Can't beat Cyano

[Sabres429]

Did you use dry base rock?

I did and got the ensuing horrid cyno outbreak. Was covering everything. My nitrates and phosphates dropped to 0 and I started dosing. Didn't help much and I felt like I was just feeding the cyno as there was nothing to compete with it or nothing that could out compete it. Just nuked it with chemiclean and I'm now keeping a super close eye on my nutrients. Time will tell if this approach helps.

Kind of wishing I used live rock.

I used live rock from my LFS that was covered in coraline.

 

[PBar]

Even better, so just give it time...
The idea of lights out is just to get rid of this ugly thing faster (assuming it is cyano) and give time as well to the tank to stabilise.

I have to insist that new tank, bare bottom, nitrate and phosphate dosing plus Chemiclean... difficult combination.

Good luck!

 

[fishface NJ]

I used live rock from my LFS that was covered in coraline.

I used 40 pounds of Real Reef live rock from my LFS that was covered in coraline.

Real Reef live rock brand is a purple/blue painted on the rock. It's not coraline algae

here is a shot of my Real Reef live rock. The spot of pink is coraline growth

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

You need more flow in your display. The ocean is a big.moving current of water. Try to visualize for you. Lol!
D

 

[brandon429]

Just rip clean the tank by force, exclude cyano and waste, re assemble using the same skip cycle you began with and keeping the current animals in place. They adapted to a crashing reef; a deep clean is laughable in comparison.
Dispatch with all the waiting, this is distant option no. 16

 

[Sabres429]

Real Reef live rock brand is a purple/blue painted on the rock. It's not coraline algae

here is a shot of my Real Reef live rock. The spot of pink is coraline growth

I know I’ve had Reel Reef before. This rock was covered in coraline

 

[Sabres429]

You need more flow in your display. The ocean is a big.moving current of water. Try to visualize for you. Lol!
D

I already have an MP10 and MP40 how much more do I need.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Uhhhhh. Whats ur filtration? I know i see you are sayong ur doing wcs. Are you turkey baster sucking it out? Spraying into a 5gal bucket? U would need to replace the sw but this helps.
You got this! Keep.goin.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Can u turn ur whites up a little and take a fts? A pic is worth a 1000 words.
D

 

[LRT]

I think the biggest failure to using chemiclean is not enough air.
I just treated my system the other day due to a serious rip clean of my sumps I believe I actually overcleaned my system causing a massive outbreak of cyano bacteria on all my 300 lbs of real live ocean rock in full .5" thick matts.

Anyhow I took my skimmer cups off and cranked my skimmers all the way up in my sumps as well as added 2 big air stones to both sumps.
You can literally watch the cyano dissolve in the sumps.
That being said it touched nothing in my frag tables until I got squirly and added a big air stone to all my tables.
I'm almost 100% cyano free in less that 48hrs.

Air, air ,air and more air is what you need if you want to be successful with chemiclean.

 

[Sabres429]

Can u turn ur whites up a little and take a fts? A pic is worth a 1000 words.
D

 

[Sabres429]

Uhhhhh. Whats ur filtration? I know i see you are sayong ur doing wcs. Are you turkey baster sucking it out? Spraying into a 5gal bucket? U would need to replace the sw but this helps.
You got this! Keep.goin.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

No run of the mill system. Thats nice.
Can u place the mp10 on a side wall of the tank blowing semi directly at the rockwork? I like how one is higher and one is lower.
Mp10 go deeper. Mid tank. One of the walls. My opinion. Have u tried that? Looks great besides.
D

 

[Sabres429]

I think I may have found a possible issue on top of the Reef Roids. When I was dosing Nitrate, my other test kit kept showing 0. Opened my other bran new Nyos Nitrate kit and it’s reading 12. I was at 0 for the longest time so maybe I dosed too fast? Just checked PO4 again and it’s reading 0.06.

 

[ChrisOFL]

I'm a big believer that dosing live bacteria to the tank helps compete out a lot of these nuisances. If you want to try, I would recommend you dose 40mL of Microbacter Clean and 20mL of Microbacter7 together, twice a week. Make sure you mix it into a cup of tank water before pouring it in. Your tank is the same size as mine and I've found this be very effective in my tank. I don't turn off my protein skimmer when I do it but it is recommended to be off for 4 hours.

