Cyanobacteria out of control!

[Nick Barbier]

I've been running saltwater tanks since about 1990 and have had cyano many times. Usually, I just let it run it's course and work itself out. About 8 mos ago, I was dealing with a pretty bad outbreak of cyano and decided to try ChemiClean. What a disaster! Not only did it almost kill all my monty caps, but I know it caused a horrible dino outbreak. I will never use that stuff every gain. Do you see a lot of bubbles under the algae? If so, might be dino's. Cyano was not much of an issue compared to dino's.

I haven't seen any bubbles at all. Just a reddish-brown slime, all over the tank, including all my corals.

 

[Snooty]

I will test the PO4 tonight. Come to think of it, I used to have lots of coraline algea all over everthing, and now there isn't any at all. And hasn't been any for quite some time. Also, I used to have huge bushes of colt coral, and they have all died off. Yet, all my other soft corals seem to be fine (mushrooms, zoas, ricordia).

I noticed the same in my tank coralline started going away. If your ph is already on low side in your tank when treating with chemiclean it can push your tank closer to acidic and cause big problems. I thought with my high flow my tank had plenty of co2 exchange. It turns out oxygen is low in my home. I ran hose from skimmer to outside and my tank made a 360 and has been better than ever! Tank now stays near 8 steady and has been booming with growth and coralline.

 

[Nick Barbier]

I'm unclear why you started the treatment of Reef Flux? Was this to clear the cyano?

Reef Flux / Fluconazole will have no effect on cyano, and you definitely shouldn't be jumping from one treatment to the next like that.
Throwing chemicals at the tank should be the last resort, and well researched. Which clearly on this was not done.

If it's cyano, chemiclean will remove it within a few days, full stop. This means that it's not dinos, or you have some form a mutant cyano that nobody has seen before.

Have either your NO3 or PO4 bottomed out recently?
What are your current params? (NO3/PO4)
What export method do you use?
Are you running a UV?

For a while, the NO3 was zero. However, ever since I added about 20 turbo snails, and about 20 small hermit crabs, my NO3 has risen to about 10 ppm. I will test the PO4 tonight. I am only using a Octopuss 150 SSS protein skimmer.

 

[Nick Barbier]

You are correct dinos suck! I got a terrible outbreak from buying coral from an unreliable source and not treating before addition. Too low nitrate and phosphate can cause it. Thing is though if you try to raise nutrients prior to killing it it will grow more and remove nutrients. Best recommendation for dinos is use vibrant. Amazing stuff. Then once eradicated raise nutrients.

I used Vibrant once, it nearly killed everything in the tank because
I forgot to remove the Phosguard bag first.

 

[Snooty]

I will test the PO4 tonight. Come to think of it, I used to have lots of coraline algea all over everthing, and now there isn't any at all. And hasn't been any for quite some time. Also, I used to have huge bushes of colt coral, and they have all died off. Yet, all my other soft corals seem to be fine (mushrooms, zoas, ricordia).

I had terrible dinos. Knocked it out. Got green hair. Used reef flux. Cyano to no end all with undetectable levels. I could not feed enough because they immediately stripped nutrients from water column. I used chemiclean. Cyano went away. Everything coral wise started to die. Had a huge cyano bloom again days later and all my corals perked it. That's how I found out about co2 and cyano then it all clicked. Ph too low so only nuisance would grow. When I used chemiclean it shot ph even lower turning water more acidic. I was using api test kit. I couldn't make out what it was. Normally around 7.8ish. I opened door and windows in house and opened cabinet doors and ran skimmer air line outside. Ph shot to 8.4. I figured I had plenty of flow. 5 powerheads. Plenty of agitation but if your house has high co2 and low oxygen that doesn't matter. Sorry for long explanation but that sole issue caused me a terrible time of battling waves of nuisance algae and bacteria.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Both based off of my own experience, and experience I have observed on here from other reefers, it seems that cyano and dino tend to pop off from some time of an imbalance.

For the longest time, I had zero NO3 and the PO4 was very low, 0.01. I lowered the dose of NOPOX because of it. However, since adding a large cleanup crew of snails and hermit crabs, the NO3 has since risen to around 10 ppm. Could this have caused an outbreak?

 

[ReefPig]

For a while, the NO3 was zero. However, ever since I added about 20 turbo snails, and about 20 small hermit crabs, my NO3 has risen to about 10 ppm. I will test the PO4 tonight. I am only using a Octopuss 150 SSS protein skimmer.

Ok.
Dinos typically takes over when either PO4 or NO3 bottoms out.
What is believed to happen is that when it bottoms out, the balance of the tank shifts, and bacteria and fauna which normally consume these reduce in numbers, due to the lack of the nutrient.
Dinos are actually pretty bad at taking up nutrients, and can multiply extremely fast.

