Check out the great article by Thomas S. Heo on cyanobacteria.

Editorial

Welcome to the second, and rather late edition of OZ REEF Press. Sorry about that, but the server has been out of access for the last week due to archiving and haven't had the time before that.

Have been involve in quite a bit of work over the last few weeks, bringing OZ REEF closer to reality. Things move just a bit slower than you want to sometimes, especially when the only time you have to build the tank stand and skimmer cupboard is on a Sunday at the end of a 2 1/4 hour drive. The stand and cupboard are coming along swimmingly, thanks to the assistance of my dad, an alround handy man, and my brother-in-law, a builder. To see what has been happening, checkout the D.I.Y. Plans. Thanks to Tom for his submission this month, it covers the subject of cyanobacteria. This is an article that every reef keeper should have a read of, as they are present in your tank and you may have to deal with too many of them at some time or other.

One current project that is taking quite awhile is to configure a soft start for the wavemaker. Several hundred dollars was not spent on the Eheims so that they could pack it in after several months. Anyway, this has been quite an adventure as no direct information on it could be found. Various bits of information have been put together from around the world, the States to Australia to Austria. For those that don't quite understand why a soft start is required, I'll fill you in. With a wavemaker, the water pump is repeatedly turned on every few minutes or less. Each time a pump is started the impeller and shaft undergo a high degree of stress, eventually reaching the point where failure in one of the components occur. The idea of a soft start is such that it first starts off slowly for several seconds before going to full power. This will vastly increase the life of the pumps. A possible design has been reached, and will be assembled shortly. Stay tuned to the DIY Plans for more information as it comes to light.

This is not the time of the year to be ordering bits of equipment for a tank, or for anything else for that matter. Several Australian mail order companies that I have been dealing with over the last month have run into quite a few problems with supplies. It gets to be a fair bit irritating when you see something that you want, it is exactly the correct thing for the job. You then ring up, order it, then get a return call the next day saying that the importers are currently out of stock and will not be getting more in for atleast another month. Oh well, thats life I suppose.

Well that is about it for this issue and month. Hope everyone has a wonderful Xmas, and a fantabulous New Year. Catch ya next month, with OZ REEF well on the way, fingers crossed.

Welcome OZ REEF's New Residents

No self respecting marine animal would move into OZ REEF yet, especially if they wanted to live long. Still to be filled rocks or even water.

Resident of the Month

A big fat nothing.

Dear Marther ReefKeeper

Marther is currently on holiday somewhere in the Pacific. She will be here when OZ REEF is together and there is some problems occuring.

Tom's Bit

by Thomas S. Heo

Whyano all the Cyano?

"Why all the Cyanobacteria in my brand new reef tank?" "I spent all this money, enough so that my kid will grow up with crooked teeth, so that I can have a tank full of red slime?" "My wife won't talk to me anymore after I bought that third HQI setup, and all I've got is a tank full of nasty red stuff this isn't worth sleeping on the couch for".

Phrases you will commonly hear from new reefers (well, along with "ooohhh, pretty"). It is a common problem, and we all have it and do things to try and get rid of it, but what works and what doesn't work? Come on, you know you have it. Everyone has it. Don't say you are special and say you don't have it or have never had it. Everyone's had it, and everyone will have it, at some time or another.

You can try talking to it, and reasoning with it, but most of the cyano I've known, are stubborn, do not listen to reason, and continue to be the same ol' bacteria they've always been. They just go on being slackers. Maybe we can threaten them? Threaten them with what? We can't promise bodily harm, as they don't have bodies! Yeah, real effective saying "I'm going to kick your butt!", when they don't have any butts to kick. They are single-celled bacteria that live in marine (and freshwater) environments in the wild, and of course in our tanks.

So, my article this month will attempt to answer questions on how to get rid of the stuff, so that we can once again be happy reefers, and go on to enjoy the fight against hair algae, Ich., or coral-bleaching. Of course, don't forget the everlasting battles with the credit card companies, asking you how you can spend $800 on something called a "calcium reactor". Your reply, "uh, I don't know, but someone told me to get one?".

