Fighting cyano then dino bloom

[josgraha]

So this has been discussed to a highly detailed and technical level here and I totally appreciate and enjoy that. Given that I'm a newbie, another addition to the fold hopefully. About three weeks ago I noticed a bloom starting of what looked like cyano and from what I could quickly find the best course of action was Chemi-Clean. I ordered that and started treatment. Within about two days the sand was looking white again. From there I was entering the weekend and about to go away for the next long weekend, I started the auto feeder regimen because my nitrate and phosphate levels were looking good. Well by the time I got back I noticed a hair algae bloom starting to pop up. I checked my levels and saw my nitrates were around 5ppm but my phosphates had jumped to an alarming 0.4. I dosed some phos-E to remedy that and turned off the auto feeder. I dosed some more phos-E and tried another round of Chemi-Clean. After two days not only was the sand not whiter the hair algae had fully turned into carpet with long strands littering the rockwork and annoying the corals. I did not have a kid's microscope to identify the type of algae it was nor did I have time to shop for and order one and then go research the precise regimen for the identified bacteria. But searching for a faster solution, I came across an old ReefDudes podcast with Cruz from Elegant Corals and they walked through a seven day regimen where the idea was to create a bacterial bloom to attack the hair algae and claimed it would work for for dinos or cyano outbreaks.

Here's the podcast episode even though it was four years ago.

So I'm on day 3 of that and the carbon dosing with something like ATM Colony which I cycled my tank and Dr. Tim's Waste-Away has been working great and crumbling away the hair algae. Another interesting addition to the approach is the use of a wood airstone to aerate the tank near the inlet to create micro-bubbles to rapidly aerate the tank. This not only helps with pH but clumps around the hair algae to lift what's weakened out into the water column for mechanical filtration. Already my sand is looking very white again and quickly approaching pristeen. Shout out to this guy Cruz who has such an amazing regimen. It almost doesn't matter what the bloom is, with this approach you are creating an army of good bacteria to attack whatever is blooming. Best part is, it's done in a very controlled and slow manner. In this case by slow I mean a week. Which is a great time frame to stop whatever is ticking off your corals. Another great benefit of this system is that you are left with an even stronger population of bacteria in your bacterial media to keep your levels at an even more normalized level. If anyone's interested will post an update on how the seven day regimen turned out.

Oh and here's the actual regimen shown in the background of the podcast.

 

[jsker]

Good read!!

 

[Jasonak]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So this has been discussed to a highly detailed and technical level here and I totally appreciate and enjoy that. Given that I'm a newbie, another addition to the fold hopefully. About three weeks ago I noticed a bloom starting of what looked like cyano and from what I could quickly find the best course of action was Chemi-Clean. I ordered that and started treatment. Within about two days the sand was looking white again. From there I was entering the weekend and about to go away for the next long weekend, I started the auto feeder regimen because my nitrate and phosphate levels were looking good. Well by the time I got back I noticed a hair algae bloom starting to pop up. I checked my levels and saw my nitrates were around 5ppm but my phosphates had jumped to an alarming 0.4. I dosed some phos-E to remedy that and turned off the auto feeder. I dosed some more phos-E and tried another round of Chemi-Clean. After two days not only was the sand not whiter the hair algae had fully turned into carpet with long strands littering the rockwork and annoying the corals. I did not have a kid's microscope to identify the type of algae it was nor did I have time to shop for and order one and then go research the precise regimen for the identified bacteria. But searching for a faster solution, I came across an old ReefDudes podcast with Cruz from Elegant Corals and they walked through a seven day regimen where the idea was to create a bacterial bloom to attack the hair algae and claimed it would work for for dinos or cyano outbreaks.

Here's the podcast episode even though it was four years ago.

So I'm on day 3 of that and the carbon dosing with something like ATM Colony which I cycled my tank and Dr. Tim's Waste-Away has been working great and crumbling away the hair algae. Another interesting addition to the approach is the use of a wood airstone to aerate the tank near the inlet to create micro-bubbles to rapidly aerate the tank. This not only helps with pH but clumps around the hair algae to lift what's weakened out into the water column for mechanical filtration. Already my sand is looking very white again and quickly approaching pristeen. Shout out to this guy Cruz who has such an amazing regimen. It almost doesn't matter what the bloom is, with this approach you are creating an army of good bacteria to attack whatever is blooming. Best part is, it's done in a very controlled and slow manner. In this case by slow I mean a week. Which is a great time frame to stop whatever is ticking off your corals. Another great benefit of this system is that you are left with an even stronger population of bacteria in your bacterial media to keep your levels at an even more normalized level. If anyone's interested will post an update on how the seven day regimen turned out.

Oh and here's the actual regimen shown in the background of the podcast.

Very interesting read up!