cyano woes

[bjledbetter]

I have been battling this stuff for almost 3 months.Its not going anywhere any time soon it looks.
Nitrates 0 per salfert
phosphate 0 per api
ph8.8 per api
Alk8.6 per red sea
Ca 500 per red sea
Mag 1600 per red sea
I know if there is alage and cayno already growing with the test im using I could be getting 0 readings and still have high amounts of both trates/phosphate. I was at petco tonight and bought a cottle of kent phosphate remover and a media bag and stuck it in a old protien skimmer without the bubbles to see if that would help any. I cant afford to buy a reactor and gfo right now. Any one have any other ideas?

 

[Tinola]

Blackout your tank, cover it with towels. Don't feed your fish for a few days. I'd try to get rid of the cyano naturally first before using chemicals.

I got this from another forum when searching on how to rid of cyano. His username's Yodaman

"1. Increase Flow in the tank (add powerheads or redirect them to make more turbulence).
2. Decrease dissolved nutrients in the water (stop feeding, increase skimming, run phosphate remover).
3. Reef Cleanup crew (red leg hermits, snails, etc).
4. Starve it from light (lower photoperiod to 6-8 hours and do a black period for 2-3 days then 1 day on, repeat for a few weeks).
5. Physically remove as much as you can.

Here is what I did, and I was able to successfully get rid of the red slime/cyanobacteria naturally without the use of chemicals.

1. I redirected my powerheads to create more turbulance. Didn't have to add any.
2. I blew off the cyano with a power head and caught it with a net and removed it.
3. No feeding for 3 weeks now. Except for 1 per week with low phosphate flakes.
4. Added Snails and Red Legged Hermits. Also added a Lettuce Nudi for the hair.
5. I covered the aquarium and did 2 days black, 1 day lights 2 weeks straight.
6. Adjusted Skimmer to be wetter and pull more dissolved crap out.
7. Phosphate remover running in my reactor.

Try it naturally before going with chemicals.

Here's the order of importance in my experience and opinion:

1. Flow
2. Feeding
3. Light
4. Filtration (skimming & phosphate)
5. Cleanup Crew"

 

[bjledbetter]

It is the kent phosophate sponge its a type of granular stuff like gfo. its not a liquid chemical. im a little scared to keep it on my tank long bc it is aluminuim based, but if this starts to kill it off i will buy some sort of actual gfo to go on my tank even if its in the media bag in the skimmer.Im afraid to go lights out. I have a clam and ritteri anemone that i dont think would do well two days in the dark. I only feed pellets once a week to the fish and the nem gets a piece of krill every other day so im not feeding much now, I had snails and hermits but when this started most of them died.I need to get some more. I moved my powerheads tonight to blow directly on it.

 

[bjledbetter]

what really concerned me was i added a birdnest frag and a green slimer frag and both were dead the night after when i got home. all my other fish and corals/nems though are still fine.

 

[Tinola]

Maybe do a few water changes? 10% at a time to get your paramaters straightened out. That's what I'd do first.

 

[bjledbetter]

I do 10/15 gallon a week wc. on a 90g tank. Thats the thing that has me puzzled. I do my water changes I barely feed i have a good skimmer, lights are fairly new about 4 months. i use ro water. I test my water once sometimes twice a week and get the same readings or close as whats above. Ive been in this hobby for 4 years now and havent ever had this kinda problem getting rid of this stuff.The tank crashed about 4 months ago due to me removing the sand bed too quickly and ever sense I've had this stuff. After the crash it took about a week for my water parameters to stabilize out, my Ca and Mag are so high due to all the water changes and nothing using them. they will go down on there own when I add more demanding corals. But i want rid of this mess first

 

[bjledbetter]

Any other ideas?

 

[scooterc268]

Any other ideas?

Where do you get your water from? Fresh water? Could be TDS issue. If for some reason or another, I don't check my TDS on my output of my RO/DI and I get a cyano, I know that my TDS will be >2ppm. Increasing flow to those cyano areas could help.


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[bjledbetter]

My water comes from a lfs I don't know the tds level. Where can I get a cheap tester at?

 

[beaslbob]

IMHO your nitrates and phosphates are actually very low and the algae and cyano is consuming them.

First I would use macro algaes (in a refugium) or an algae turf scrubber to consume the nutrients.

Secondly and most importantly I would also kill the display lights and stop feeding until the cyano (and hopefully algae) dies off.


Then resume with less lighting and feeding and adjust so that desirables (corals, corraline algae) thrive and undesirables (cyano) do not return.


my .02

 

[mr_bigl]

Once you test the tds and phosphate from your lfs you'll invest in an rodi unit yourself. For the longest time I was adding about .3 phosphate with each batch of salt and top off since I trusted they were are caring about my tank as I was. Smh

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