PSB and bacteria
When people think of a clean fish tank they envisage a crystal clean water tank with perfect, no algae and debris clean tank. In nature this is the polar opposite of how clean works, in nature a clean environment is a stable water source with a whole ecosystem working in tandem to provide clean water.
In your fish tank or pond the “cleaners” of the stable water system are the small collection of natural fauna and flora you shape to your will to clean a tank.
The heavy lifters are the bacteria, nitosoma and nitrobacter strains taking the load of the nitrogen cycle, waste (fish food and waste from snails and fish and microcosm) these are found in any water system where they can get a stable hold of resources, they require a medium to colonise and a steady stream of available food (nitrates/nitrites/ammonia/urea/etc). People in the industry call this “aging” or “maturing” a tank, when really its just waiting around for bacteria to colonise so where they actually can handle the waste. The problem being this is a misrepresentation of the whole arc of what happens. The bacteria constantly fight for dominance and resources and you’ll see the symptoms of colonisation from tests for nitrates/nitrites/ammonia but you’ll never know where they are and what they’re doing, you’ll only test for the symptoms of them existing.
You should always anticipate system crashes, the permutations for colony colapses are too many to number, you might stick chlorine tap water directly and kill 30% of the colony which produces waste blooms, you might introduce a suicide bacteria strain that only exists to eat the primary nitrosoma strain and does no nitrogen handling of its own, a sudden influx of waste that ovewhelms and kills the colony. a good anticipation strategy is always have medium (bio balls, sintered glass, ceramic noodles) scattered amongst disparent tanks, and always be ready with mature gravel and water from other systems.
Transplanting colonies works probably the most effeciently in an emergency. Most people think that the filter is the place where most the bacteria hang out, they would be wrong, the surface area of filter medium is a great area for aerobic (oxic) bacteria to hang out from the constant water flow, and maybe the strain in your tank the filter is doing 20% of the nitrogen conversion from the filter, but the vast majority happens below the substrate, the dirty brown mulm much under your gravel is a haven for bacteria and the most available place to handle this vast source of food is the surface area of you gravel. Most bacteria will colonise directly next to the best food source, the waste and mulm in the gravel. Transplanting gravel from a “mature” (I prefer the term colonised) is probably vastly more effective then a small amount present in your filter. Which is why for emegencies, keeping small bags of media (scoria, whatever), sitting in the substrate in colonised tanks is better for quick transplants.
Now the balance of this is, moved colonies need food, the food itself as a curse and a blessing, you move too much you pollute the new tank/tub, you dont need enough, there is no resources for the bacteria to scale. Its a bit like video game. You have a set number of units, you need to increase thier effectiveness without overwhelming them. I prefer to move mulm (some processed and unprocessed waste) which some of the media and some of the mulm and transplant. I also start with as minimal bioload as possible.
Where the variable of bioload cannot be controlled is when we move into the artifically boosting bacteria field. Many pond and fish stores will sell nitrogen based bacteria strains, either shelf stable dry or wet strains. When you are forced to stock tanks to overload you need tools. When I worked in the industry we would be forced to stock our quarantine facilities with 10,000-30,000 fish from zero to full when the shipment came in. We would do tricks like leaving a supplimenting the mulm and food supply during the 0 load weeks when facilities had to be empty and then super culturing existing strains and doing regular water changes with massive influx of hyperboosted cultures for when the bioload was overwhelmed.
Hyperculturing is giving a known good strain perfect conditions for replication, we had a pond supplier who had a great dry culture he developed himself and when kept at 27c with heavy airation and a level teaspoon of vegemite, 1/4 teaspoon of bakers yeast and a crushed up 1/4 weetbix in a large cauldron and left bubbling for 1-2 weeks before shipments would be the perfect hyperculture. Buckets of this filtered for large particulates after water changes, helped colonise medium and water and kick start the nitrogen cycle in a much faster fashion.
Super imposing good dominate strains into your tanks/tubs help keep systems healthy. A good lead in to how PSB works.
For Medaka there is a traditional bacteria strain that Japanese breeders have been using for a long time. There is a health product called EBios tablets that contain a strain of Photosynthetic bacteria they use in Medaka tubs. This is a very effective double strategy. Medaka are a very light sentistive fish, kept in very bright outdoor conditions, having the bacteria also processing light in thier oxegenic and nitrogen processes is basically doubling up your processing for the same colony load. I can whole heartedly encourage PSB usage in ANY situation where Medaka are kept in bright outdoor situations, PSB can be cultured exactly like normal bacteria. Traditionally the Japanese take 1/4 of a bottle of existing PSB (or from scratch with EBios tablets) and add a receipe of raw egg, fish/squid sauce, MSG to create more PSB. I personally create my own with buying a commercally available PSB product for Medaka and then adding mollases, fish sauce, MSG and fish emulsion. You then leave the this soup of food for PSB out in the sun until the cyanobacteria cultures in the bottle into a deep red or deep brown colour. In Australia with our sun and heat it doesn’t take long. PSB is also a great food for plants, being used for many years by bonsai and other plant lovers.
PSB is meant to be a good side by side product with normal nitrogen based strains, it can never replace them entirely and there would literally be no way to ensure that ever happened, but adding small amounts of PSB into an existing system, ensures any niche left for them to develop will be acheived on. Also some of the first foods eaten by newly hatched medaka involve fauna like water insects and bacteria, the more available strains and sizes the more comprehensive first foods are likely to be encountered by your fry.
The water of your tanks and tubs should match the enviroment in nature, deep mulm pits of mud and debris and a melting pot of insects and bacteria, all occupying the niche of the ecosystem, your gravel or sand should be free from decoration (paint and covering of media reduces surface area). I recommend natural gravel with as much scoria or pourous/pumice stone as you can introduce, this is the landscape of vast fields of surface area available for colonisation, leave some mulm and waste at the bottom, you can clean, but never remove all the brown and waste from the substrate, this is the food for your ecosystem, a good mulm will have a nice fluffy and light appearence, bad mulm will be dark and obviously toxic sludge.
Move the surface of the water, like the wind/tide does in nature, gasseous interchange happens when atmospheric air dissolved into the water, bubbles from an airstone have limited gasseous interchange (carbon out, oxegen/nitrogen in) the vast majority of disolving atmosphere comes from surface agitation. Bacteria fall into two main groups: Aerobic (oxic water lots of gasseous interchange) and Anerobic (anoxic water limited gasseous interchange). Both of these conditions can be met in the same tubs/tanks. Bacteria in filters are mostly aerobic strains where constant water movement and limited access to resources mean they have to be more effective and process quicker, bacteria in substrate have slower effectiveness but have much larger surface area to colonise and more available food. The surface agitation helps both strains as the available oxegen and water condition help the number of bactera scale to resources. A filter is not required for medaka, but this is not the same as saying they tolerate poorer condition water, they still require some method of atmospheric dissolve and waste removal from water. I recommend with no filter, a heavily planted tub, with substrate for colonisation of good bacterial strains and wind or air pump for gasseous interchange. If your tub/tank has limited gasseous interchange then its always boost in other ways like more pourous gravel media or more plants or larger water volume to fish and waste levels.
I prefer the slow natural methods, small number of fish, large water, large surface area in substrate, allow time and scaling of bacteria, small influx of good strains (small introductions or PSB/Nitro/soma/bacter strains), interchange or media from thriving tubs/tanks into subpar examples. Interchange includes fauna and flora from thriving systems with water insects/macro life, thriving green water. All of it should feel natural and slow, nothing emergency or rushed, when something is working, it should be obvious its working.
