cyano bloom

[Nemoose]

My 30 gallon reef has been up for about a year now. It went through the normal cyano bloom while cycling and then i had no more problems. I had a single dwarf lion in it until I lost power in a heat wave and literally cooked it. I replaced the lion with a large pair of maroon clowns and a large BTA. And, a small pygmy angel with the normal CUC. I am sure this increased the bio load in the tank. Since then I have had an issue with cyano. I have reduced the lighting time, added phosguard to the sump, and reduced feeding. I also got 2 turbo snails to help control it. But it keeps coming back. I checked the tap water I am using but the phosphates and nitrates are practically undetectable. I siphoned it all out last night and I am seeing a little bit again today. i don't want to damage the BTA by leaving the lights off, so where do I go fro here? Tank nitrates and phosphates are very low but I understand that can be a false reading as the cyano could be sucking it all up. I am running a 4 x 39 odyssea t5 with half 10k and half actinic. It is maybe 8 months old. Is it time to change bulbs? I have seen some sites that recommend full spectrum bulbs rather than the 10K for cyana control. I have been looking at ATI bulbs recently. Would these help with the problem? What about dosing for the cyano? I have seen sites that say this is possible, but I hesitate to try that.

 

[john86roe]

Try using Boyd Chemiclean Red Slime Remover its save with reef tanks. Also look into replacing your lights, around 6 months they start to go bad and can cause problems in your tank. Now with Boyd Chemiclean Red Slime Remover they recommend increasing your aeration during treatment. I also use odyssea lights and I had that problem starting at around 6 months at 8 months I started to loose coral. So I got new light and it helped a lot. I do like odyssea lights buy they go bad fast compare to some of the others ones i've used.​

 

[KSzegi]

Just curious, since you are using tap water for top off and changes - what levels are practically undetectable? And what levels are 'very low' in the tank itself? If you want to try something before the Chemiclean ..... I would say continue to work on lowering the nitrate and phosphate, make sure your flow and skimmer are adequate, do several fairly large water changes with some ro/di water - and keep siphoning when you do.

If levels are truly low there might have just been an imbalance of nutrients and/or bacteria in the tank after the heat spike/fish loss. Some people have had luck with bacterial additives like microbacter - or zeovit coral snow & zeobak.

Personally when I was having a cyano issue that I didn't believe was a nutrient problem and after doing the 'usual' things that I recommend above without much success, I dosed the zeovit coral snow & zeobak - which cleared up 99% of it .... but still a bit wanted to persist so I ended up doing the 3 day lights out - and haven't had a problem since. I don't have any BTA's in the tank that I did lights out with but I do have a very large LTA and a lot of coral - and it didn't adversely affect any of them. I've heard a lot of people having good luck with the chemi-clean and having no issues with using it at all, just personally I wanted to avoid it if I could.

Jury is out on how much the light has to do with it .... but getting time to replace those bulbs anyway so I would do that too - ATI would be a great choice.

Hang in there, cyano can be such a frustration but you'll beat it!

 

[Nemoose]

Levels in the tap water and tank were less than .25. for phosphates and nitrates were near 0. I did after 15% water change with the siphon and will do another one soon. I have been using actinics only for most of the day and there is some regrowth but not as bad as before.