[tsinkoy]

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a talk on flow cytometry and the big wide ocean given by Michael Sieracki, a marine biologist from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. Now, flow cytometry is a technique used for counting, examining, and sorting microscopic particles suspended in a stream of fluid (from wikipedia).

The marine ecosystem is fundamentally microscopic. The activity of marine microbes control the different biological cycles involved in a marine ecosystem. In the 1970s, the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, was mapped across all the oceans of the world using flow cytometry, and at that time, it was thought that this was the most abundant species known on earth. In 1988, with better flow cytometers, the cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus was discovered. Prochlorococcus was found out to be more abundant than Synecchococcus in the open ocean at aorund 100,000 cells per milliliter of sea water.

Now, you ask, why the hell is he writing all these things?

Well, I am in the midst of establishing my home aquarium (a 75G FOWLR). To make the mini-ecosystem in the aquarium work, the parameters and composition of the waters (among others) has to approximate very closely ocean waters.

Working in a flow cytometry facility, I have a few questions that I want to answer.

1) Do home aquariums have the same microbial composition as ocean water?

2) Is there a difference in microbial composition between ocean water, water from an aquarium that used freshwater supplemented with salt, and water from an aquarium that used natural sea water (whether bottled or not)?

3) Is there a correlation between livestock health and microbial composition in a home aquarium?


The first two questions can be easily answered, as all it involves is taking samples and running them and comparing. The third one might be a little difficult, because livestock health is arbitrary and can't be judged by just one parameter (dead or alive, or something).

I'm trying to see if anyone else has studied this, or if anyone here has encountered studies that looked at this. And, if there haven't been any studies on this, if the good people on MR would like to help answer these questions by giving water samples and answering a small questionairre.

Right now, I am just looking at the feasibility of doing this... uhmm.... experiment.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

	Manhattan Reefs Manhattan Reefs, the best aquarium community on Planet Earth!

[prattreef]

Contact Solbby on the site who has done some initial work on bacterial loads in our aquariums.

[Josh]

Right up Solbby's alley!

[ShaunW]

Here is a thread I started awhile ago. I did indeed obtain samples from different reef systems and analyzed them microscopically.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/...-analysis.html

I also gave a talk about it at the last fragswap.
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/...on-solbby.html

[tsinkoy]

Thanks! I read through the threads. However, it doesn't answer my question on whether the compositions are similar or not. The way Solbby characterized the bacteria is one way of doing it. Quantitatively, it was found that aquarium systems have less bacteria than natural systems.

However, even if there's less bacteria, I didn't whether they looked at the relative numbers of the different cyanobacteria present. If they did, I missed it. It is possible to look at these different populations, by looking at relative sizes, and looking at their fluorescent properties.

Right now, I am trying to see if I can detect anything in my water using the equipment we have in the lab. ( I have the full support of my boss). If this hasn't been studied yet before, is anyone interested in pursuing this?

[GreshamH]

With out talking to our scientists to see what their schedule is, I'll offer up what ever support I can with this

BTW< I'm jealous you got to attend a Bigelow talk. I'd love to attend one myself as well as visit CCMP ( www.ccmp.bigelow.org )

[GreshamH]

http://ccmp.bigelow.org/the other links doesn't seem to work even though it looks 100% correct

[ShaunW]

Quote: Originally Posted by tsinkoy Thanks! I read through the threads. However, it doesn't answer my question on whether the compositions are similar or not. The way Solbby characterized the bacteria is one way of doing it. Quantitatively, it was found that aquarium systems have less bacteria than natural systems. However, even if there's less bacteria, I didn't whether they looked at the relative numbers of the different cyanobacteria present. If they did, I missed it. It is possible to look at these different populations, by looking at relative sizes, and looking at their fluorescent properties. ?

I really didn't get that far. It was a big step just to measure the planktonic bacteria present quantitatively. What you are describing would be a great next step, ! I did it the way I did since I expected many uncultureable bacteria to be present and thus unable to be cultured/counted. I was getting to the ID of the different strains before my "real science" job got real busy.

Quote: Originally Posted by tsinkoy Right now, I am trying to see if I can detect anything in my water using the equipment we have in the lab. ( I have the full support of my boss). If this hasn't been studied yet before, is anyone interested in pursuing this.

If you go to the swap maybe we could talk about the possibilities in person. Would you be willing to measure two water samples from my two tanks? as a pilot to see if you come to the same numbers I do?

Shaun.

[Spracklcat]

I also have done some very preliminary work on bacterial composition of tank water. I'd be interested to see what the flow cytometry showed, as I was taking the long way around the barn: growing the cultures and ID'ing them. By nature this is like peeking into a corner of a room, as only a small proportion will grow on any type of media. Did find some interesting nasties though
Anyone ever use a Celsis or something similar? it uses ATP bioluminescence to count viable cells rapidly. That would give us a count as well, but not an ID.

How do you plan on correlating the cytometry reulsts ("there are X different species of organism") to the actual identifications of the organisms?

[tsinkoy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Spracklcat How do you plan on correlating the cytometry reulsts ("there are X different species of organism") to the actual identifications of the organisms?

There is a lot of flow cytometry data on phytoplankton, since these organisms were originally discovered using the technology. Right now, I'm trying to acquire 0.98 um beads to use as a control. The sizes of the most abundant phytoplankton are around that. It's a control bead that we don't normally use in the lab, so I'm trying to see if anyone else has it.

Also, these phytoplankton have fluorescent signatures that are well characterized.

I hope that answers your questions Spracklcat. :-)

I haven't gotten anywhere on this yet, because my boss is away on vacation, and I'm running the facility by my lonesome.