Fighting red slime with bacteriophages?

[subarcticreef]

Having just fought (and won!!!:bounce3 a serious red slime infection I have been thinking if there could be a safer and faster way to do it. red slime is cyanobacteria. And like all other bacterias they can be infected with bacteriophages. These are virus that are specific for a certain bacterias and cannot infect anything else. They infect the cyano cells, reproduce like crazy and then make the cyano cell burst and releasing gazillions new phage particles. Therefore, a preparation with phages specific for the most prevalent slime species should be a powerful weapon against these infections.
Anyone with experience of this?

 

[Rploaded]

Having just fought (and won!!!:bounce3 a serious red slime infection I have been thinking if there could be a safer and faster way to do it. red slime is cyanobacteria. And like all other bacterias they can be infected with bacteriophages. These are virus that are specific for a certain bacterias and cannot infect anything else. They infect the cyano cells, reproduce like crazy and then make the cyano cell burst and releasing gazillions new phage particles. Therefore, a preparation with phages specific for the most prevalent slime species should be a powerful weapon against these infections.
Anyone with experience of this?

Here is this concept ____________





Here is my head________________

I have never even heard of such things. Where did you read about this?
Pretty interesting, wonder if Randy knows anything about this type of stuff....

 

[subarcticreef]

Here is this concept ____________





Here is my head________________

I have never even heard of such things. Where did you read about this?
Pretty interesting, wonder if Randy knows anything about this type of stuff....

Well, read quite a lot about phages when I was a student. It used to be a very busy research area earlier and people have been awarded Nobel prizes for discoveries here. Anyway, a person skilled in working with phages (not me!) should quite easily be able to isolate red slime-killing phages and make them commercially available. Imagine, just add a drop to the tank and then watch the cyanos explode and die and it is perfectly safe for all other inhabitants in the tank.

 

[disc1]

Someone experienced in working with phage would hate to burst your bubble but its hardly something that is easily done. There's a lot of science that goes into finding something by only its genetic signature. Then you have to try and isolate the thing. Its definitely not a trivial matter.

That said I'm sure one day it will happen.

 

[subarcticreef]

Someone experienced in working with phage would hate to burst your bubble but its hardly something that is easily done. There's a lot of science that goes into finding something by only its genetic signature. Then you have to try and isolate the thing. Its definitely not a trivial matter.

That said I'm sure one day it will happen.

Agree. To isolate them is certainly not trivial but for someone experienced in the field with the right equipment it should not be too difficult. But to use and propagate thm should be easy if you have the slime available.
Phages have been isolated for over 70 years