cyno/diatom PLEASE HELP

JVH · Oct 13, 2015

My first tank had diatoms for 2 weeks and gone! This latest 68 g with sump is going on 6 weeks of diatoms and now over the last 2 weeks showing signs of Cyanobacteria bacteria. I added a 3rd smaller blower pointing to the area where the red started materializing is and it's not really helping. The diatoms and now cyno are mingling together and spreading! I want to just remove all my sand!! But I have lots of sand snails and pistol/goby combo not to mention my fire fish is burrowing in the sand..All my water parameters are good. Phosphate is 0 on hanna checker. All coral and fish are thriving! I don't know what to do without using additives and I don't want t do that.

I read 3 days of darkness is helpful.. Is that no lights? or no lights with a cover? As in total blackness? I can't bare the thought of putting FISH into blackness! If it just a matter of no overhead lighting ( My 2 kessels))I would try that..
Any thought? I'm so sick of looking at the nasty looking sand.. After a WC and a good vacuuming its great till the next day!
btw...I have removed the layer of nasty sand but it still appears!

Alex villa · Oct 13, 2015

Have you tried a silicate test to see how much is in the water maybe your sand is being stirred up a lot from your pumps. My latest diatom outbreak was from my girl turning up my power heads all the way up it was two weeks of disgusting diatoms everywhere. I use kz's coral snow and that always clears up my cyano just my $.02

Alex villa · Oct 13, 2015

Are you running any gfo?

JVH · Oct 13, 2015

Yes, I'm running high quality gfo and carbon in 2 separate reactors. This s going on WEEKS! and now the ugly brown has a reddish hue on top due to cyno..When you say you use coral snow, what is that? I use reef snow to fee corals but I assuming that's something different?
I have 2 Power heads but its not blowing on the sand at all. I recently added an additional PH to the area that was getting red but no help at all!

Alex villa · Oct 13, 2015

Coral snow doesn't feed coral its a water clarifier and it's supposed to get rid of cyano which for me it has they also make a cyano product to don't remember what's called exactly but it's korallen zucht or however you spell it plus coral snow makes the tank water incredibly clear its unreal

Lynn52 · Oct 13, 2015

I've used chemiclean successfully before.

JVH · Oct 13, 2015

Alex villa said:
Coral snow doesn't feed coral its a water clarifier and it's supposed to get rid of cyano which for me it has they also make a cyano product to don't remember what's called exactly but it's korallen zucht or however you spell it plus coral snow makes the tank water incredibly clear its unreal

Ok I thought so. similliar name of my coral food.. I may give it a try but I would still like to know if the 3 days of darkness works...

Alex villa · Oct 13, 2015

It has for me, but if the problem that caused them to grow in the first place isn't solved they will just come back later. It's been a 50/50 for me, but if you do a water change right before you turn the lights on it'll get rid of a lot of the nutrients the diatoms released when dying. Assuming your using rodi water?

Vivid Aquariums · Oct 13, 2015

Yellow Eye Tangs & Chevron Tangs will eat diatom algae. Tonga Fighting Conchs are also useful. If it's really bothering you you can siphon the top layer of sand into a filter sock and then rinse the sand before placing it back into the aquarium. This reduces the amount of diatom algae in the aquarium and can help to break the cycle faster.

Keeping phosphates, silicates, & nitrates low are also important when battling diatom algae.

Dave

JVH · Oct 14, 2015

OK, Thank you everyone who replied! As long as it doesn't harm the fish I wont stress to much but the cyno covered a part of a trichophillia and now that I blew it off the area that was covered is bleached white! I don't know if its going to make it.
I ordered the coral snow and another product from korallen zucht that should keep the cyno from coming back as well.
I did a little research and it is like what was said here so i'm excited to get t and see what happens.. I will keep you posted!

JVH · Oct 16, 2015

Here is a quote I found on a page while looking up why I have this outbreak! "Sirulina, which is hailed as a "superfood," being rich in all of the amino acids, as well as other important nutrients, is a form of cyanobacteria."

Spirulina is the food I got my mandarin to start eating so I feed the tank daily! Maybe this is the cause of my cyno? Thats crazy!!

So I caused this problem!

