Hello all,

 

This year I'm doing a science project on promoting the growth of denitrifying bacteria, but I don't know how to go about doing this or where I can find samples of the bacteria. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Denitrifying bacteria like pseudomonas would be abundant in soil around you.

However, you would have to do an agar culture for denitrifying bacteria on some nutrient medium having nitrates specifically,.. Then to confirm the activity analyse the nitrate content in it.

Thereafter, you can experiment with diff media for the growth of denitrifying bacteria

An aquarium filter is the place to start, look into nitrobactor,nitrosomas etal. They will give you the sources for bacteria that can get you from Ammonia - Nitrite- Nitrate.

If you want the long way around set up a small aquarium (no fish needed and certainly no plants) add small amount of ammonia (30ppm) or the old fashioned way add small amount (1cm) of meat.

This will kick off the filter, monitor ammonia levels and as soon as you see a drop in ammonia and a rise in Nitrite add another small amount of ammonia (bring to 40ppm).

Keep doing this untill you can detect around 100 ppm of nitrate in the water (use aquarium test kit).

The next step is a little tricky to get right.

 

Once you have a functioning filter (canister type best so you can sample) you will need to add a feed line from the output to a cylinder that is anerobic, to this add very small amounts of alcohol (2ppm) and wait. if no N is evolved within one week add another small amount of alcohol.

If you want full details then pm me what equipment you have access to and I will give you some of the lab notes I have on doing this, the company I work for has developed a product for aquarium cycling, we do have a small bank of cultures we keep of the different main players involved, but I would encourage you to try and isolate yourself.

 

The soil type can be had from Legumes but you will only get nitrogen fixation bacteria, if you could pm a little more detail on EXACTLY what your doing I should be able to help with this.