Bad Cyano with very low nitrates and phosphates???

[sixty_reefer]

This is actually exactly what I am doing to battle mine. I also dosed mb7 and dr Tim’s. Each time was only a half dose. I am already seeing results on the algae, but I won’t be dosing anymore bacteria as my sps are starting to rtn. I don’t think it’s directly related to the bacteria, however I did notice the next day after each time I used Sps would rtn.

Are you being able to keep the no3 and po4 at detectable levels?

 

[BurgerFish]

After using chemiclean my tank often get a dinos...

 

[trietnguyen000]

The way I see it and learn it from the more experience from this forum is that…there are many microbes competing for nutrients. Once your tank cycled…the good bacteria should dominate and keep nutrients in balance enough to also feed your stock. A big spike in nutrients in the tank will not be consumed fast enough and left for the unwanted cyano and algae to consume and replicate (key concept is stability which reefers keep saying over and over again). The good bacteria will need help keeping the bad ones under control (through siphoning, increasing flow, keep nutrients lower just enough for stock and good bacteria and increase only slowly).
Hence that’s why I hesitated from using chemiclean because it might cause another imbalance if the good bacteria will be killed also.

 

[trietnguyen000]

Some folks keep nutrients really high but I think that’s because the tank is well established and the good bacteria load is enough to handle high nutrients. I learned it the hard way and dosed nitrate too fast which caused so many other issues.

 

[Chortanator]

Have you tried MB7? Some bacterial diversity may help.

Currently using Fauna Marin bacto reef balls, I'm not sure if they're the same compositionally but they have a similar function, looks like.

 

[Dburr1014]

Lots of good advice here from many people.

You need some better test kits. API is good for trends but not a hard number. Hanna is good or maybe redsea for a little cheaper option. You do need nitrates and phosphates to avoid dinos. No3 5ish, some but not a hard fast rule, and po4 0.02-0.1 is fine.

Add some bacteria. All big brands names work equally well.

Personally, I would not disturb not sand bed at this time but do syphone up the cyano daily. Either with a hose or turkey baster.

Need more flow. Cayno hates flow. If the sand starts to blow all over, turn it down just a hair.

Try to avoid chemiclean if you can.

 

[TAP93]

So I ended up doing 3 days without the tank lights on again to see what would happen. This is the tank after those three days.

And this is the tank after having the lights on for 6 days.

The only thing that was changed after the blackout was that I turned my color way down on my kessil A360x to about the 0%-20% range throughout the day so the tank stays pretty blue (which I like). I also had the LFS store test my water to compare my results and they confirmed my low nitrates and phosphate test results. I haven’t disturbed the sand bed or even changed the water in two weeks. Although I don’t think I have totally gotten rid of it, I think I have deffenitly slowed it down.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

So I’ve had my tank up and running for about 3 months now and I’m still fighting cyno all over but mostly on the sand bed. I bought the tank used so the sand bed and some of the live rock was already established but I later added some used dry rock to the tank. It’s a jbj 45 and I am running a tunze 9004 skimmer in one chamber and a in-tank media basket in the other with filter floss, marine pure bio brick and then some carbon. I am running a single MP-10 for flow and a Kessil A360 blue is my light source. My only bio load is two clown fish, a CUC and then three small coral frags.
My understanding was that cyano feeds off nitrates and phosphates but whenever I test, they always come back reading zero so I’m not sure what to do really?? I’v been doing 5 gallon weekly water changes and siphoning what parts of the sand bed I can reach but it seems that the cyano is back with a vengeance within a day or two. I did try a three day blackout without the tank lights off and that defenitly got rid of it temporarily but it eventually came back within a few days. I’m all for riding out the uglies but I feel like its starting to get out of hand. Is it time to try chemical-clean or what?

Remember that algaes consume nitrate and phosphate so just because your tests don't register them doesn't mean they aren't there -- they are likely just bound up in the algae.