Kungpaoshizi · Oct 16, 2015

JVH said:
My first tank had diatoms for 2 weeks and gone! This latest 68 g with sump is going on 6 weeks of diatoms and now over the last 2 weeks showing signs of Cyanobacteria bacteria. I added a 3rd smaller blower pointing to the area where the red started materializing is and it's not really helping. The diatoms and now cyno are mingling together and spreading! I want to just remove all my sand!! But I have lots of sand snails and pistol/goby combo not to mention my fire fish is burrowing in the sand..All my water parameters are good. Phosphate is 0 on hanna checker. All coral and fish are thriving! I don't know what to do without using additives and I don't want t do that.

I read 3 days of darkness is helpful.. Is that no lights? or no lights with a cover? As in total blackness? I can't bare the thought of putting FISH into blackness! If it just a matter of no overhead lighting ( My 2 kessels))I would try that..
Any thought? I'm so sick of looking at the nasty looking sand.. After a WC and a good vacuuming its great till the next day!
btw...I have removed the layer of nasty sand but it still appears!

If parameters are that low, it's probably the cyano/diatoms sucking it up.. More hermits and stomatellas would assist in manual labor.

Lenny_S · Oct 17, 2015

I've always seen diatom/Cyanobacteria/algae of some degree in any tank I've done. I always thought it was some issue or mistake, but after reading this blog is seems to just be a natural part of establishing a new tank.
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/291/
So as I'm starting a new 160 gal reef tank, I'm not going to sweat this part of the process too much and wait for this part to complete before I stock the tank.
The only thing I'd say you may want to do is move your fish to your other tank while this works itself out, or just be patient.

JVH · Oct 20, 2015

So I am please to report after the very first dose of cyno clean my cyno was far less. After cyno clean and coral snow, cyno appears to be almost gone! However, diatoms are still showing up! DISLIKE! Not patient! Since I know its possible for diatoms to go away in 2 to 3 weeks im not happy they are still around but the red nasty stuff is gone! YAY to that!

beaslbob · Oct 20, 2015

IMHO you have algae/cyano because you have a bioload (nutrients) and light.

all algae and cyano will die off rapidily in total darkness and by not adding food to the tank.

the fish and corals will basically go dormant and can survive for weeks with no light no food.

But the algae/cyano and even cloudiness will die off and clear up on a week at most and usually in a few days.

After that you will have two data. One with light and feeding and algae/cloudiness/cyano and the other datum with no algae/cloudiness/cyano with no light or feeding.

At that point you adjust your light and feeding somewhere in-between. So the corals and fish thrive but the uglies stay away.

my .02

Sabellafella · Oct 20, 2015

Dont worry about it takes some time nd it will go away,like i say to everyone go about your normal water changes run alot of carbon and turn up ur flow

JVH · Oct 25, 2015

beaslbob said:
IMHO you have algae/cyano because you have a bioload (nutrients) and light.

all algae and cyano will die off rapidily in total darkness and by not adding food to the tank.

the fish and corals will basically go dormant and can survive for weeks with no light no food.

But the algae/cyano and even cloudiness will die off and clear up on a week at most and usually in a few days.

After that you will have two data. One with light and feeding and algae/cloudiness/cyano and the other datum with no algae/cloudiness/cyano with no light or feeding.

At that point you adjust your light and feeding somewhere in-between. So the corals and fish thrive but the uglies stay away.

my .02

Thank you for that! I will be doing the three days of darkness after this plast push this weekend.. When I was treating with final clean all week long last week I forgot to stop the carbon flow so I am starting over..
If my tank is not better in the next day or two then I will do the darkness probably by the weekend but here is what happened today:

1. Lowered lights to 50% max
2. Added more flow.
3. Got rid of old Cheato and cleaned rubble and refrugiam.
4. Did WC in refrug and emptied it and wiped it totally down.
5. Vacuumed and plunged off rocks, sand and MANUALLY removed as much cyno that was physically visible and and netted out partials..
6. Added Cyno clean and coral snow with NO CARBON!
7. Turned off skimmer for a while and GFO reactor.

Let me just say it's been a heck of a long day! I truly hope it helps! I can't do anymore... If it comes back, guess I'll get Black construction garbage bags!!
Stay tuned for updates!

Breakthecycle2 · Oct 25, 2015

Lights out won't really do anything. I would add a Gyre. I did on mine, and it was gone in a few days.

Sabellafella · Oct 25, 2015

I understand people do the lights out thing for algae but it causes more harm to your corals then anything, you did alot of work itll go away in about a week