Morphology:

Let's look at the structure and classification of the microorganisms that strike fear into the hearts of reefers and send them running to for cover into their sumps, and joy into the evil hearts of antibiotic manufacturers since antibiotics are easy to produce for these monsters of the (synthetic) sea.

Cyanobacteria are prokaryotic (without a nucleus), unicellular bacteria that comprise one of the eleven major groups of bacteria in our world based on 16S ribosomal RNA sequences (this is a common strand/length of RNA found in all bacteria, where each group presents a distinct genotypic sequence separate and unique from one another). They are considered phototrophs, as they derive energy from light, and are capable of photosynthesis. They can also further be classified as lithotrophs, as they can fix nitrogen gas, and rely on CO2(g) as a sole carbon/energy source. The ability to fix nitrogen is important, because that is what feed these little buggers, and so is the fact that they rely on photosynthesis.

Lights:

Let's first step back and take a brief, simple look at the lighting in our tanks. Most of the corals we keep are found at depths in the ocean where mostly blue light is found. Or rather, blue light is the main type of light that can penetrate deep within the water, as it has the shortest wavelength in the visible light spectrum. It has a wavelength of around 420-480 nm in the coral reefs of the world, and this is close to what we have in our tanks provided we have the proper type of lighting (ie good ratio of actinics to daylights, or a good Kelvin rating on our HQI bulbs). When our bulbs are new, they are pretty about keeping their wavelengths in the shorter range where they should be, but as things get older, they can't hold things as tight, just like people! So, as the bulbs get older, the light begins to stray from that 420-480 nm range, and starts to cause problems.

The first problem would be that corals don't really like longer wavelength light in high proportions. The second is that we will usually see the cyanobacteria appear. Cyanobacteria thrive on light in about the 525 nm range, where they have optimal growth. This is of course the red cyano, and not the blue-green, which thrive in conditions where the light is much longer, say in the 600 nm range. So, the first thing when one sees the ol' cyano appear to think back to when they last changed the bulbs. If the lighting is provided by double-ended fluorescent lights that are either normal output (NO), high output(HO), or very high output (VHO), the bulbs should be replaced every 6 months as a good rule of thumb. This will ensure the the corals will be provided with the proper spectrum and intensity of light.

Now, for those smart, cool, hip, trendy, dope, Mack Daddies, like me for instance, who use the newer single-ended fluorescents (PC lights), it is recommended that you change your bulbs every 12 months, for the same reasons as above.

For those of you who are rich, and have the wallets to bear the onslaught of costs presented by HQI (ie electric bills, chiller), you should also change the bulbs every 12 months to be on the safe side. Some people go 18 months with HQI, but some also go 6 months with them. You will most likely see a definite decrease in intensity after 12 months (you will see this difference when you take a 12 month old bulb and light it next to a brand new bulb).

Another important thing about lighting is that you should not keep the lights on too long, where between 10-12 hours is optimal, unless you have HQI, in which case you really shouldn't run each bulb for more than 8 hours per cycle.

Nutrients:

Okay, now we've check the lighting, and now we start to think "okay Tom, this is stuff that's a little interesting and a good read on the toilet, but my lights are okay. What do I do now?".

Well, I've got the answer. First, get off the toilet. Then, try and keep up with me.

Cyano, as stated above is capable of fixing nitrogen. Where does the nitrogen in our tanks come from? You guessed it, from either ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. Well, the first two have fairly short-lived lives in our tanks, so it must follow that nitrate is the biggest contributor. Nitrate (NO₃^-), is eventually turned into nitrogen gas through denitrification, so that's where our nitrogen for the cyano comes from. Now, this is one of the reasons that they suggest that we keep nitrate low, but you don't have to stress over it, as nitrates are also used up by things like clams and a lot of the macroalgaes, like Halimeda, for instance. I think that for a reef tank, as long as you are around 5 ppm, you are fine, but anything over, you should do something to lower it like water changes, cutting down on feedings to once every two days, or washing your frozen foods before putting them into the tank. It is also very important to have proper protein skimming in the tank, as they tend to get things out of the tank before they can be broken down into nitrate, et cetera. Cyano will most likely go away after the tank has become established and everything kicks in, but there are certain things you should do to help it along.