Dinos and cyano are nearly always presents in all tanks, but the numbers of them are very low and outcompete by other things (algae / bacteria).

As soon as the balance shifts, it gives up space and dinos takes over rapidly.

They love trace elements, I've found in particular things like vanadium and manganese.
This is why people suggest to stop doing water changes, as it stops the main source of food.

In my opinion, the single best weapon against dinos, if I could only have one "tool in the my toolbox", would be a strong UV and correctly sized pump.

Here is a very successful way to deal with them:

Stop water changes for now, things will be fine.
If you are dosing ANY carbon sources (nopox, vinegar, vodka) stop it immediately. Dinos LOVES carbon sources.
Stop feeding corals, and just feed your fish. This includes amino acids etc.

Connect a UV 24/7, get yourself a turkey baster and get blowing off the dinos every single day, ideally after lights out, but at least during ramp down.
Do this every day for a couple of weeks, within a few days you will see a massive improvement, but don't just stop when you see some improvement, keep it up for a good few weeks.

Ensuring that your PO4 and NO3 are at and maintained at "normal levels", and ideally even slightly elevated. This can be achieved by dosing nitrates and phosphates, if needs be.
NO3 ~5-10, PO4 ~0.02-0.1 (during fixing dinos issues, towards the higher end is better).

Don't be afraid of a little micro algae growing, this is good! We need microalgae and bacteria to fill the space again and prevent dinos filling it when we stop treating.

After a few weeks of UV and turkey baster, start to shift your strategy towards introducing extra bacteria.
I would recommend not moving from one to the other over night, but to start running your UV only at night, and during the day (according the manufacturers instructions) dose bacteria during the day.
Then after a couple more weeks, you can reduce the UV or turn it off entirely, but keep up with bacteria for a couple more weeks.

Specifically the type of bacteria you will find most benefit from are things like Dr Tims waste away (liquid) and a few others, but don't use Vibrant.

If you follow these simple steps, it's almost always gone within a month and back in it's box.
It goes wrong when people go off track and do their own things, or they don't attack the dinos from multiple perspectives.

 

[Nick Barbier]

I had terrible dinos. Knocked it out. Got green hair. Used reef flux. Cyano to no end all with undetectable levels. I could not feed enough because they immediately stripped nutrients from water column. I used chemiclean. Cyano went away. Everything coral wise started to die. Had a huge cyano bloom again days later and all my corals perked it. That's how I found out about co2 and cyano then it all clicked. Ph too low so only nuisance would grow. When I used chemiclean it shot ph even lower turning water more acidic. I was using api test kit. I couldn't make out what it was. Normally around 7.8ish. I opened door and windows in house and opened cabinet doors and ran skimmer air line outside. Ph shot to 8.4. I figured I had plenty of flow. 5 powerheads. Plenty of agitation but if your house has high co2 and low oxygen that doesn't matter. Sorry for long explanation but that sole issue caused me a terrible time of battling waves of nuisance algae and bacteria.

I don't see any nuisance algae, just a reddish-brown slime covering everything. What ever it is, started about three weeks to a month ago. At first it was only red and seemed to only cover small patches of substrate. However, then it turned reddish-brown and started covering everything, including all my corals.

 

[Miller535]

For the longest time, I had zero NO3 and the PO4 was very low, 0.01. I lowered the dose of NOPOX because of it. However, since adding a large cleanup crew of snails and hermit crabs, the NO3 has since risen to around 10 ppm. Could this have caused an outbreak?

I think your NO3 probably rose because you lowered your dose of NOPOX. 10ppm is not too high imo. your clean up crew would not cause anything to rise. Without knowing your PO4 its hard to say if lowering NOPOX had any effect or not.

 

[Miller535]

Also how long has your tank been running? If you already said I missed it and apologize.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Ok.
Dinos typically takes over when either PO4 or NO3 bottoms out.
What is believed to happen is that when it bottoms out, the balance of the tank shifts, and bacteria and fauna which normally consume these reduce in numbers, due to the lack of the nutrient.
Dinos are actually pretty bad at taking up nutrients, and can multiply extremely fast.

Dinos and cyano are nearly always presents in all tanks, but the numbers of them are very low and outcompete by other things (algae / bacteria).

As soon as the balance shifts, it gives up space and dinos takes over rapidly.

They love trace elements, I've found in particular things like vanadium and manganese.
This is why people suggest to stop doing water changes, as it stops the main source of food.

In my opinion, the single best weapon against dinos, if I could only have one "tool in the my toolbox", would be a strong UV and correctly sized pump.

