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Bacterial populations and the constant bickering about them. :)

Ok.  Now you guys can just keep arguing about bacterial populations and I'll
just watch my plants grow just fine without trying to kill my bacteria.
Whether you have a filter or not, the bacteria are all over your tank, in
whatever populations the nutrients will sustain.  I think it's absurd to
think that single-celled organisms have a complex enough metabolism to do
much adjusting for low nutrient levels.  I tend to think that theirs is a
digital existance.  They are living, or dying.  A complex animal such as a
rat or bear or human or fish can perhaps live on a lower nutrient levels,
slowly wasting, but surviving, but the lifespan of a bacteria is so quick,
that they can't sit in your tank, soaking up nutrients for months.  I
believe that if they don't have the nutrients to live and breed, they just
die.  Thus the population is adjusted acording to availability of nutrients.
As far as applying proof, the person who proposed the idea of overpopulation
is required to show proof.  It is not the duty of the listener to prove it
is not so.  In any case, I believe that trying to kill off the bacteria to
help the plants will be virtually impossible to sustain.  It will probably
result in unreliability, and multiple tank crashes, even if it were
feasible.

Matt
In Florida, where you don't really care about my weather.  :)

>James Purchase wrote:
>
>> No matter how much volume (or area) your bio-filter has, you will NEVER
have
>> more bacteria in it than is necessary for the amount of ammonia and other
>> waste products being pumped through it. Bacteria, like all living things,
>> require food and without it they will not reproduce and eventually their
>> numbers will stabilize at a point where each bacterium is able to get
only
>> sufficient food for its needs.
>
>I guess that depends on what you mean by overfiltered.  I think if you
>allow the bacteria population to grow to meet its nutrient supply then you
>are overfiltering the tank.  I want to reserve the ammonia supply for the
>plants and that means intentionally limiting the size of the nitrifying
>population.  One way to do that is to limit the area that the bacteria can
>populate.  That is, removing or reducing the size of the filter media.
>
>
>Roger Miller
>