# Can you cycle freshwater with saltwater bacteria?



## Cannoy (Nov 29, 2009)

I have a saltwater aquarium that has been set up for about four years. I was just wondering if I could get some bio balls out of my saltwater wet dry and add them to my new future piranha tank to cycle it.


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

I would guess probably not. Strictly a guess.

Many bacterias don't take well to salt, hence the salt treatments for freshwater fish, but I wouldn't doubt if the nitrifying (bombed the spelling there) bacteria are a tougher strain, since they live through really mean salt treatments.

I would definitely be interested to see.


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

My guess would be a "no" as well...

Anybody know for sure?
Very interesting question!


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Im pretty sure you cant. Its like fw and sw plants, you cant put a fw plant in sw of a sw plant in fw genrerally. If you put fw plants in sw they will usually dehydrate and die. Bacteria i would assume would follow the same principle that the water would flow from high to low concentration so it would flow out of the bacteria and into the saltwater in an attempt at equilibrium.

Not positive, but im pretty sure it wouldnt work


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

^^ Excellent perspective!

(Although in this case it would flow into fresh water, not the other way around.)


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Piranha_man said:


> ^^ Excellent perspective!
> 
> (Although in this case it would flow into fresh water, not the other way around.)


Ya your right, there could be a possibility the cell would pop like a ballon that too much air was blown into.


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## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

Im not going to say "i would guess" i am going to say NO, and be positive about it. Because of osmosis, saltwater fish have a higher level of salt in their body than freshwater fish. Google OSMOSIS for more info.

Any time you put a living saltwater being (fish bacteria anything), into fresh water the fish will swell and die.

Any time you put a fresh water being into saltwater, the cells in their body basically start exploding, they shrink from the salt sucking out the water and die.



> when you add salt to your tank water, it raises the concentration of salts in the waters around the fish and so the differences between the concentration of the water and the inside of the fish are reduced some and therefore the osmotic pressure is lowered. Less water is taken in so the fish doesn't have to work as hard to rid their body of this excess water.
> 
> This is one reason why adding salt to a freshwater tank can be helpful. Your sick fish is already stressed and weakened, so by lowering the osmotic pressure by adding salt, you help your sick fish by giving its body a little easier time in dealing with that problem and more energy towards getting better or healing itself.
> 
> Marine fish have the exact opposite problem. The ocean has a much higher concentration of salt in it than in the fish's body, so the osmotic pressure is constantly trying to draw water out of the marine fish. Therefore, to keep from dehydrating, a marine fish is always drinking water to replace lost water. Marine fish have ways of getting rid of the excess salt.


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