Cyano?

[Papadovak]

Can anybody help a guy out. I set up my tank awhile back. It cycled..and now I have my cuc and new (first) fishes. Two clowns. I've been battling nitrates and figured this could be the cause..so I did two 20% WC'S three days apart thinking it might help. It dropped the nitrates to 10ppm but now this crud all over the tank. Any suggestions on the brownish red stuff on my sand and rock....what am I doing wrong?....
Todays Water params:
Salinity.1.024
Nh4. 0.0
No2. 0.0
No3. 20.0
Ph4. 0.25

 

[Papadovak]

 

[Zachary.gingell]

Nothing particularly wrong its a minor cyanobacteria outbreak happens in new reef tanks just keep up good waterchanges and eventually it dies down when the tank settles and cycles more

 

[Zachary.gingell]

Oh they are hard to find sometimes and I forget the names but there are a couple cyano eating snails you can get too

 

[Reefing Madness]

Get alittle more flow in that area, help break it up. Get your PO4 down also.

Astraea Turbo Snail
Banded Trochus Snail

 

[Papadovak]

Well saying it always happens makes me feel loads better... I have adjusted the power heads around but it's everywhere......I have 4 astreas but I guess I should grab a few more..I haven't done any of my own research....how do I go about lowering phosphates?

 

[Zachary.gingell]

Water changes, polly pads, phosban, Gfo, phosguard, etc there are alot of options if you don't have a reactor like me (as in I don't have any yet) I opt for frequent waterchanges and I like polly pads because they won't leak phosphate back when its used up and it cleans all kinds of things in your tank and changes colors to tell you what it's removing but there is all kinds of ways to remove phosphate

 

[Papadovak]

Well I looked and I'm assuming the only thing to really do is water changes without adding another piece to my setup?..

 

[Zachary.gingell]

Polly pads man they work wonders

 

[beaslbob]

Kill your lights and stop adding food until it dies off.

the resume with less duration lights and less feeding and adjust so the cyano stays away but macros, corraline, corals thrive.


my .02

 

[Reefing Madness]

Macro Algae, alot of it, in a fuge.
GFO in a reactor
SeaKlear phosphate remover (which I use) from a pool supply store, and you only have to use it by the capful.

 

[Papadovak]

I do use the polly pad...guess I should change it more often

 

[Zachary.gingell]

Polly pads are not going to remove phosphate overnight it's going to take probably a couple weeks if you are doing good water change practices and if you are not doing consistent waterchanges probably never will but with weekly water changes and polly pads being changed when needed with regular tank maintenance it will get under control that's how I got rid of my cyano problem last year

 

[Kworker]

Remove it via siphon, its a stage the tank is in. When I had my 55 with sand it grew on it like that to.

Cut down lights a bit, make sure you are not overfeeding, and siphon it out.

 

[Papadovak]

OK I do a 15%.....well its 14% but who's counting.......Every Sunday and feed a small pinch every other day. So if I siphon out the algea and get my phosphate to 0 it should rid my tank of the cyano for good? As long as my phosphate stay down...God willing..

 

[Zachary.gingell]

Well hopefully if you keep up with good maintenance practices as you stated don't over feed or over stock the tank then yeah that should do it!

 

[Papadovak]

Awesome. I knew I shouldn't have been as nervous as I am/was but I just don't want it to fail! Thanks for the advice

 

[Zachary.gingell]

I hope it does well too! Any other questions we are always here to help!

 

[Papadovak]

Macro Algae, alot of it, in a fuge.
GFO in a reactor
SeaKlear phosphate remover (which I use) from a pool supply store, and you only have to use it by the capful.

When putting macro in the sump...what kind of light should I consider bc at the time being I don't have one under there...

 

[Papadovak]

I have a refuge compartment in the sump probably should have specified. .