Randy Holmes-Farley
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My Tank Thread
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Ok so what I’m trying to look at is less my fish tank and more eventually Lake Erie. My fish tank is just what got me interested in the problem. My thought is why are the toxic algae a problem and what limiting reagents could be used to throttle them. We know excess phosphate from run off feeds them. We know there is already a ton of iron present but in what form and could that iron be activated or added to to dunk the phosphate. If we just had algae it would be a problem but less so. Getting there now...what if you could turn off the toxin production or minimize it. Now it’s less of an issue. There all cards on table. The prize is 10 million dollars. The iron connection has been proven by a Canadian university. They published in March last year. I found it during a lit search last week. So they beat me to the punch. What they did is not exactly what I had in mind but I’ll post the link in few after I cut the grass. I am less interested in the money and more in public health though it would be nice.
My advanced idea is a plasmid but yea not happening in a home lab.
Ferrocene is expensive toxic and of little use in this problem though an intersting topic by itself. It’s one thing to treat 300g and another to treat Lake Erie. I’m looking at marine for the moment as that is what I can grow. I gave to rent a boat to go get and learn to culture the freshwater varieties. Btw nasa flys a plane that tells them where to sample. I dont have that ability.
I very much enjoy these discussions. I hope the level of discussion is ok for this forum. I believe you don’t have to be a scientist to both learn and contribute. So if I’m annoying please tell me so.
http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2016/02/29/beating-blue-green-algae-with-iron/
Second read...not really modulating the toxin. Basically says run gfo on lake. But...they don’t deplete it entirely so they keep- the microculture in balance.
I’ll add one last item to this monster post. Saying make me a Star Trek transporter is a good idea and actually making one are very different animals so just because I want to shutdown the toxin doesn’t mean you can
I presume you've seen this article?
Evidence for phosphorus, nitrogen, and iron colimitation of phytoplankton communities in Lake Erie
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.4319/lo.2007.52.1.0315