Cyano battle ... Dr. Tim's method. Does it work?

AquAttila · Jun 22, 2020

I have been battling hair algae and cyano for months now and just cannot get rid of it. I am more concerned about the cyano first and have watched the saltwater aquarium seminar where it talked about Cyano using dr. Tim's products to remove (waste away and re-fresh). I first though I was getting this because of high nutrients, but think my nitrate / phosphate are somewhat low at PO4 being about .25 and NO3 being around 5. Then I thought, ok maybe it is because it's fairly new setup (about 18 months)... I figure I read a lot about the lack of flow being the culprit for cyano so I added some power heads, still no go. I used red slime - tried to avoid this so figure I just use it once. Sure it helped, but I am back to having a lot of cyano. I know cyano and dino's can look similar, but I would be shocked to have dino's as my nutrients are measurable. I even tried to use microbacter clean for a month or so - no change. I was going to try "vibrant" but have read some negative reviews so this leads me to my next promised miracle solution "Dr. Tim's waste-away and re-fresh".

Before I start to dump more stuff in my tank can someone tell me their experience if you have used the dr. Tim's method and if it was successful. I want to do something other then hope for this stuff to just disappear.

Thanks!

AquAttila · Jun 23, 2020

TheDuude · Jun 23, 2020

I would recommend trying Microbacter Clean. I was about to try the Dr. tims method but went with the Clean since it was cheaper and it knocked out my cyano in about 3 weeks.

TheGerm · Jun 23, 2020

From my experience with almost exact issues, Vibrant has been the long term winner.

I have tried Dr. Tims's Waste Away with their Cyano plan, but even with params stabilized, it always came back even with the maintenance dose, and 3 day blackouts. Then i tried MicroBacter7 with some MarinePure plates, again nothing changed, still had the issues. After that, i read on r2r about Vibrant, good and bad, but from my reading it didnt seem to hurt anything as long as you follow the instructions. Did that. 3wks later i had white sand again, and the hair algae was white and dying. After about 5wks, no algae to note. Then i have moved to a maintenance dose 1x/wk and i havent seen cyano or hair algae since.

I would check out BRS's video about their Vibrant trails. I think every tank will react differently, but if you stick to the plan as directed on the bottle, you will see results.