So I am still seeing cyano growth in the tank now almost a month later. The stocking in the tank has changed along with a few smaller variables so I want to know what to do next, although this may be still prevalent just due to imbalance.
It is a 25 gallon cube, with a 20 gallon sump and 5 gallon frag tank, probably around 40-45 total volume. The main tank runs its own drain into the a filter sock while the frag tank runs itself into the sump without mechanical filtration. Both tanks have their own ehiem 1250 return pumps to get a lot of flow in the frag tank and a 6-7x turnover rate in the display. Due to the dino's before the cyano outbreak the tank was at 82 degrees, I was feeding heavy, had a cut lighting schedule with no white light, and I had my skimmer removed running the skimmer pump by itself in the sump for gas exchange. Over the past month I have slowly brought the tank back to normal. I am now feeding lightly 2x a day (pellets every day with a frozen brine meal every 2-3 days, I also spot feed reefroids in the frag tank 2x weekly), have the tank back to 79 degrees, and the light schedule is back to normal. Flow in the display is provided by the returns as well as a single mp10, I am running as much flow as possible without throwing fiji pink all over the place (55% max on reef crest).
The current tank stocking is 3 ornamental shrimp, diamond goby, yellow coris wrasse, bicolor blenny, scooter blenny, firefish, and a number of crabs and snails. There is no growth on the sandbed as the diamond goby keeps it real clean and sifted. All of the growth is on the rocks and I change the filter sock daily. Every 3-4 days I blow off the rocks and put a new sock in after the water has cleared. I am reading around 5 nitrate, .03 phosphate with salifert ktis, but these reading may be low as the cyano is growing relatively quickly and probably absorbing the nutrients. I decided to hook the skimmer back up today and I am skimming wet, but skimming relatively well. I plan on checking the nitrate/phosphate levels daily to make sure I am not over-stripping the tank (I really dont want to fight dinos again). Anything else I should try or look out for. I think if I just keep up what I am doing that the tank will eventually find a balance, but the sooner I can fix it the better.
