Cyano - battling for 6+ months

[nyc_love]

Would love some thoughts, and maybe even some words of encouragement. My tank has been up for almost a year (130g DT + 20g sump). I perform a daily 3g water change via the Neptune DOS and I clean the skimmer, glass, change filter socks, and other maintenance every Monday and Thursday. I love my tank and have been very consistent with maintenance twice per week. I have also gone very slowly with adding in fish (no coral yet but I have live rock). Back in May, I started to get Cyano and it simply won’t go away. I’ve tried Chemiclean 3 times now and it goes away only to come back in under a week. My nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates are all at 0 so I’m working on trying to get my nutrients higher because I think that is part of the problem. I’ve used MB7 but that didn’t help. I started feeding more about a week ago in hopes of increasing the nutrients but the cyano is now even worse. Anyone have any advice? I feel defeated. I am going to try Coral Snow + Cyano Clean for 8 weeks to see if that helps. Anyone that has used these products and has any tips/recommendations, I’d love to hear. Thanks everyone. This community has been so helpful to me over the last year.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

When I have cyano I scrub the rocks/sand and syphon as much out of the tank as I can, then I do a large water change (30%ish) and then dose chemiclean or cyano rx. I do get a cyano outbreak about once a year and this does the trick.

There's a lot of debate on how nutrients affect cyano so I'm not sure if adding nutrients will solve the issue. There seems to be plenty of people with normal to high nutrients that also battle it. There are other reasons to get your phosphate and nitrate above 0, which you are obviously aware of and trying to do.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

Forgot to add, I find that the cyano in my tank grows in areas of lower flow. Try increasing the flow if you can.

 

[Jonify]

Would love some thoughts, and maybe even some words of encouragement. My tank has been up for almost a year (130g DT + 20g sump). I perform a daily 3g water change via the Neptune DOS and I clean the skimmer, glass, change filter socks, and other maintenance every Monday and Thursday. I love my tank and have been very consistent with maintenance twice per week. I have also gone very slowly with adding in fish (no coral yet but I have live rock). Back in May, I started to get Cyano and it simply won’t go away. I’ve tried Chemiclean 3 times now and it goes away only to come back in under a week. My nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates are all at 0 so I’m working on trying to get my nutrients higher because I think that is part of the problem. I’ve used MB7 but that didn’t help. I started feeding more about a week ago in hopes of increasing the nutrients but the cyano is now even worse. Anyone have any advice? I feel defeated. I am going to try Coral Snow + Cyano Clean for 8 weeks to see if that helps. Anyone that has used these products and has any tips/recommendations, I’d love to hear. Thanks everyone. This community has been so helpful to me over the last year.

Hi @nyc_love! Check out Mark Levinson's recent video where he talks about cyano and chemiclean.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I've used chemiclean twice in the past 4 years, and both times it worked perfectly for me and the cyano didn't come back. If it comes back to you within a week, I suspect something is off. Do you have good flow? A tank pic always helps.

 

[nyc_love]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm running a Maxspect Gyre 280 at 40% right now for the flow. I ordered a second one which will be here at the end of this week and I'm going to place it on the other side of the tank towards the bottom to increase flow along the bottom of the tank where most of the Cyano is. Hopefully that helps but I think there is already a pretty good amount of flow throughout the tank.

Besides increasing feeding, what are other good ways of getting nutrients up? I'm running a UV (24x7), Carbon Reactor (24x7), and Rowaphos Reactor (24x7). Those in addition to the daily 3g automated water change seem to be keeping all nutrients at 0. My LFS (who have been great) have told me that it's likely related to my nutrients needing to increase so that is what I am trying to tackle right now. Any guidance on increasing nutrients would be greatly appreciated.

 

[WestMI-Reefer]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm running a Maxspect Gyre 280 at 40% right now for the flow. I ordered a second one which will be here at the end of this week and I'm going to place it on the other side of the tank towards the bottom to increase flow along the bottom of the tank where most of the Cyano is. Hopefully that helps but I think there is already a pretty good amount of flow throughout the tank.

Besides increasing feeding, what are other good ways of getting nutrients up? I'm running a UV (24x7), Carbon Reactor (24x7), and Rowaphos Reactor (24x7). Those in addition to the daily 3g automated water change seem to be keeping all nutrients at 0. My LFS (who have been great) have told me that it's likely related to my nutrients needing to increase so that is what I am trying to tackle right now. Any guidance on increasing nutrients would be greatly appreciated.

Turn off the carbon reactor, thats keeping nitrates too low.
Turn off the rowaphos, thats keeping phosphate too low.
Turn off the daily auto water changes. You don’t want to export more nutrients, if you want increased nutrients.

Continue UV, and skimmer. Up the flow

Track nutrient levels with regular testing. You should see them rising after turning off your chemical filtration.

Regular manual removal will help once nutrients are balanced near the redfield ratio because it wont keep growing new cyano.

An Algae turf scrubber seems like it would help as the nutrients that cyano normally would take up, would be competed for by the turf algae.

Stay away from chemical treatments.
It’s risky to livestock and bacteria balance.
It doesn’t address the root of the problem, which is a nutrient imbalance. So even if the treatment works, it will likely come back.

Goodluck!

 

[nyc_love]

Thank you @WestMI-Reefer. I just turned off the Carbon and Rowaphos and have reduced the auto water change to 1g per day. Hopefully that helps! I’ve been looking into getting an algae turf scrubber. I’ve been narrowing in on the APIS60 from Foursquare Aquatics. If I run that, isn’t that also consuming the nitrates and phosphates which then results in the same place I am today with running the carbon and Rowaphos? I guess maybe my question is will the turf scrubber produce algae at a faster rate absorbing the nutrients so that the cyano doesn’t have the nutrients to then grow? If you have any other recommendations for a scrubber, please let me know. Thank you!

