How would I intentionally grow cyanobacteria?

[Tired]

I want to stick some cyano in a half-gallon bowl of saltwater and see what it does when you let it grow absolutely buckwild. I think it's a neat organism, and it grows into fun shapes when given the opportunity to do so.

 

If I put it in a fishbowl, set that bowl in the sun, put some dry rock in for it to grow on, sprinkle fish food in occasionally, top up with tap water, and periodically do small water changes with discarded water from my tank, will it like that? Seems like the sort of thing cyano would like. It needs light, thrives without competition, doesn't need flow, that sort of thing. 

[jbb]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

I want to stick some cyano in a half-gallon bowl of saltwater and see what it does when you let it grow absolutely buckwild. I think it's a neat organism, and it grows into fun shapes when given the opportunity to do so.

 

If I put it in a fishbowl, set that bowl in the sun, put some dry rock in for it to grow on, sprinkle fish food in occasionally, top up with tap water, and periodically do small water changes with discarded water from my tank, will it like that? Seems like the sort of thing cyano would like. It needs light, thrives without competition, doesn't need flow, that sort of thing. 

I have plenty if you need some 😂

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

I want to stick some cyano in a half-gallon bowl of saltwater and see what it does when you let it grow absolutely buckwild. I think it's a neat organism, and it grows into fun shapes when given the opportunity to do so.

 

If I put it in a fishbowl, set that bowl in the sun, put some dry rock in for it to grow on, sprinkle fish food in occasionally, top up with tap water, and periodically do small water changes with discarded water from my tank, will it like that? Seems like the sort of thing cyano would like. It needs light, thrives without competition, doesn't need flow, that sort of thing. 

That could work. Could be an interesting project.

You gotta post pics.

 

You could then add aiptasia and majano and make it a really unique pico

[Tired]

Figured I may as well. Half-gallon bowl, water change water, a couple of little shells with some cyano, and I turkey basted a patch of cyano'ed sand into it. The rock was in my tank at one point for a couple weeks, then removed, and has been out for a few months. It has a light dusting of green on it in person, I'm not sure why it looks so dark in this pic. The algae is probably dead. If not, it's not a kind I expect to provide much competition. Lid from a different container to reduce evap. Also a big pinch of Reef Roids (for phosphates) and a bit of water from thawing some mysis. 

I expect the cyano to go wild for awhile, then hit a point where it uses up all available resources before they're replaced by water changes, and collapse. I want to see what it does before it collapses. I'll chuck in some cheap freeze-dried food now and then as fertilizer. If it needs topping up between water changes, it's probably getting tap- I doubt cyano cares.

If it turns out interesting enough that I want to keep it up, yeah, I might go look for some aiptasia and/or majanos. Though majanos are pretty enough (some variants, at least) that I'd almost give them their own little pico tank. My LFS has some slow-growing, neon green ones in their "cool stuff we got in on something or another" tank, alongside the biggest aiptasia I've ever seen (it's the size of a tube anemone! But it's aiptasia all right) and a very neat grayish-black sponge that branches like SPS corals.