acidic bacteria and co2

[anewbie]

My understanding of the entire co2 injection bit on water chemistry is a bit weak but it raised a useless thought on how this impact bacteria.

Lets say that the aquarium has normal ph 7.5 and normal bacteria for neutral alkaline conditions. If inject on a daily basis for 9 hours enough co2 to lower the ph to 5.5 does the acidic nature kill of the nitrification bacteria because the water ph has changed or is it the amount of carbonate in the water (which i presume has been unchanged since allowing the co2 to escape will restore the ph to its previous level hence kh should be the same or does this daily drop in ph cause nitirification bactera to struggle/die exposing fishes to ammonia poisoning (though in low ph the ammonia might not be accute but it will rise every evening back to an alkaline level). What about other bacteria ?>

 

[MacZ]

As with every possible situation, microorganisms will adjust and ultimately a combination of species and strains will establish itself that will be able to deal with the fluctuations. But it will take time. I would not do that transistion with fish in the tank.

 

[anewbie]

As with every possible situation, microorganisms will adjust and ultimately a combination of species and strains will establish itself that will be able to deal with the fluctuations. But it will take time. I would not do that transistion with fish in the tank.

For the sake of discussion an extreme was used. The real question i was trying to ask is whether the ph of the water actually impact the type of bacteria that grow or is it the chemical composition (kh) that is the influencing factor. I.,e is ph the sympton or the cause.

 

[MacZ]

Both are factors that are linked by chance.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Lets say that the aquarium has normal ph 7.5 and normal bacteria for neutral alkaline conditions. If inject on a daily basis for 9 hours enough co2 to lower the ph to 5.5 does the acidic nature kill of the nitrification bacteria because the water ph has changed

I don't think you need to worry. As an example if you have vegetated soft water the pH can be really variable during the diurnal cycle as the plants deplete CO2 via photosynthesis. This situation would be pretty frequent in S. America in clear water rivers etc. <"https://apistogramma.com/forum/threads/low-kh-questions.23850/#post-112078">

I'm guessing that as scientists find out more about nitrification, by looking for the genes that code for ammonia oxidation etc., that we will find that there are a huge number of differing microbes that fill every available niche.

cheers Darrel

 

[anewbie]

Hi all,



I'm guessing that as scientists find out more about nitrification, by looking for the genes that code for ammonia oxidation etc., that we will find that there are a huge number of differing microbes that fill every available niche.

cheers Darrel

It is interesting how that works out - i suppose without nitirfication aquatic life would have evolved differently - or maybe not and we simply wouldn't have had home aquariums. I mean on the surface it seems all of this is by accident but maybe there is some fundamental reason why it has to exist (if aquatic life exist). Oh well maybe this isn't the place for this sort of thought.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

i suppose without nitirfication aquatic life would have evolved differently ..... I mean on the surface it seems all of this is by accident but maybe there is some fundamental reason why it has to exist (if aquatic life exist). Oh well maybe this isn't the place for this sort of thought.

I'd guess that if you re-run evolution, you wouldn't end up with vastly differing results, mainly because of the chemical structure of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O) etc., and their relative abundance on Earth. Because carbon has four bonds and nitrogen three, they offer a huge range of possibilities of forming compounds.

The ability of microbes to fix atmospheric nitrogen evolved billions of years ago <"https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/39/9/msac181/6673025"> and that is partially why I was dubious about the traditional view of nitrification <"https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/test-reading-not-what-i-expected.60599/#post-595226"> & <"https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads...ity-of-wisconsin—milwaukee.71023/#post-711430">.

cheers Darrel