So you think you understand cycling. What about Archaea?

[Masha]

Just wen you think you know enough to be getting on with...
I thought I understood the basics of how the aquarium nitrogen cycle works. Then I read a forum post on here where somebody - I forget who it was now - mentioned Archea.

Check out this link:

https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/handle/10012/8239/Szabolcs_Natasha.pdf?sequence=1

Here is are the first few paragraphs, quoted from the linked article:

Aquarium biofilters are designed to promote the growth and activity of nitrifying microorganisms, which are primarily responsible for the removal of toxic nitrogen-cycle intermediates. Ammonia is a natural waste product excreted by fish that is lethal to aquatic life at relatively low concentrations. Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) outnumber
ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in biofilters of mature freshwater aquaria with lowammonia conditions. However, no study has investigated the early establishment of AOA and AOB within biofilter communities, especially when aquarium ammonia concentrations are elevated.

My thesis research investigated the relative abundance of AOA and AOB in
freshwater aquarium biofilters through early aquarium establishment.

 

[Mebbid]

In these papers I skip srraight to the ending. Not the best idea for movies, but it works great for scientific papers as they summarize everything they found neat and tidily.

What this means to us: very little tbh.

There is a way to look at it that fish in cycles give a better spectrum of microbial life and bottled bacteria is arguably even less effective than we thought.

However, its already proven that we can establish a fully functional bio filter much quicker using fishless methods than the fish in which would introduce the archea that is being referred to.