Cynobacteria

[Ed4567]

Doing some reading completly unrealated to fish tanks I found that an organism called cyanobacteria is symbiotic with some plants (I was looking at rice) due to its ability to 'fix' nitrogen (i.e. convert inorganic N2 into organic nitrates) . Just wondering if this is the same species that we encounter in our tanks and if the nitrogen fixing is significant? Could this explain why cyanobacteria is apparently more resistant to low nutrient levels than other nusience species?
Ed

 

[sammydee]

That's really interesting. If that is true, would the solution to cyano problems be adding nitrate to tankis, to accelerate the growth of other plants, whilst leaving the cyano to produce its own?

 

[Ed4567]

If anyone is interested in this, I found the following response from Dr. Ron over of R.C. to a similar question asked a while ago...

Dr Ron, some more questions on Cyano. Is the Cyanobacteria seen in reef tanks capable of fixing nitrogen? If it is, is it unique among the marine "algaes" in this ability? And if it is, does this mean phosphate, not ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, is it's primary limiting nutrient? TIA, again.

Those are good questions, unfortunately there no good answers.

Some, not all cyanobacteria - and other other bacteria - are nitrogen fixers. There is a vast array of organisms - probably several thousand species - which are categorized by the single term, "cyanobacteria." The species arrays found in reef tanks have never been characterized, so we don't even know what is in our systems. Phosphate may limit some of them. It may not. Probably the limiting factor changes with the conditions in the tank.

Sorry for the imprecision, but, it is the state of the art...