Cyano bacteria/algae and bacteriophages in the reef aquarium.

A valued contribution from cyanobacteria is the origin of all plants The chloroplast with which plants make food for themselves is actually a cyanobacterium living within the plant's cells. Sometime in the late Proterozoic, or in the early Cambrian, cyanobacteria began to take up residence within certain eukaryote cells, making food for the eukaryote host in return for a home. This event is known as endsymbiosis and is also the origin of the eukaryotic mitochondrion.

Cyanobacteria out breaks.
We all hate cyano,but if you can keep it off your live rock and else where, like on the back of your aquarium possibly,( though it is better externally), because it is a far better nutrient importer then algae. The main issue, a part from this life form being able to cover most stationary inverts, is that it will go to spore when waters reach and breach 28c and those spores are toxic to everything. I use it externally with the caulerpa as it grows over the caulerpa, before it smoothers the caulerpa i remove it by brushing it off and it goes into my settling filters and that’s the nutrients exported via cyano and also trim the caulerpa. It can be used nicely for nutrient importing-exporting, so that the waste it would normally take out, is done externally so the cyano doesn’t to grow in the aquarium, at all. The same thing with the algae used for importing-exporting.

Cyano is a phylum of photosynthetic bacteria and can be a hobbyist’s night mare. These out breaks are caused primarily by abundant nitrogen from the aquariums nitrogen cycle. This is when nitrate is reduced anaerobically from oxygen and nitrogen to just nitrogen and with in the nitrogen cycle the oxidation processes also create inorganic substances like orthophosphate and phosphorus, which encourages cyano as well.
Caulerpa algae is the best form of photosynthetic life that can affectively compete with cyano in the reduction of nutrients, especially nitrogen, thus starving out the cyano leaving only small amounts for bacteriophages to keep in check.

Red cyano growing over corals.
You will at times see it grow on corals because they were dieing and then it is due to the dead tissue residue and subsequent leaching of phosphates and more from the exposed coral skeleton. If it is dead, pretty quickly bacteria are onto it.
With this situation you could siphon off the cyano amongst a water change.
 
Cyanobacteria is not an algae or does it incorporate any algae, algae actually incorporates bacteria, this does the photosynthetic work.
Cyano is found virtually everywhere and the most abundant communities are in the oceans.

Some are even endosymbionts for plants, lichens, most protists and sponges, which means they exist with in as a symbiotic relationship and make energy for these life forms.

Cyano is best known for their varied relatives blooms that occur in both fresh and salt water with normally a blue green colour under with red lighting and red with green in the lights spectrum and appears like slimy scum, which it is!

The most significant killer of cyano and all marine bacteria are phages-bacteriophages to be precise.

These parasite the cyano and all forms of bacteria as it infects the bacteria’s cells and carry out what’s called (lyse) to these cells, it means they dissolve the cells and as with white spot as it parasites from fish, there are now many more phages hatching into the water.

This action upon bacteria cells has many valuable bi products for the earths seas, like amino acids and organic carbons to name just a few, all of which life is extremely dependant on.

The tailed phages (these have a tail for movement) are actually classed as viruses and live as an obligate parasite agent and are the most represented organism in the ocean!

These microscopic little beggars are the most abundant and diverse form of DNA replicating agent on earth.

They influence the planets biochemical cycles, they regulate the planets microbe diversity, they are the carbon circlers with in marine food systems and prevent bacterial explosions preserving consistency for all life on the planet!

The phages account for roughly eighty percent of the oceans conversion of nutrients from living forms to dissolved organic matter and detritus allowing higher forms including algae to absorb and convert these to beneficial substances such as organic carbon, nitrogen and the phosphorus cycle for the planet, life can not exist with out phosphorus.

Okay back to cyano.

For each individual cell of cyano,on average has a relatively thick wall that makes these quite hardy in the marine eco system, obviously not to phages!

The mobility of cyano can be quite interesting due to them not having the luxury of flagella, its like a tail,you see the means of motion varies from gliding over surfaces,to the multicellular types such as oscillatoria that can carry out a waving motion in that their filament that oscillates back and forth creating the needed movement.

Then there are the cyano that float by the use of gas vesicles, these bubbles you could call them, are bound by a protein sheath, like a layer of plastic over the bubble and is directly fed by the action of photosynthesise gas production, normally pure oxygen!

As a community of cyano expands,it gets to the stage of reproducing via a similar method to sexual reproduction, this means that some may form hormogonia motile filaments for mobility, this allows an individual to move away from the bio mass to form a new colony elsewhere.

There are some distinct down falls to cyano in the reef aquarium, this life form can mass over some corals literally ignoring the corals stinging cells of small and to some degree large polyp corals.

The cyano can cover algae forms cancelling out photosynthetic activities and suffocating valuable algae’s for the aquariums gas stabilization.

Cyano has  a threshold of temperature and water quality that signals it to go to spore, these spores are toxic to all life in the aquarium, whether I be as an irritation to out right poisoning life forms, so temps should not get to 28c in the aquarium and high water quality is a must .

This diverse group of amazing and important micro creatures play a huge part in the over scheme of things.

In the marine habitat they are broken down by phages as such into valuable elements, they do carry out nutrient importing and photosynthesis the annoying waste in the aquariums waters.
They are utilised as food, one example being spirulina and they are also starting to play a big part as anti inflammatory agents and combating bacterial infections in us that are becoming resistant to medications and their ancestors gave us life because they were the first producers of oxygen on our planet!

For us in the hobby of reef aquariums we regard this diverse life form as a pest, yet with out it present, seen or unseen, your marine aquarium eco system would collapse!