Can I use cyano to control nitrate?

[jjencek]

I have been breeding clowns and having them in several tanks. I feed often and of course must keep nitrate in check. The uglier the tank gets being overgrown by algae the easier the nitrate control is. I would expect that. I am "scrubbing" it with all the algae. One of my tanks is also full of cyano. Now my question is:

Could it actually also be helping with nitrates? Is there a benefit leaving it in there or better just get rig off it?

 

[Spare time]

I doubt it. Cyano is able to get their nitrogen via the atmosphere, hence why tanks with 0 nitrate often have a cyano problem. It can help with phosphate if that is an issue.

However, you can use other algae's to lower nitrate, such as macro algae or algae in a scrubber!

 

[elysics]

A while ago i had a similar idea, purposely growing cyanos to extract nutrients (in my case phosphate in a low nitrate environment). I even found a bunch of papers on the matter for industrial use for fish farms and so on. Managed to grow a bunch of cyano on mosquito netting sitting vertical in a hangon glued to weights with air bubbling through and light shining on.

Didn't really make an appreciable impact though, and cleaning it was annoying. Maybe i didnt have enough surface area, or the oxygenation was not sufficient, i started conceptualizing a small scale reactor similar to the ones in the papers but i just stopped bothering at some point. Chaeto and/or carbon dosing and increasing nitrate is just easier.

Btw, my hunch is that you have the causality in your tank the wrong way around. I think, that in your case you don't have an easier time controlling nitrate because you have cyanos, i think you have cyanos because you have an easier time controlling nitrate (but not phosphate).
E: Ignore that last paragraph, didn't have coffee yet and read your post wrong