Cyano. What am I doing wrong

[brandon429]

per thread examples yes that's the bulk of it

There are careful order of ops to rip clean and not recycle, the side benefit of doing that is invasions stop because we've removed both the invader and their fuel/housing. Any form of tank medication, or even nutrient tuning while potentially effective on target still leaves all the sandbed waste in place for future invasions. Our cleaned beds are invader free until waste builds up in the bed again...cost of keeping a sandbed, they're not self regenerating at all, especially when under invasion challenge.

different tanks require different intervals of sandbed intervention... and bare bottom tanks allow for easier cleaning and get invaded -far- less with matted invaders but many just like the look of sand so they add it (then not clean it, ever)

For you to have a really deep bed isn't the issue, detritus in it is. Correct UV lighting for $175 off Amazon would also nail that stuff, but you install that cheat -after- a cleaning event, the hard work portion for having kept a sandbed is still indicated at some stage of turnaround here.

 

[Katrina71]

@brandon429 mind if I translate?

 

[brandon429]

Please do and I'm immediately looking up a Keegan Michael key meme because of that timing <--- best four words I've read all day that's great heh

 

[Katrina71]

A bit gross, but...if you use the toilet and spray air freshener it smells nicer. If you don't flush, eventually the nice smell is gone and you are just left with...;Vomit

 

[brandon429]

to not clean a sandbed is to use spray where a flush is due, summary of our work yes agreed. no 12 pages required. noted

 

[Katrina71]

to not clean a sandbed is to use spray where a flush is due, summary of our work yes agreed. no 12 pages required. noted

That made me laugh really hard!

 

[B-ridge]

So how and when will I find out the true levels in my tank? IE: nitrates and phosphates? I do wanna add corals at some time
Secondly how would I replace the beneficial bacteria that’s in my sand bed that I will be losing once I vacuum/siphon out sand?

 

[Sherman]

I will just siphon as much of the cynao out as possible and keep dosing bacteria

 

[brandon429]

No required bacteria are lost in the rinse, that's a core portion of our work in the link, it covers every possible angle and deconstruction for moves just like your tank needs



This sandbed recently had your tanks invasion, but it's been cleaned out.


The rocks need hand cleaning outside the tank, they retain waste vs eject it when they're allowed to stay covered in any retentive mass. Thread shows all cleaning, the last page is a tank with your same invader. The gentleman and his family lent us my new fav sand rinse example


Even if you do want to adjust nitrates and phosphates, its ideal to do it after your tank is cleaned. true bed cleaning is a big step, feel free to try easier options first, it's nice to have the option if they don't work

 

[atrociousoceanus29]

I suggest you get a conch snail, my sand bed always ends up looking crisp and fresh because of him.

 

[jsker]

believe something is giving me false readings

I now use the Hanna ultra low phosphorus reader to check my phosphates. I would say High nitrates. I cut back my feeding to 1/2 and noticed a big difference and the cyano is now starving itself out. I also cut back on the intensity of my whites and cut back on the white spectrum light length to 5.5 hours.

 

[B-ridge]

Do you guys think it matters if you dose Chemiclean with the lights on or off? I just happen to read blue Ļìfȩ instructions on there cyano rx and directions state to do treatment early in the morning when lights are coming on. In a way that makes sense. Cyano grows with the lights on therefore your killing it as it grows. But then with the lights off it grows slower. Therefore being able to kill it off faster
What do you think?

 

[Super Fly]

make sure to do 20% water change as per instruction, it appears you changed less than 20% after treatment. I used chemiclean w lights on n it killed the cyano. Strong/sufficient flow will help prevent cyano forming. I'd recommend vacuum clean the sand during each water change to get the detritus out.

 

[B-ridge]

I finally got a reading of 0.02 phosphates. Still reading 0 nitrates. I’m happy about that. Still not sure if it’s accurate but I’m at least getting a reading of something

 

[Katrina71]

@saltyfilmfolks

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

It’s a brand new tank. It’s just an ugly phase.
It’s also dry rock and sand. It takes time to build the bio filter.
With the vilume if your tank you’ll have a few more issues.
Some of my older reefer friends had a bet on waeather or not they’d get cyano after adding new live sand. It was a split decision. Got it but not that bad. Lol.
Here’s why he got it even though his “nutrients “ weren’t that high, and why you get it in new tanks.
Cyano prefers no3 to Po4. When food rots it makes ammoina( cyano can directly feed on that), then it becomes nitrite (cyano like it) then no3, cyano likes that too. Nitrifying Bacterias need to be in high numbers to compete with that. Cyano also has two advantages there, it’s photo synthetic, so it’s processes are sped by light. And it’s also fueled by co2, that is produced by the good bacteria where good bacteria needs oxygen. So smothering in a Mat helps it to create a Micro climate where foods are rotting and it can capture the co2 gases. According to Sprung, the matting also allows the cyano to digest the carbon given off by the small amount of buffering of aragonite rather than rely on co2 for that carbon source.
This is why more flow and disrupting the mats , looking at the ph (low ph high co2) is a common remedy. It stoops the micro climate formation under the Mat , and stops. Foods from settling in one spot where it produces ammoina and co2. Also where a clean sand bed is a good thing, but not always a need.

So those are a couple things to look at. The addition of good bottled bacteria (dr Tim’s one and only for me) for a time should help to compete. Reducing foods that can directly feed cyano is next. Aminos and coral foods come to mind as they are easily digestible by corals and bacterias and also break down (rot) quickly.

IMO , it’ll phase out eventually if you do mostly nothing and you look at those points outlined by myself and others here.

I’ve never had to use chemiclean. I don’t really get cyano ever , despite having higher Po4 And somtimes stupid high no3 over the years.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

@brandon429 mind if I translate?

Please do and I'm immediately looking up a Keegan Michael key meme because of that timing <--- best four words I've read all day that's great heh

Y’all killin me.
Lol.

 

[brandon429]

x1000 word bubble above my portion of the meme
shes behind me vehemently pointing forward, eyebrows + grimace, word bubble is : you got poo

 

[biophilia]

I don’t really buy the idea that cyano establishes itself specifically because a sandbed hasnt been cleaned enough. In my tank, cyano only seems to grow on powerheads and the back wall which seems to contradict that theory.

My hunch is that because film cyano (and dinoflagellates for that matter) are opportunists and will occupy space in the tank that isn’t preferentially occupied by other species, the easiest way to deal with them is to adjust water parameters to favor those other species. In my case, regularly dosing sodium silicate gave diatoms the ability to overtake cyano quite quickly and effectively and I haven’t seen a spot of cyano since. You can either work with natural systems or fight relentlessly against them...

 

[brandon429]

agreed that's possible, see how many replications you can log to check it/post