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The core microbiome of a saltwater aquarium


EMeyer

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Hi everyone,

I've finished writing up a detail report on the typical microbiome of a saltwater aquarium. My goal in this report is to introduce the key players in the microbiome of a reef tank, to help the reader interpret the results from analysis of their own tank. 

No need to copy and paste the whole thing but I'll post the conclusions below. 

In my next articles, I'll discuss how the tanks differed from each other, and how the microbiomes change during cycling. I felt this had to come first so that we'd have a common vocabulary for discussing the next parts. 

I'll be curious to hear what you think,

-Eli
 

Quote
  1. The water in a typical reef tank contains hundreds of different types of microbes with diverse metabolic capabilities.
  2. The aquarium microbiome is dominated by a core set of 19 families that are relatively abundant in most tanks.
  3. Bacteria made up most of the aquarium microbiome, but the small number of Archaea include types with important roles in nutrient processing
  4. Sampling the water of a saltwater aquarium allows for detection of specific beneficial microbes or pathogens
  5. The differences in metabolic capabilities and nutritional requirements in the core saltwater aquarium microbiome suggest that the microbiome composition can affect dissolved nutrient levels, and vice versa. 

 

Edited by EMeyer
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Added a bunch of terms to the glossary so they show up on mouseover. And did some editing to clean things up. Bad academic habits are hard to break; Academia trains us to write in an unreadable way :)

I think I'm done with this one; next, on to variation across tanks. 

But for everyone who had your tank analyzed - if your tank was like the typical tank (i.e. if you had a reasonably high balance score) then this existing report describes your tank in detail. 

Edited by EMeyer
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