Cyano mat formers destruction the new way forward!

[flampton]

Hi all well you might have seen me in other threads arguing for understanding bacteria and better ecological ways forward. Well I'm here to introduce you to some new thoughts on cyano mat formers. I mean we all know it's an imbalance in the aquarium, usually cited as some nutrient issue. However maybe when we focus like that we miss the big picture and how life works in the unforgiving ocean. So let's take a quick look at this paper right here...

Rotifers weaken the efficiency of the cyanobacterium defence against ciliate grazers - PubMed

Cyanobacteria can protect themselves through limited dispersion and by increasing the compactness of the mucilage-covered cyanobacterial mat as well as by producing sheaths covering their trichomes. These features have been used in research to measure their degree of inducible defence. The...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Now I'm at home so haven't seen the full text yet but wow! I mean as someone who has worked in biocontrol (using biological agents to reduce the population of another biological entity) this makes perfect sense.

Tldr: if you have an aquarium with healthy bacteriovores (ciliates) and something else that loves the mucilage (rotifers in this instance) you will likely have less cyano problems.

And as I think of joining the reef business world combinations like these will make good products that are biologically and scientifically sound.

Thanks all!
Eric
#bacteriarule

 

[fishguy242]

wow,that it why my seahorse tank never ,ever got cyano!

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

So can these rotifers be purchased to add to my tank. I feed frozen rotifers to one of my tanks, is this the same thing or do they need to be live unfrozen?

 

[flampton]

So can these rotifers be purchased to add to my tank. I feed frozen rotifers to one of my tanks, is this the same thing or do they need to be live unfrozen?

Yes unfortunately they would have to be alive, and furthermore we (as scientists) will have to figure out what species might work the best in our aquariums. Plus you'll need a decent predatory ciliate population which again will have to be determined.

Did you start an aquarium with all dry rock? Have you added anything from a tropical ocean or from a tank that has rock/sand from a tropical area of the oceans?

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

Yes unfortunately they would have to be alive, and furthermore we (as scientists) will have to figure out what species might work the best in our aquariums. Plus you'll need a decent predatory ciliate population which again will have to be determined.

Did you start an aquarium with all dry rock? Have you added anything from a tropical ocean or from a tank that has rock/sand from a tropical area of the oceans?

Yes, i have a tank thats been going for about 4 months that was started from dry rock. I did use "live" sand though. Ive added several things but not sure of all the origins. i suppose some where along the line something came from a tropical ocean or from a tank that had something from a tropical ocean.

 

[flampton]

Yes, i have a tank thats been going for about 4 months that was started from dry rock. I did use "live" sand though. Ive added several things but not sure of all the origins. i suppose some where along the line something came from a tropical ocean or from a tank that had something from a tropical ocean.

If you run into issues their are suppliers of substrates from the ocean. They can go from no risk of large problematic hitchhikers to high risk depending. Like true live sand (sand directly from the ocean) is low risk and live rock is high risk. However even with this high risk live rock usually delivers high reward