything, than plant's in optimum condition's.
As for the link to the study, I fear it was/is way above my pay grade .:shy:
 
oviparous said:
Read the whole topic, and didn't find one mention about ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA).
According to the 2 papers below, it are AOA rather than ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) who are responsible for the oxidation of ammonia.
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Oviparous, you're correct. I'd not appreciated what a large role AOA play in comparison to AOB.

However, the question is then, do AOA and AOB respond differently to changes in the environment / aquarium?

I found this paper from Princeton University, which discusses current thinking on the nitrogen cycle.

https://www.princeton.edu/nitrogen/publications/pdfs/Ward_2015_Nitrification.pdf

In particular, I thought the following paragraphs from the section titled Environmental Factors that Affect Nitrification were relevant. This relates to both AOA and AOB:

"Several environmental factors that might control nitrification in various ecosystems have already been mentioned. They include the kinds of things that affect biological processes in general, as well as those particular to the metabolism of nitrifiers: temperature, salinity, light, organic matter concentrations, substrate (ammonium and nitrite) concentrations, pH, and oxygen concentration."

"All of the nitrifying microorganisms are predominantly autotrophs, that is, they fix their own carbon from CO2, and thus do not rely on a supply of organic matter for nutrition. This means that they are not in competition with heterotrophs for the utilization of organic substrates, but rather that they exploit a different niche. This niche involves certain ‘sacrifices’, in terms of slower growth rates (see Units of Selection). These forms of autotrophic growth are also quite inefficient, due to the low energy yield of the transformations involved. Thus nitrifiers process large amounts of nitrogen in order to obtain the energy required for CO2 fixation."

To me, this implies that similar environmental changes affect AOA and AOB and that due to the energy require to fix carbon from CO2 populations of AOA and AOB are only able to increase at a rate much slower than the heterotrophic bacteria.
 
Wondering out loud about low temp's, but maybe lower lighting and ability of cooler water to hold more O2. Metabolisim's driven more by higher lighting, and maybe too warm of water temp's for some species of the aquatic weed's.?
Lowering both, while maintaining nutrient supply/CO2 might be an interesting expieriment to retard growth of algae species but still have healthy albeit slower growing plant's.
Instead of running everything at eleven,maybe nine is optimal or lower?
 
Oviparous, you may find this link that dw1305 recently posted on a thread in the filtration section. In this study, the author found only Nitrospira but no evidence of the Ammonia Oxidising Bacteria (e.g. Nitrosomonas) they were expecting to find.

Wood has a high C/N (carbon/nitrogen) ratio, liked by heterotrophic bacteria. Good source of food for bacteria, so BBA benefits from by products?
 
roadmaster said:
Wondering out loud about low temp's, but maybe lower lighting and ability of cooler water to hold more O2. Metabolisim's driven more by higher lighting, and maybe too warm of water temp's for some species of the aquatic weed's.?
Lowering both, while maintaining nutrient supply/CO2 might be an interesting expieriment to retard growth of algae species but still have healthy albeit slower growing plant's.
Instead of running everything at eleven,maybe nine is optimal or lower?
Click to expand...

Roadmaster, I think I have read somewhere that CO2 concentration in water decreases more quickly with increasing temperature than O2. Therefore, keeping temperatures lower may help to keep O2 and CO2 in the water.

However, reducing temperature may impact on metabolism of plants and affect their health. Also, I've read that some Audouinella algae can grow equally well at low temp / low light as they can grow at high temp / high light. You may just end up with unhealthy plants, dormant bacteria and more algae if you go much below 20 deg C.

Does your aquarium go all the way to 11? Mine only goes to 10. Spinal Tap?
 
Hi all,
AndyMcD said:
Wood has a high C/N (carbon/nitrogen) ratio, liked by heterotrophic bacteria. Good source of food for bacteria, so BBA benefits from by products?
Click to expand...
oviparous said:
Through the years i had some BBA on some spiderwood, but ONLY on little pieces where there was some bark left.
Guess the bark acts like some kind of medium?
Click to expand...
I can answer this one. You can largely ignore dead wood as a source of nutrients, it has a very high carbon:nitrogen ratio, and the carbon is in the form of structural carbohydrates ("lignocellulosic" compounds) which are very resistant to bacterial decomposition (some fungi can degrade lignin, when added nitrogen is available).

