Cyano...help?

[Han_And]

Good morning,, our 5ft marine tank is slowly becoming overrun my cyano algae. At the moment we are just about managing it with water changes. Does anyone know of an effective treatment or anything to help get rid of it or at least reduce it without causing any upset to the fish/corals please?
Thank you

 

[ifwisheswerefishes]

Chemi clean worked really well for me. No problem with corals or fish. Make sure you use an air stone or point return flow to top of waterline as oxygen can be depleted a bit.

 

[Sallstrom]

When having corals I really don't want to upset by chemicals, I like to really focus on getting stable levels of nitrate and phosphate(above 2 ppm NO3 and above 0,04 PO4). Then make sure as many other parameters, like temp, light schedules, feedings etc, as possible are stable and not changing. It might take 2-5 weeks, but usually the Cyanobacteria will go away by themselves. This is what we have done for 7+ years now at my work (public aquarium, many reef tanks ).

This is for when the nutrients are low. Cyanobacteria when having high nutrients might be a bit trickier to get rid of IMO. But stability is the key I think. Cyanobacteria is opportunists and do well in unstable environments.

 

[Big_Mclargehuge]

When having corals I really don't want to upset by chemicals, I like to really focus on getting stable levels of nitrate and phosphate(above 2 ppm NO3 and above 0,04 PO4). Then make sure as many other parameters, like temp, light schedules, feedings etc, as possible are stable and not changing. It might take 2-5 weeks, but usually the Cyanobacteria will go away by themselves. This is what we have done for 7+ years now at my work (public aquarium, many reef tanks ).

This is for when the nutrients are low. Cyanobacteria when having high nutrients might be a bit trickier to get rid of IMO. But stability is the key I think. Cyanobacteria is opportunists and do well in unstable environments.

I came across this while searching for tips for cyano. I'm having a cyano bacteria outbreak in my tank. My nutrients are super low. Tank is only 5 months old. I started feeding heavier etc.. and still can't get my nitrates and phosphates up at all. Any tips for getting rid of this stuff? Thanks!

 

[brandon429]

We have about 36 pages of cleaned up tanks in the sandbed rinse thread that no longer have cyano issues, by doing a full tank clean including the sand. part of optional maintenance

we never test for anything, or buy dosers, we just clean tanks for 36 pages and just about everyone is happy at the results and the pics looks sharp.

how big is your tank

 

[Big_Mclargehuge]

We have about 36 pages of cleaned up tanks in the sandbed rinse thread that no longer have cyano issues, by doing a full tank clean including the sand. part of optional maintenance

we never test for anything, or buy dosers, we just clean tanks for 36 pages and just about everyone is happy at the results and the pics looks sharp.

how big is your tank

Just 32 gallons.

 

[brandon429]

well thats a perfect candidate, not having to buy dosers, waiting, weeks of back and forth. consider rip surgery

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

nano reefs respond to the method better than any reef, since getting 32 gallons of new water to replace after its all cleaned isn't hard.

 

[brandon429]

everything is brown...

Hello all I was hoping somebody could help guide me through an algae issue Im having with a fairly new tank. This is my first attempt at a reef tank, I just have a tiny 15 Litre nano tank. The tank finished cycling about 6 weeks ago, levels are all 0 for nitrites, ammonia and nitrates. I am...

www.reef2reef.com

that right there was a quick tuneup job so you dont have to read 200 of them above prior link

 

[Big_Mclargehuge]

well thats a perfect candidate, not having to buy dosers, waiting, weeks of back and forth. consider rip surgery

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

nano reefs respond to the method better than any reef, since getting 32 gallons of new water to replace after its all cleaned isn't hard.

The real question is. Why am I having cyano and how to stop it from happening again

 

[brandon429]

per that work, the cause is amassing clouding waste in your sand and rocks. by cleaning, we remove that

by dosing chemi clean, it compounds and turns into gha.

cyano is expected and natural in all reef settings, a universal hitchhiker it signifies nothing bad or out of balance. we just dont like to see it

so, the cause of it all is leaving a naturally-adapted organism in place.

 

[brandon429]

we find this precondition the harbinger of cyano:


reach into any reef and grab rocks, twist them about mid water and massive attached detritus cloud comes off.

reach into sand, grab some and drop, it could kill the whole tank. we undo both those conditions in the thread, its hard work w sharp outcomes.

*this doesnt help much for 200+ gallon systems lol they're on the retail doser mode or the test/respond/alter param mode or depending on an invert or fish

in nanos we like to force the compliant clean condition, reset the tank's age back to clean and new, then employ those balancers as growback prevention ideally.

there are other ways of beating cyano that dont require the surgery, but we think those are boring ways lol


The reason a large branch in the hobby has shifted to elevated rock stacks and no sand, no extra surface area reefs, is for throughput benefits/nonstorage

take a read through the first 3 pages here in this forum and see the tanks

what % of them will have heavy rock castings when tested, and sand that could possibly kill the whole reef if disturbed? that presents quite a need for export and a redoing of storage habits. the way we train each other to set up reefs perpetuates invasions, we don't clean much.

 

[Sallstrom]

I came across this while searching for tips for cyano. I'm having a cyano bacteria outbreak in my tank. My nutrients are super low. Tank is only 5 months old. I started feeding heavier etc.. and still can't get my nitrates and phosphates up at all. Any tips for getting rid of this stuff? Thanks!

Hi!
I see @brandon429 has promoted his way, I like to do pretty much the opposite
But sure, if the tank is small and easy to clean, that might be one way.
I like to leave the tanks and let them “tune in” themselves, but under my control. Specially new tanks seems to lack nutrients and usually gets Cyanobacteria or dinoflagellates as a result.

We dose NaNO3 or KNO3 to raise the nitrate and KH2PO4 for the phosphate. You can get ready to use products as well. We buy the powder and mix ourselves with RO water. Nowadays we use dosing pumps, but you could also do it manually once a day.

When dosing, nitrate is usually quite easy to predict. It doesn’t go up all of a sudden. Phosphate on the other hand might show zero on the tests for a while, then start to increase. It can bond to sand and rocks until a certain point, then you see the increase on the water tests.

When getting NO3 up to 1-3 ppm and PO4 to over 0,02 ppm, we try to stay at that level. It takes some tests to find the right dosage sometimes.

Let me know if you have any more questions!