Algae pain

[Unitylover]

At this point your tank is definitely established and I would avoid dosing anything if you don’t need to, which since it’s just 1 clown you don’t need to.

Unfortunately the tank is just going through the ugly phase, but that will subside as it matures. It could take a few weeks or months for it to iron out the kinks, but if you aren’t massively over feeding it should balance itself out soon.

add a cleanup crew, try to siphon the cyano off during water changes. You can even just take a net and scoop it up in between water changes.

how many hours a day do you run lights/ what kind of lights? As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, white light don’t do much except grow the ugly stuff.

its a cheap light from amazon, rn, its like 30% whites, 65% blues, and 5% green. its from 7 am - 4:30 pm

 

[bstodds15]

its a cheap light from amazon, rn, its like 30% whites, 65% blues, and 5% green. its from 7 am - 4:30 pm

Since you only have the clown in there, I would shut the light off for a week. Cyano will die down without the light. It'll probably come back as soon as you put the light back on, but this will give other algae/bacteria a chance to grow in it's place.

 

[Unitylover]

Since you only have the clown in there, I would shut the light off for a week. Cyano will die down without the light. It'll probably come back as soon as you put the light back on, but this will give other algae/bacteria a chance to grow in it's place.

i scrubbed the tank completely clean of cyano. a month ago. nothing is gonna grow faster than that cyano, trust me

 

[Susan Edwards]

c

Do i have to use an airstone? My filter already oxygenates the water. A lot.

I would use them. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Susan Edwards]

Chemiclean works, but is just a bandaid. It ill clear it up, but if the underlying issue that promotes it, isn't solved, it will just return.

Cyano loves low flow areas, increase your flow.

Agreed. But the band-aid helps while you figure things out

 

[Unitylover]

I would use them. Better safe than sorry.

i dont have an air pump, but im pretty sure my filter is more than enough. I can send a pic of how much it oxygenates when i get back.

 

[Unitylover]

This is a photo of how many bubbles the filter outputs, keep in mind lighting makes it seem smaller

 

[Unitylover]

Here’s a better pic

 

[Unitylover]

Best pic I could get. Also have a vid.

 

[Unitylover]

Is that enough aeration

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Is that enough aeration

Surface agitation is the more important part. That little bit of air bubbles dropping from the filter will make almost zero difference is proper aeration.

Instead of using airstones that just fill my tank with annoying microbubbles, I accomplish this in my tanks by having my powerhead/wavemaker flow pointed slightly at the surface of the tank so it creates a bunch of mini waves.

 

[Biokabe]

As someone who's battled my share of cyano over my reefing career, here's what I would say:

First, absolutely get more CUC, as has been suggested to you. What hasn't been stated, is that you need something that is going to agitate the sand. Whether that's a healthy population of nassarius snails, a fighting conch, or some kind of sand-moving fish - the sand needs to get moved. Cyano blooms whenever it can grow unmolested, so make sure you're not giving it the sand as a safe haven.

Second, figure out what has caused the cyano outbreak. This might take a few attempts, as any number of things can let cyano grow out of control. Is it a lack of micrograzers? An excess of nutrients? Stagnant flow? Poor lighting? It might take a few tries to isolate the cause, or there could be multiple causes. But regardless, you need to figure out the root cause and attack that.

Finally, Chemiclean. Sometimes cyano does just go away on its own, but sometimes it is absolutely stubborn and will not go away no matter what you do; in some ways, it's self-sustaining. Once you have the cause figured out, don't hesitate to run a course of Chemiclean. Follow the instructions religiously, as it isn't a risk-free treatment and those instructions are designed to minimize that risk.

Chemiclean will absolutely knock out any particular infestation of cyano, but if you don't address the root cause it will come back. It might take several rounds of experimenting, followed by a round of Chemiclean, to finally knock out the cyano. Also, be aware that if you knock out a large growth of cyano with Chemiclean, it will liberate a large amount of nutrients into your water; those nutrients can easily fuel a secondary algae infestation (usually of bryopsis or GHA).

 

[Unitylover]

Surface agitation is the more important part. That little bit of air bubbles dropping from the filter will make almost zero difference is proper aeration.

Instead of using airstones that just fill my tank with annoying microbubbles, I accomplish this in my tanks by having my powerhead/wavemaker flow pointed slightly at the surface of the tank so it creates a bunch of mini waves.

ill aim it slightly higher to increase aeration

 

[Unitylover]

Is chemiclean supposed to make cyano disappear? Or just make it stop growing? It’s been almost 32 hours and I see no difference. In cyano amount, and it says cyano stains. Does cyano stains mean the slimy cyano?