 

[uhgster1]

Don’t panic and strip the tank out. Physically remove what you can with a siphon or turkey baster; if you have access to an mj type pump (1200,900,etc) blast the rocks with it and get the suspended pieces out with a fish net; dose any bacteria supplement you have, ie microbacter 7 or microbacter clean, dr Tim’s, etc..; and suck it up for the next month or two. I had cyano off and on for over a year before it completely disappeared. It’s the immaturity of your tank bacterial diversity and that’s only going to improve with time. There is no quick way out of this once it’s started. But if you’re patient it will bring itself under control and you will be happy. Once your tank matures it will be able to handle more than you think. Right now you’re just chasing your tail.
Before

After 5 months

Btw, my tank is half sand half bare bottom.

Your patience will be rewarded.

 

[MexiReefer]

so common in this site, that I have converted the phrase in a motivational poster

 

[Kynzo]

Avoid using GFO, Chemipure, what soever. Use some carbon and water change. You can try Microbacter Clean that introduce nitrifiying bacteria.

How often you water change?

This +1
I went through the same thing early on, tried all the stuff to fix it. You kind of just have to get through the ugly part and it'll pass. Trust me. Definitely do water changes and physically remove the cyano by scrubbing rocks and siphoning it out, that helps. I know on a day to day basis it sucks to look and it discouraging but I guarantee in like 3-4 months it will pass and you'll think back and laugh. I stopped feeding reef roids because I thought the same way as you, like "wow that 1 time I fed and now this whole outbreak happened." Fast forward to today and I broadcast every other day just to raise No3 and Po4. Stick with it. You'll be glad you did.

 

[Kynzo]

Don’t panic and strip the tank out. Physically remove what you can with a siphon or turkey baster; if you have access to an mj type pump (1200,900,etc) blast the rocks with it and get the suspended pieces out with a fish net; dose any bacteria supplement you have, ie microbacter 7 or microbacter clean, dr Tim’s, etc..; and suck it up for the next month or two. I had cyano off and on for over a year before it completely disappeared. It’s the immaturity of your tank bacterial diversity and that’s only going to improve with time. There is no quick way out of this once it’s started. But if you’re patient it will bring itself under control and you will be happy. Once your tank matures it will be able to handle more than you think. Right now you’re just chasing your tail.
Before

After 5 months

Btw, my tank is half sand half bare bottom.

Your patience will be rewarded.

Is that a hammer to the right of the Frogspawn in the 2nd picture? I have one similar and was wondering if the heads would ever get bigger and resemble other hammers I've seen. I guess not haha

 

[Dan_P]

I just can't seem to beat cyano. It's all over my rocks and the few corals that are barely alive. I run bare bottom on my Red Sea Reefer 250. Yes I use the BRS 5 stage RODI and read 0 TDS coming out. I use Red Sea blue bucket salt with a 5 gallon water change every week. I did the whole Chemiclean treatment, a 3 day blackout, and nothing has worked. I have a MP10 and MP40 in the tank. Reef Octopus 110SS in the sump and I have the BRS ROX 8 and GFO in a reactor. Only 1/8 of a cup is used. I purchased 40 Lbs. of Reel Reef Live rock from my LFS that was very much alive and covered in coraline.

I attribute this outbreak to Reef Roids. I fed a 1/4 of what is recommended once. I waited a full 24 hours and tested phosphate with my Hanna ULR checker. The vile was literally blue from being so high. It was reading .90.

My levels are currently:

Temp: 77.9-78.5 Via APEX
Salinity: 1.025
Mag 1440
Cal: 440
Alk: 8.5
Phosphate .03
Nitrate 1

I've been dosing N03 and P04 to get the levels up but I can't beat this cyano. I'm at the point of either breaking down the tank for a bit or having to do a re-boot.

Are you doing anything to disrupt the cyanobacteria mat? For example, daily removal by siphoning? Using a toothbrush on the rocks (after siphoning) to disturb the biofilm, forcing it to reform?