Yes, I'm definitely over simplifying it, as cyano has been a problem for as long as people have been keeping salt water tanks. In nature there's probably lots of cases where the nutrients needed for it to grow are present but it still doesn't, so there's a lot of complicated interactions going on. One paper I read even hypothesized background levels of hydrogen peroxide, which can naturally reach as high as 0.36 ppm in some parts of the ocean, might inhibit huge amounts of cyano bacterial growth (reactive oxygen is particularly deadly to cyano's photosynthetic structures).
You also have predators that we probably don't keep in tanks, bioturbation on a much larger scale, stronger wave action, and more things to compete with it.
I'm sure we could also find lots of tanks that deal with cyano that don't use gfo.
But, when you've got it, or are fighting it, I think it's worth considering that what has been long touted as a cure might in fact be part of the problem if gfo and low tested phosphate isn't slowing it down at all. There's good, supported science to suggest a link, and a long evolutionary history that makes cyano uniquely adapted to turning your best tools against you. In researching some background for this thread I even found an article where they assessed how good glucose and fructose were at making different species of oscillatoria grow (sad news, sugar dosers).
Fwiw, I'm on day three of phozdown dosing and I'm either wishfully seeing things, or my cyano population is down by 25%
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