Amino Acids, let's try again

[One Eye]

Matt raised some good points about the amino acids before the last thead was closed.

Studies by Hoegh-Guldberg and Williamson (1999) have shown that dissolved free amino acids were extracted from the water and absorbed, especially during darkness. Which would suggest to me that they are being absorbed by the coral polyps which are extended further at night.
Why would they absorb these dissolved free amino acids? Absorbing a ready to use amino acid is going to save the coral energy. It does not have to produce it's own amino's from ammonium or nitrate and carbon structures.

So according to the study the amino's do reach the zooxanthellea. I'm sure they are absorbed and used by many other organisms in the tank, but what reaches the coral is absorbed and used, just like any other "food"...cyclopeeze for example.
Cyclopeeze would (imo) be a source of amino acids, but it is not a dissolved free amino acid as would be the amino's in a good amino acid supplement.

 

[One Eye]

It seems to me that supplementing amino's would be "feeding" our corals with a high protein food but not having to worry about inorganic phosphates and nitrates.

 

[jango]

That is only if it would reach the coral.

 

[One Eye]

If you poor a certain ammount of dissolved amino acid solution into your tank how is not going to reach the coral?

 

[NateHanson]

I think PJ means "only if the coral tissue absorbs and uses the amino acid"

 

[One Eye]

Why would it reach the corals housed in the tanks used by the above mentioned study and not reach the corals housed in our tanks?

 

[NateHanson]

I'm just clarifying that last comment. Maybe PJ can explain his rationale.

 

[One Eye]

Studies by Hoegh-Guldberg and Williamson (1999) have shown that dissolved free amino acids were extracted from the water and absorbed, especially during darkness. .

This is what I'm talking about.

 

[jango]

first amino acids are not salt water soluable or stable. second that small amount of AA's you put in the tank would have to go through all the bacteria in the water column to get to the coral. It would get broken down long before it reaches the coral's...

 

[jango]

Darren not a reef tank a lab...

But a pure culture in a lab dish is one thing. Your reef tank is a whole different story.

 

[One Eye]

We use amino acids, aren't we 99% salt water?

Gates has been testing disolved free amino acids (dfaa) since 95. If the tests are showing that adding dfaa's to the tank water is allowing the coral cells to maintain a natural level of nitrogen and phosphate atoms without increaseing the inorganic phosphate and nitrates in the tank water, some of the dfaa's must be getting past the bacteria.....either that or Gates is getting some substantial grant money and running the scam for all it's worth...a decade so far!

 

[One Eye]

Darren not a reef tank a lab...

Gates performed one test where he extracted the zooxanthellea from the coral and tested in a lab dish. The other tests were performed in tanks like yours and mine.

 

[nitrofish]

We use amino acids, aren't we 99% salt water?

I think we are considered fresh water.



do a actcual test on your tank, theres only one way to find out if your thery works, test it

 

[jango]

Darren do you have a link? I have read about a dozen paper's on AA's none of them proved this could be done in a reef tank setting full of bacteria. I can't get on RC right now, I will try to post some link's when I get home...

 

[One Eye]

Ever tasted a tear or your own sweat? I think I recall hearing about other salty tasting bodily fluids....

 

[NateHanson]

We use amino acids, aren't we 99% salt water?

I think we are considered fresh water.



do a actcual test on your tank, theres only one way to find out if your thery works, test it

We're closer to saltwater than fresh water. And I think about 80% might be more accurate, but none of this is really relevant.

Testing the effect of anything on your tank is nearly impossible. You can put "mystery compound X" in your tank for a month, and compare how fast stuff grows with how fast it grew last month (cm/month perhaps, or even Alkalinity depletion) but who says it was "X" that caused any change you see? It's just as likely that corals grow faster in April than they do in March because the temperature is 0.1 degree higher in your tank. Or maybe a snail got old and died in March, and that made the corals unhappy. These systems are too complex to draw any emperical conclusions. You need much simpler systems with fewer variables, and then you need identical systems to use as controls and gain a larger sample size. Basically, good science is expensive, and there's not a lot of money available from the government for making your corals more colorful. So the best we've got is petri-dish experiments (interesting by the way) and the anecdotal experiences of fellow hobbyists.