My suspicion would be that the growth on the bark is either because of lack of grazing (I get BBA on exposed filter sponges, where I don't have any Ramshorn snail grazing), or an attachment issue, with the rough surface allowing initial attachment. (the same may apply to the sponge surface).
AndyMcD said:
Roadmaster, I think I have read somewhere that CO2 concentration in water decreases more quickly with increasing temperature than O2.
Click to expand...
solubility-co2-water.png

solubility-o2-water.png

That is right, but I think the differences are negligible in the 20oC - 30oC range. What the charts show is that CO2 is a lot more soluble than oxygen, and it is only the low levels in the atmosphere (400ppm against 21% for O2) which lead to low CO2 levels in water.

cheers Darrel
 
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aaron.c said:
Fablau, how are your plants now? Have you continued to see improvement in plants and reduction BBA?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Good question, thank you! Well, BBA almost disappeared on my Anubias when I started detoxing CSM+B:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1...ameters/853001-csm-b-toxicity-experiment.html

Whereas it actually increased on some wood and some substrate gravel. Someone suggested that was due to toxic stuff leaching out from the wood "feeding" bacteria, hence BBA.

Now I am still in the process to completely detox my tank from overdosing of traces, and I see it is taking some time. I will keep you posted on that. BBA situation isn't changed that much in the past 2 weeks.

But what I have learned so far is this:

1. BBA attaches to old leaves such as old Anubia leaves because something is wrong within the plant. I have observed some of my oldest Anubia leaves recover in a matter of days, changing from being almost completely covered of BBA to be perfectly clean.

2. I would add to the causes of BBA a lack "enzymes" in plants. From what I have observed and read around, toxicities, as well probably deficiencies, hinder the production of enzymes that help plants to defend themselves from pathogens such as algae.

3. Lack of Co2 is not cause of BBA, but increasing it could help plants to recover by stimulating the production of enzymes.

As I said, I am still in the process of this detox method, and I will give you a new update in a few weeks.

Thanks again for reminding me!
 
Encouraging to hear! thanks for the update.

I am embarking on a similar detox with my tank. I think I made the classic mistake of seeing plants struggle, and chucking more ferts in.

The plants didn't respond well, so suspect micro levels have soarted.

Will report back to this thread in a few weeks.
 
aaron.c said:
Encouraging to hear! thanks for the update.

I am embarking on a similar detox with my tank. I think I made the classic mistake of seeing plants struggle, and chucking more ferts in.

The plants didn't respond well, so suspect micro levels have soarted.

Will report back to this thread in a few weeks.
Click to expand...

Sounds good! Please, keep us posted.
 
Yo-Han, I got this from a study - see image below (can't remember which one right now but sure I could find it).

All other building blocks would have to be in place for it to be a fair test. Algae has a higher proportion of protein to plants. Nitrogen is important to make proteins, therefore need some ammonia / ammonium as a basic building block. Other nutrients, e.g. Phosphate, may also be required if growth isn't going to be blocked by lack of another nutrient (like EI).

uptakeofb12.jpe
 
Yo-Han, certain species of heterotrophic bacteria produce Vitamin B12. The bigger the population of these species of heterotrophic bacteria, the more B12 may be produced. The more waste organics, the bigger the population of heterotrophic bacteria, breaking down proteins to make ammonia, for algae to convert to protein. The more heterotrophic bacteria using up oxygen, the less there is available in the water. Chinese manufacturers of B12 have found that if they reduce oxygen concentration, heterotrophic bacteria produce more B12.

You are certainly going to be able over dose in terms of the amount of B12 the algae will need.

Not sure if I should wish you good luck in creating a BBA outbreak!!!
 
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