Here is a very successful way to deal with them:

Stop water changes for now, things will be fine.
If you are dosing ANY carbon sources (nopox, vinegar, vodka) stop it immediately. Dinos LOVES carbon sources.
Stop feeding corals, and just feed your fish. This includes amino acids etc.

Connect a UV 24/7, get yourself a turkey baster and get blowing off the dinos every single day, ideally after lights out, but at least during ramp down.
Do this every day for a couple of weeks, within a few days you will see a massive improvement, but don't just stop when you see some improvement, keep it up for a good few weeks.

Ensuring that your PO4 and NO3 are at and maintained at "normal levels", and ideally even slightly elevated. This can be achieved by dosing nitrates and phosphates, if needs be.
NO3 ~5-10, PO4 ~0.02-0.1 (during fixing dinos issues, towards the higher end is better).

Don't be afraid of a little micro algae growing, this is good! We need microalgae and bacteria to fill the space again and prevent dinos filling it when we stop treating.

After a few weeks of UV and turkey baster, start to shift your strategy towards introducing extra bacteria.
I would recommend not moving from one to the other over night, but to start running your UV only at night, and during the day (according the manufacturers instructions) dose bacteria during the day.
Then after a couple more weeks, you can reduce the UV or turn it off entirely, but keep up with bacteria for a couple more weeks.

Specifically the type of bacteria you will find most benefit from are things like Dr Tims waste away (liquid) and a few others, but don't use Vibrant.

If you follow these simple steps, it's almost always gone within a month and back in it's box.
It goes wrong when people go off track and do their own things, or they don't attack the dinos from multiple perspectives.

This makes perfect sense. I have been dosing NOPOX and Amino acids. One thing that I forgot to mention in my post, is that after all else failed, I added an ampule of Bio Digest bacteria. Any and all of these three things that I added could have hurt, not helped my efforts to eradicate the unsightly enemy.
I don't have a UV filter, I think that I should probably invest in one.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Also how long has your tank been running? If you already said I missed it and apologize.

The tank has been running for about two years now.

 

[Hermie]

Fluconazole is a fungicide, so it theoretically attacks much of the microbial fungus in your tank (detritivores), which gives non-fungal actors an advantage (cyano or dinos for example). It's all very complicated at the microbial level because there are so many millions of interactions happening in such a non-sterile environment, but basically I am saying you need to reestablish your microbial landscape while directly attacking the problem organism (manual removal at the very least, unless you can employ a more targeted method ie chemical). My advice is try to get some bacterial enhancers like microbacter or vibrant and take it slow. It's likely your tanks microbes are out of whack.

 

[Nick Barbier]

I use Salifert test kits now. I did use Red Sea test kits for several years. However, I find the Salifert kits to be more accurate.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Fluconazole is a fungicide, so it theoretically attacks much of the microbial fungus in your tank (detritivores), which gives non-fungal actors an advantage (cyano or dinos for example). It's all very complicated at the microbial level because there are so many millions of interactions happening in such a non-sterile environment, but basically I am saying you need to reestablish your microbial landscape while directly attacking the problem organism (manual removal at the very least, unless you can employ a more targeted method ie chemical). My advice is try to get some bacterial enhancers like microbacter or vibrant and take it slow. It's likely your tanks microbes are out of whack.

I added Bio-Digest bacteria has a last resort, in hopes that this bacteria would counter-act the cyanobacteria. I'm not sure if I made things better or worse in my attempt to eradicate the cyanobateria?

 

[Hermie]

I added Bio-Digest bacteria has a last resort, in hopes that this bacteria would counter-act the cyanobacteria. I'm not sure if I made things better or worse in my attempt to eradicate the cyanobateria?

You need things to out compete the problem organism so it will help to add bio-digest bacteria. Can you take pictures? I've had cyano/dinos at the same time before, but some dinos will literally wipe out your snails and clean up crew.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Between adding the ChemiClean (then doing a 28% water change), adding Reef Flux, dosing NOPOX, amino acids (Fuel), and finally adding an ampule of Bio-Digest bacteria, I introduced a soup of chemicals into my tank. There's no way of knowing what type of interactions all these things will have with each other or what effects they will have on the tanks inhabitants.

 

[Nick Barbier]

You need things to out compete the problem organism so it will help to add bio-digest bacteria. Can you take pictures? I've had cyano/dinos at the same time before, but some dinos will literally wipe out your snails and clean up crew.

I will take pictures tonight and post them. I have noticed that some of the snails and crabs have been dying for no apparent reason.

 

[Nick Barbier]

After further observation, there are micro-bubbles. The slime is dark red in color, which leads me to believe it's Cyanobacteria. Please see attached files.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Pics of corals.