What are heterotrophic bacteria?
Heterotrophic is the term given to describe bacteria that derive nutrition from sources that are primarily organic. Heterotrophic bacteria include both probiotic and pathogenic bacteria types. Probiotic and pathogenic bacteria both naturally occur in agriculture environments. As their primary source of nutrition is organic compounds, heterotrophic bacteria are exceptionally useful in breaking down organic wastes produced by fish. Heterotrophic bacteria rely on two nutrients to thrive, Nitrogen and carbon. As anyone in the aquaculture industry knows, Nitrogen is in abundance in a pond environment. Fish wastes are extremely rich in Nitrogen, which, when in excess can lead to dangerous water chemistry problems. With Nitrogen in abundance, growth of heterotrophic bacteria is limited by the amount of carbon that is available to consume. The goal of optimizing carbon:Nitrogen ratios (CN Ratio) is to increase the level of carbon to an appropriate ratio to allow heterotrophic bacteria to thriv