The Solution:

Well, the easiest thing to do is just dump some antibiotics into the tank and let the stuff get killed by the antibiotics, but wait, this is not a good idea! You've probably read elsewhere that people don't like putting antibiotics in their tanks to fight the cyano, but I will present some hard facts and numbers to argue against the use of such.

Bacteria mostly reproduce by a process called binary fission. This is a method of asexual reproduction where one single cell "splits" and turns into two cells. This is a very effective method of reproduction, as generation times range from 20 minutes to two weeks! This means that in as little as 20 minutes, a single bacterial cell will become two, and then those two become four, those four each split, making eight, et cetera, et cetera. You can see how fast these things divide and reproduce. Even worse than rabbits! I've noticed that cyano seems to have a doubling time of about 36 hours. So, in 36 hours, the cells you have in your tank will have divided exponentially! If you consider the fact that cyanobacteria are very small, think of how many need to be present to be seen without the aid of a microscope! We are talking millions and millions of individual cells (held together by heterocysts, which are filaments which allow the sharing of nutrients between single cells) when we can see a small patch of red slime. This is probably on the scale of about 104 cells, which is 100,000, and possibly more! (Think of how many times the very complex and involved process of replication must occur I'm going to test you on this later).

Okay, for simplicity, I will use smaller numbers to make my points. Let's say we start off with 2 cells in the beginning. These two cells, in 36 hours will now become 4 cells, and then these 4 cells will become 8 cells, and so forth. Now, let's say these cells are normal, or rather wild-types. Wild-type cyano is sensitive to an antibiotic that blocks the proper transcription of rRNA (ribosomal ribonucleic acid) that codes for the proper synthesis of the cell membrane, which keeps bad things out and good things in. This antibiotic that's commonly used for the cyano is erythromycin (ery). So, for shorthand notation, let's say that normal cells, which are sensitive to erythromycin, are ery^s. Now, lets look again at the number of cells that are commonly mutated on a regular basis. Mutations occur all the time (think back to how many cells are being made at incredibly high rates), but most of the resulting mutants die since they are lacking in something. This is in normal conditions, however, that the mutants die. Now, let's change the environment that these cells live in, and put in some of the ery, which kills all of the normal cells. The normal cells die, but there are some mutants that are resistant to the anitibiotic, so they live! These cells are the ery^r cells, or erythromycin resistant. Now, lets assume that from these mutant cells that live, that most of them are capable of still reproducing. Think of all the new cells that are resistant to the antibiotic that you have inadvertently created. These cannot be killed by the ery, and so you now have a problem with a much more hardy strain for cyano, and the problem will just seem to get worse. What now? You can't kill them with the stuff that they are resistant to.

To avoid these potential problems, I would say not to use any antibiotics. I think that the best way to run a reef tank is with the thought in mind that simple is better.

So, how do we get rid of the stuff without causing a major outbreak of new mutant cyano? With patience and perseverance, we will beat this thing. First, after checking the lights and doing the water changes while siphoning out as much of the stuff as possible, try and pick out what you couldn't siphon out. If they are in spots that are hard to reach, take the trusty turkey baster (if you haven't been to my site, you don't know how much I think this is an important piece of high-tech equipment we should all have), and blow the stuff off the rocks and then pick them off from there. Doing this each time you see the stuff will help you get rid of the cyano. After awhile, especially after the tank is mature, you won't have to worry about the stuff anymore, but you must have patience and you must keep with it. The beginning is both the toughest and the most fun times, so just keep at it. Your hard work WILL pay off!

A cute little prevention:

To prevent the cyano from coming back or from trying to help it go away, get some small, herbivorous blue-legged hermit crabs. Or, the Scarlet Reef Hermits are also good.

Recap:

1). Check the lights, and replace if necessary.
2). Do a water change while trying to siphon out as much of it as you can.
3). Do not use antibiotics, but resort to natural methods.
4). Get some little cute crabbies. Herbivorous blue-legged ones or the little Scarlet Reef Hermits with the bright red legs, and yellow faces.

Tha tha tha tha that's all folks!

Special Feature

Sorry, no special features. I'm currently working on getting a few articles written for this.

You Wouldn't Believe It!

I'm still putting it together!!!

Bereavement Notices

Thanksfully nothing to put here.

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