another cyano cure

[Beverly]

I've been thinking about the various bacteria in our tanks that utilize excess nutrients. There are bacteria that consume ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and these seem to be invisible little bacteria that lives in our tanks.

However, the bacteria that consumes phosphate is cyanobacteria and behaves differently than the nitrogen cycle bacteria. Cyano is definitely a bacteria and not an algae. And it's been around for billions of years and is one of the oldest critters (if you can call bacteria a critter) in the fossil record.

Anyway, cyanobacteria is in our tanks to consume phosphate. Phosphate is one of the end results of decayed matter just as ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are. If there isn't enough macroalgae (or some other means of nutrient export) in a system to consume the phosphate and nitrogen in a tank, there will be outbreaks of cyanobacteria to consume the phosphate, and micro and macroalgae to consume the nitrogen.

So, basically, the best way to get rid of cyanobacteria is to reduce phosphate in a system, whether by reducing bio-load, increasing water changes, adding better quality water going into the tank to begin with, better skimming, adding non-invasive macroalgae, or all of the above.