 

[synchiropi]

It is possible to backengineer one of the commercial products by doing a free a.a. analysis on it (free as in the a.a. is not bound to anything, not that the assay costs nothing). Several companies and university labs can do this. The cost ranges around $150.00. I can certainly provide you with some contacts if you would like to do an analysis.

I am skeptic too in regard to the capability of a coral to assimilate free aminoacids from its surrounding medium. The a.a. have to be "imported" from the aqueous phase. The question here is what are the specific a.a transporters that corals have. These will highly likely be different among the different coral species.

Some a.a. are very unstable at room (or higher) temperatures. In particular, glutamine quickly degrades into ammonium. Cysteine is also very quickly oxidized and degraded. A.A. are soluble even in deionized water, but in some cases, only in minute amounts. However, the stock solution could be diluted in something with high pH, so that higher concentrations are achievable. Some companies have made a.a. stable forms (e.g. a glutamine and alanine dipeptide, which is stable), maybe that is what the commercial a.a. supplement contains.

So yes, even if the corals have the ability to extract a.a. from their medium, they would have to compete with self-degradation, bacteria and only God knows what else for the minute amounts that can be added. Yet, if some people have had good experiences with them, well yes, clearly, they are worth a try.

I can try doing a literature search on a.a. consumption by corals. Has anybody tried doing this before? Some starting points would be good.

-just my two cents

 

[One Eye]

Jango, it's been a long running article in coral...if you want to call 6 issues long running. It's in Nutrients in the Reef Aquarium. Check the sps forum on RC there's some pretty good reef keepers using AA's and noticing improved growth and color.

What interest me the most is that the dfaa's are supposed to help keep the nitrate and phosphate atoms at natural levels. If there is a nitrate limitation the corals loose growth and color. If there is a phosphate limitation there will be lost color and growth, bleaching and most time death of the coral.

That's what started making sense to me. I was watching the guys from RC as they were removing dsb's (which would remove nitrates but doesn't do much about phosphate) and noticing improved color (nitrate atoms reaching a natural level in the cells) Then they started using phosban, etc. Now they're corals started to bleach from the base up, especially shortly after changeing the media when the phosphate levels would be at the lowest, causing unnaturaly low phosphate atoms in the cells. As the article describes, the bleaching would start at the base and a slow necrosis would eventualy( sometimes rapidly) kill the coral.

 

[synchiropi]

One-Eye,

There is no phosphate in any of the a.a. The 21 main a.a. contain H,N,O,C and in some cases S. Maybe those a.a. supplements contain other things more than merely a.a...?

Yet, I just found a web page that says that the "conditionally-essential" a.a. taurine is crucial for some phosphorylation pathways... Mmmh, do these supplements contain taurine...?

 

[Greg Hiller]

>Some a.a. are very unstable at room (or higher) temperatures. In particular, glutamine quickly degrades into ammonium. <

And pyrrolidine carboxylic acid...but let's not be nitpicky!

Since glutamine is so unstable it's unlikely to me that corals would have transport mechanisms for it anyhow since it probably is usually not available in sea water.

>Cysteine is also very quickly oxidized and degraded.<

Yes, but when oxidized it forms cystine (basically just two cysteine molecules stuck together) using a sulfur to sulfer bond and then is stable. Mammalian cells can take it up in this form and use it...can corals?...I dont' know.

Other than these two, most amino acids are relatively stable.

> (e.g. a glutamine and alanine dipeptide, which is stable), maybe that is what the commercial a.a. supplement contains.<

The dipeptide form is used in mammalian cell culture, but I've no idea whether corals can transport it across their membranes in this form.