 

[WestMI-Reefer]

Thank you @WestMI-Reefer. I just turned off the Carbon and Rowaphos and have reduced the auto water change to 1g per day. Hopefully that helps! I’ve been looking into getting an algae turf scrubber. I’ve been narrowing in on the APIS60 from Foursquare Aquatics. If I run that, isn’t that also consuming the nitrates and phosphates which then results in the same place I am today with running the carbon and Rowaphos? I guess maybe my question is will the turf scrubber produce algae at a faster rate absorbing the nutrients so that the cyano doesn’t have the nutrients to then grow? If you have any other recommendations for a scrubber, please let me know. Thank you!

It’s true that the turf scrubber will lower nutrients, but this is a safer natural process which can be dialed up or down/ on or off by turning the ATS light on or off. Chemical filtration is much more aggressive, it strips water of nutrients fast and cannot as easily be controlled.

Exactly! The turf algae should take up nutrients before the cyano can use them, but without zeroing the nutrients completely. Finding the right schedule for the light will be the tricky part. Keep testing. This along with manual removal, and elevated nitrate & phosphate, will yield positive results.

I have no recommendations for an ATS, but if your handy I’ve seen some great ones on this forum that people DIY. Some designs (like an open- in sump design) are really easy to make and cheap.

 

[Lavey29]

I agree with @WestMI-Reefer you are stripping your water of nutrients and chemiclean kills off good bacteria and messes up your biome. You have way to much export.

Can you post pics of your tank algae please.

 

[doubleshot00]

You may have dinos to fyi. Get a microscope to know for sure. You could try reef snow.

 

[nyc_love]

I agree with @WestMI-Reefer you are stripping your water of nutrients and chemiclean kills off good bacteria and messes up your biome. You have way to much export.

Can you post pics of your tank algae please.

Thanks! I just cleaned the tank today and scrubbed off all the cyano. It should be back by Friday (sigh) so I'll post a picture then.

 

[nyc_love]

You may have dinos to fyi. Get a microscope to know for sure. You could try reef snow.

I thought this as well but I was told that if Chemiclean does get rid of it (regardless of it comes back), then it is Cyano. Please let me know if you think otherwise.

 

[Lavey29]

I thought this as well but I was told that if Chemiclean does get rid of it (regardless of it comes back), then it is Cyano. Please let me know if you think otherwise.

Cyano is more of a light dependent bacteria that prefers no flow areas in the tank. Dinos is very common when nutrient levels are bottomed out and often appears after someone uses chemiclean for cyano. The chemiclean bottoms out nutrient levels and kills off good bacteria thus opening the door for dinos to take over.

Get your parameters up where they need to be. Weekly water changes with siphon removal. Stop all the chemicals. If you have corals cut lights to 6 hours with blue and uv only no whites. Dose a bazillion pods and dose phytoplankton daily. Increase flow to affected areas. Get a sand sifting goby. Dose PNS probio weekly which is a natural heterotrophic bacteria that eliminates organic waste that feeds algae. This is a 2 to 3 month battle.

 

[nyc_love]

Just did my first measurements after turning off Carbon and Rowaphos:

Nitrate: 2.3
Phosphate: 0.10

How is this looking? Should I turn the Rowaphos reactor back on since phosphates are at 0.10?

 

[soreefed]

Just did my first measurements after turning off Carbon and Rowaphos:

Nitrate: 2.3
Phosphate: 0.10

How is this looking? Should I turn the Rowaphos reactor back on since phosphates are at 0.10?

From zero to .1 in three days?

 

[I never finish anythi]

Extreme Water Clarity and Cyano Eradication, Made Easy!

For clear water why not ozone? I understand that it may not help with the cyano. Never dosed ozone, always used activated carbon now removed for HLLE Head and Lateral Line erosion in a hepatus and can be treated with iodine

www.reef2reef.com

 

[nyc_love]

From zero to .1 in three days?

Yeah. I last measured phosphates a week ago when it was 0. I have been feeding more and turned off carbon and Rowaphos since that last measurement. I'll measure again in a couple days and see where it is.

 

[nyc_love]

Hey everyone, attached is a picture I took today (Saturday) after siphoning out the cyano on Thursday. As you can see, it comes back strong I tested paramaters today and I have managed to get nitrates up to 5.4 and phosphates are at 0.07. I am installing a Turf Algae Scrubber today. The carbon reactor and rowaphos reactor's are both off. I am hoping I can keep increasing nitrates to about 10ppm and phosphates to 0.10. Any other tips would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[soreefed]

Hey everyone, attached is a picture I took today (Saturday) after siphoning out the cyano on Thursday. As you can see, it comes back strong I tested paramaters today and I have managed to get nitrates up to 5.4 and phosphates are at 0.07. I am installing a Turf Algae Scrubber today. The carbon reactor and rowaphos reactor's are both off. I am hoping I can keep increasing nitrates to about 10ppm and phosphates to 0.10. Any other tips would be appreciated. Thank you!

Cyano seems aggressive in your tank! Keep siphoning it out and if you haven’t yet increase the flow. Not sure if you ended up getting one but saw your post about power heads.

Flow, pods, sand sifters, good bacteria should all benefit your cause like the above poster said. Siphon it out every other day. Just keep it up until it doesn’t come back.