Cyano or something else?

[mrbacony]

I have struggled with my nitrates being 0 or just a bit over 0. I have been adding Neo-Nitro and feeding heavy to help bring them up. My phosphates run around 0.03.
I started doing this because I had a breakout of what looks to me like Cyano bacteria. It is reddish in color. After a couple of weeks of struggling with the outbreak, I added ChemiClean and did a water change after 48 hours (the 48 hours was up on Sunday so it has been 2 days since the end of the treatment). But it now seems to be just as bad and probably worse.
Is this Cyano I am dealing with, or something else?
Can I do another round of ChemiClean (maybe up the does) without causing too much harm?

 

[Lasse]

Sorry - no pictures - links broken

Sincerely Lasse

 

[sixty_reefer]

I have struggled with my nitrates being 0 or just a bit over 0. I have been adding Neo-Nitro and feeding heavy to help bring them up. My phosphates run around 0.03.
I started doing this because I had a breakout of what looks to me like Cyano bacteria. It is reddish in color. After a couple of weeks of struggling with the outbreak, I added ChemiClean and did a water change after 48 hours (the 48 hours was up on Sunday so it has been 2 days since the end of the treatment). But it now seems to be just as bad and probably worse.
Is this Cyano I am dealing with, or something else?
Can I do another round of ChemiClean (maybe up the does) without causing too much harm?

We can’t see the pictures, if you have Cyanobacteria neonitro may not be the best choice. You may need something like calcium nitrate to raise your nutrients, the difference is that neonitro seems to contain organic forms of nitrogen and calcium nitrate will be a inorganic form of nitrates, Cyanobacteria utilises mainly atmospheric forms of nitrogen but it may be possible that they can also utilise dissolved organic nutrients in our systems in addition, heterotrophic bacteria may be limited by the inorganic availability of nutrients and will be preferable to add a inorganic form to aid their growth.
In addition you may want to add a good quality GAC and give the sand bed a good rinse to remove other organics that may be accumulated in the sand and water column.

 

[mrbacony]

Sorry - no pictures - links broken

Sincerely Lasse

Thanks for the heads up. How about now?

sixty reefer, is there a product you recommend for the calcium nitrate?

 

[Lasse]

If chemiclean did not work - It may be dinoflagellates @taricha , @J1a

Sincerely Lasse

 

[mrbacony]

If chemiclean did not work - It may be dinoflagellates @taricha , @J1a

Sincerely Lasse

I considered that as well, but the reddish color made me think cyano. Boy I hope it is cyano and not dinos

 

[sixty_reefer]

Thanks for the heads up. How about now?

sixty reefer, is there a product you recommend for the calcium nitrate?

Amazon under pharmaceuticals I believe, it looks more like dinoflagellates to me, maybe some lyngbya in the mix. You may still want to use calcium nitrate to raise nitrates.
Have you got a picture of the sand bed under whites?

 

[KStatefan]

Thanks for the heads up. How about now?

sixty reefer, is there a product you recommend for the calcium nitrate?

If you do not want to go DIY the ESV Nitrate is Calcium Nitrate

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Food grade sodium nitrate is a perfectly good nitrate source to dose.

 

[Lasse]

Food grade sodium nitrate is a perfectly good nitrate source to dose.

You may find it in the grocery store KNO3 (potassium nitrate) is known as salpeter and NaNO3 (sodium nitrate) is known as Chile salpeter. Between the thumb and the index finger - 40 g of either one in 500 ml RO water will give a stock solution where 1 ml rise the NO3 concentration with 0.5 mg/l (ppm) per 100 L aquarium water

Sincerely Lasse

 

[mrbacony]

Amazon under pharmaceuticals I believe, it looks more like dinoflagellates to me, maybe some lyngbya in the mix. You may still want to use calcium nitrate to raise nitrates.
Have you got a picture of the sand bed under whites?

Here’s the sand bed under all whites

 

[sixty_reefer]

Here’s the sand bed under all whites

It does looks like some sort of algae not Cyanobacteria or dinoflagellates maybe a lyngbya. I would increase nutrient for a couple weeks and observe.

 

[mrbacony]

I would not have guessed algae at all since my nutrients have been near 0 for phosphate and nitrates for several weeks. A few more under the whites. You can see how it is completely overtaking my zoas

 

[sixty_reefer]

I would not have guessed algae at all since my nutrients have been near 0 for phosphate and nitrates for several weeks. A few more under the whites. You can see how it is completely overtaking my zoas

I’m afraid I may not have explained myself properly, lyngbya is still a type of nuisance bacteria from the Cyanobacteria species it just looks more of a algae visually than the usual matting style. The only way to confirm the type of bacteria/algae you have would be by looking at it trough a microscope.

It’s not fully known how they get their energy from most photoautotrophs species will be observed blooming in low to zero nutrients and one of the first ways to start outcompeting them in my view is to remove those events hence raising nitrates and phosphates with inorganic forms to aid the heterotrophic bacteria to dominate again, it seems that most nuisances appear in our system once this particular type of bacterias gets affected at the nutrient level meaning once one of the three primary nutrients gets limited in our systems. There is several ways that limitation on nutrient can happen and having high nitrates and high phosphates will be one of them also this is why it’s not uncommon to observe some species of Cyanobacteria blooming under high nutrients events.
The most common limitation at the moment that is recognised by most is just the low nitrates, phosphates or both.

 

[Lasse]

I´ll go for Cyanobacteria - but different species on the sand and on the rocks

Sincerely Lasse

 

[mrbacony]

I´ll go for Cyanobacteria - but different species on the sand and on the rocks

Sincerely Lasse

I wonder why the ChemiClean didn’t even seem to touch it. Maybe I will try another round in a week or two. I will try raising the nitrate and phosphate first and keep adding Microbacter 7.
Thanks all for the advice.
By the way, is there a site that shows what each form looks like under a microscope? I do have access to a decent microscope

 

[Lasse]

Can you take a microscopic picture of the different? forms and publish it here, There is people here that can identify them I think

Sincerely Lasse

 

[J1a]

I wonder why the ChemiClean didn’t even seem to touch it. Maybe I will try another round in a week or two. I will try raising the nitrate and phosphate first and keep adding Microbacter 7.
Thanks all for the advice.
By the way, is there a site that shows what each form looks like under a microscope? I do have access to a decent microscope

You can always post the photos here so that we can try and ID it. If it is dino, then chemiclean will probably not do much against it.

Sometimes, dino and cyano can really look alike to our eyes

 

[mrbacony]

I will see if I am able to capture a photo. I will post here if I can. Not sure I am technically inclined enough.

 

[taricha]

I would not have guessed algae at all since my nutrients have been near 0 for phosphate and nitrates for several weeks. A few more under the whites. You can see how it is completely overtaking my zoas

That really looks more like dinos than anything else.