Culturing Blue Green Algae

 

This might seem like a strange question but... Who turned my aquarium blue?! 

I've recently noticed some blue green algae in my twenty gallon pond tank. Not a big deal, bga is part of nature but it still caught my eye. This "algae" can be toxic in certain situations. Some varieties are safe while others can create deadly cyanotoxins. 

So I cut the blue green algae away from my "good" Nitella algae. I collected some of the bga and set it aside to study. My goal was to find a way to control it naturally. Well some interesting things happened to that 32 oz sample jar. 

As you can see... The jar turned a brilliant

SAPPHIRE BLUE. This caught me completely off guard! I didn't expect anything like this to happen. The jar itself was fine one day, then blue on the next. 

Now I know, blue green algae is generally a bad thing but my god! Can you imagine the tanks we could build using this blue water technique? I immediately had to do some research and learn more about blue green algae. 

I have grown green water before and yes it's a lot of fun but this blue green algae is an entirely different life form. The blue color is actually a pigment released by the bga, the color isn't the bga themselves. Whereas green water is actually suspended microorganisms. Like Plankton.

Blue green algae isn't even algae at all! Bga is really a type of photosynthetic bacteria. Sort of in-between a plant and animal. A better name for bga is Cyanobacteria. The name literally refers to the blue pigment in their cells. That pigment is called phycobilin. 

Cyanobacteria also contain one form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll a, a green pigment. Which you can see quite clearly when the bga is in a natural state. In addition, the blue green algae contains various yellowish carotenoids, the blue pigment phycobilin which we've seen up close, and, in some types the bga can even have a red pigment called phycoerythrin.

Most aquarium people would immediately add chemicals to their tanks. Luckily, we aren't most people! Here at BucketPonds I promote thinking for yourself. Experimenting and finding your own way to do things. My ultimate goal is to find a way to control the bga without the use of chemical kills. 

While studying this small blue jar, I had the idea to use live animals as a control mechanism. Before adding about 50ml of my live worms and paramecium, I decided to check the jar first. To see if any of my tiny creatures made into the jar. Remember this is a live culture sample of my main Farm Aquarium.

Well I was surprised! Even down in the deepest blue bottom of the jar, some of my tiny creatures survived. The toxic qualities of my Cyanobacteria must not be that bad. There are harmless varieties of bga and even the toxic types do not always produce their toxins.

As we travel towards the top of the sample, we see the density of life increasing. I never expected to see such a huge population in a blue green algae culture. Even my good algae (Nitella!) Even it looks healthy in the places where it isn't covered in Cyanobacteria. 

Finally, coming to the water's surface we see the real show! The density of life in this Duckweed layer is astounding. I've been building pond aquariums for over a year now and I've NEVER seen life like this. 

Detritus Worms have colonized the Duckweed layer. They are joined by tons of arachnid-like water mites, the always adorable seed shrimps (ostracoda) and of course my beloved bladder snails (physella acuta) Still photos just don't do it justice!  

This gives me hope that, even if I haven't found a way to beat the bga yet, it doesn't seem to be toxic to my tiny aquatic pets. The blue pigment/dye that is released by the Cyanobacteria is actually quite striking and beautiful. 

My goals for now are two fold:

To pursue the original idea, finding an animal that will eat bga. A snail or a fish, a worm or a crustacean, I'm not picky! They would be a welcome addition to how I do things. I have heard that black mollies and ramshorn snails are possible bga eaters for example.

My second goal is to learn more about this bga (Cyanobacteria) and to possibly use it intentionally! To dye an aquarium this bright blue color with the pigment that I harvest from the bga. The trick is to somehow separate the possible cyanotoxins from the sapphire blue pigment. 

Imagine the Pond in a Jar aquarium that I could build with this method! A green water culture next to a blue water snail aquarium. My dreams are of things like this! 

For a video version of this blog please check my channel on YouTube simply titled "BucketPonds"

You can also follow this link to my channel:

https://youtube.com/channel/UC2MMA5bFTnae9bwqPBSw8AQ

Or follow this link to the video itself:

https://youtu.be/w55GvHOYAAM

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#Cyanobacteria #BlueGreenAlgae #BGA