In light of a couple recent thread reads here in the advanced forum on phosphates and phosphate cycle - I've come up with a question that's actually been bothering me for a while...
Cyanobacteria's relationship with Phosphates and how the scrubber affects this? I've read people post that intruduction of an algae scrubber not only disolved GHA in their DT, but that it also removed Cyanobacteria from thier system.
I've also posted questions before on Cyano - and I've actually recently got the response: 'just run an algae scrubber'.
However - unless I just don't fully understand what I've read recently (which is probable) - Algae scrubbers, really shouldn't 'remove'/out compete the cyano, should they?
Algae scrubbers - in the phosphate cycle mostly eat up the disolved inorganic phosphates (which are the phosphate levels we test for and are the less desireable PO4 levels in our tanks). So if you export those and reduce measurable PO4 levels to near 0, you could still have lots of Organic Phosphates left in your system, right? According to the cycle diagram that was posted, it seems that algae will still 'eat' disolved organic phosphates but not as much as it goes after the inorganics... Is that correct?
Isn't the Cyano able feed off of these disolved Organic Phosphates? If that's all correct - there's a gap there that the scrubber just doesn't cover. So, a skimmer would target the organic phosphates only (which we want some level of to maintain healthy coral)? GFO targets inorganic phosphates only. And regular detritus removal is the root of reducing the source of all forms of PO4.
In addition - how would you maintain healthy levels of the organic PO4 for corals, without letting Cyano thrive?
