# Why add dormant bacteria to the base layer?



## Moody (Sep 14, 2006)

Iv been reading allot about substrates and there is two elements that i have noticed are being added to base layers.

First is dormant bacteria like ADA bacteria and Dupla Becceis and the other is peat/ sphagnum moss peat/dust.

I vaguely understand that bacteria helps in the nutrification/nitrification in the substrate but i don't really know how this process works and why we would need it.
The other is the peat/peat moss dust, why add this? 
What role does this have in a planted tank?

Regards,
Graeme


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Graeme,

The "dormant" bacteria springs back to life ultra fast. It's convenient to package it as spores that do nothing and are affected by very much nothing. Once they sense that the environment changes they quickly turn into living, breathing/singing/dancing bacteria.

The peat is a source of microelements and organics. Both feed the plants of course. The beauty of peat is that it is not too rich. Maybe you can think of it as diluted garden soil that is hard to the touch. Even if it finds its way into the water it will not really pollute the tank.

It's important to understand that peat and other nutrient containing substrates will be exhausted at some point. That is not a bad thing. The idea is to give the plants an initial boost of food until they establish themselves. Using peat is a good idea because it gets exhausted pretty fast - depending on the thickness of the layer about 2 months is about right. By that time the plants should have developed good roots, the bacteria should feed the roots full time, and the plants should feed on whatever mulm has collected in the substrate. If you feel like your plants need root feeding you can add some small clay balls, more peat, small pieces frozen garden soil and so on.

--Nikolay


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

I understand that the peat will also provide an initial source of nutrients for the bacteria, therefore helping to kickstart their growth.

The best source of bacteria is "mulm" from another tank. I'd use this source of live viable bacteria over the bottled stuff... though I have had some very good results with Seachem's Stability.

So the concept is to sprinkle a *light* layer of peat moss (so that you can see the glass bottom through it), squeeze/pour mulm over this and then add your substrate.


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## Salt (Apr 5, 2005)

My extreme layperson's understanding is plants need minerals as free form ions. If the minerals form compounds that are too complex, plants have a hard time uptaking the nutrients. Bacteria can "eat" more complex compounds, then "poop" out free form ions.

In other words, it keeps nutrients in a reduced state so plants have an easier time uptaking the nutrients.

The bacteria will naturally form over time, the dried spores are a way to "seed" the bacteria so it forms very quickly.


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## Moody (Sep 14, 2006)

So we add peat then bacteria either by mulm or spores, the peat decays and produces ammonia (??????) some ammonia is used by the plants some is used by the bacteria(???) then our added or existing bacteria turns ammonia into nitrite and then nitrate which in turn feed the plant roots with a Nitrogen food source(???).

The question marks in brackets are me looking for clarification.

Thanks for your help, I'm trying to get my head round the science behind the method.


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