cyano bacteria.

[RPGLaz]

hello, all I have a one-year-old reef tank. about a month ago, the day after doing my bi-weekly water change, I noticed cyano on my sand. checked my NO3 and PO4; my NO3 is at 4 and my PO4 is at 0.00. I have a well-established pod population in the tank and I feed seaweed 2 times a day and frozen once. I was also dosing AB+ (25ml twice a week). I stopped dosing the AB+ and bought some more pods and microbacter 7 with the hopes of outcompeting the cyano but that hasn't worked. My PO4 is still at 0 and I think that this could be the root of my problem is there any way of rising it without dosing any chemicals into my tank, I don't like to add anything I don't need, which is the reason I haven't added chemi-clean.

Some other questions I had are :
Could this have been caused by the fact that I vacuumed my whole sand bed?
Will doing a 20% water change after dosing chemi-clean actually remove the medication in any way as 80% of the water is still there?
Will I be better off running carbon after using Chemi-clean?

The only filtration I have is filter socks, a skimmer, a carbon reactor, and a UV light. I feel like the UV should remove the cyano as it disappears every night only to come back when the lights turn on again.

Any ideas on how to solve this ?

 

[landlubber]

i think your low PO4 hunch is probably correct.
way before adding chemi-clean or any other chemical intervention i would consider backing the skimming off a little (if you're running a skimmer) and add another feeding into your daily routine. Another route to take would be to add more fish.
Basically you're intention is to get your nutrients higher but manageably.
PO4 around 5-10ppm and NO3 around 5-15ppm keep you from bottoming out and within high limits.

 

[Lavey29]

hello, all I have a one-year-old reef tank. about a month ago, the day after doing my bi-weekly water change, I noticed cyano on my sand. checked my NO3 and PO4; my NO3 is at 4 and my PO4 is at 0.00. I have a well-established pod population in the tank and I feed seaweed 2 times a day and frozen once. I was also dosing AB+ (25ml twice a week). I stopped dosing the AB+ and bought some more pods and microbacter 7 with the hopes of outcompeting the cyano but that hasn't worked. My PO4 is still at 0 and I think that this could be the root of my problem is there any way of rising it without dosing any chemicals into my tank, I don't like to add anything I don't need, which is the reason I haven't added chemi-clean.

Some other questions I had are :
Could this have been caused by the fact that I vacuumed my whole sand bed?
Will doing a 20% water change after dosing chemi-clean actually remove the medication in any way as 80% of the water is still there?
Will I be better off running carbon after using Chemi-clean?

The only filtration I have is filter socks, a skimmer, a carbon reactor, and a UV light. I feel like the UV should remove the cyano as it disappears every night only to come back when the lights turn on again.

Any ideas on how to solve this ?

Are you sure it's cyano on the sand? Can't tell from the pic if it's red or not.

You can raise phosphate by dosing reef roids once a week for your corals and I agree with the above you want phosphate at .05 to .1 and nitrates at 10 for mixed reefvtank.

 

[RPGLaz]

Are you sure it's cyano on the sand? Can't tell from the pic if it's red or not.

You can raise phosphate by dosing reef roids once a week for your corals and I agree with the above you want phosphate at .05 to .1 and nitrates at 10 for mixed reef tank.

I'm not 100% that it's cyano as it seems to disappear into the water column every night which is a trait for dinos i believe. if this is the case my UV should eliminate them. i ordered a replacement bulb as the last one i had has been on for a Year now which is why is probably not doing much, new one gets here tomorrow.

 

[RPGLaz]

i think your low PO4 hunch is probably correct.
way before adding chemi-clean or any other chemical intervention i would consider backing the skimming off a little (if you're running a skimmer) and add another feeding into your daily routine. Another route to take would be to add more fish.
Basically you're intention is to get your nutrients higher but manageably.
PO4 around 5-10ppm and NO3 around 5-15ppm keep you from bottoming out and within high limits.

yes i did lower my skimmer performance as it was filling up the cup within a week

 

[landlubber]

I'm not 100% that it's cyano as it seems to disappear into the water column every night which is a trait for dinos i believe. if this is the case my UV should eliminate them. i ordered a replacement bulb as the last one i had has been on for a Year now which is why is probably not doing much, new one gets here tomorrow.

not necessarily true. if you have Amphidinium dinos uv will resolve it assuming you're drawing the water from the display. if you have any of the other strain of dinos UV will have no effect. This is why its recommended to ID the dinos before spending money on solutions.