High nitrates, low phosphates, cyano keeps coming back

[lba4590]

I dealt with a bad case of cyano last year, nuked it with Chemiclean and dinos followed. Finally, months later in November-December everything looked great, clean and everyone was happy.

Of course, right when everything looked good, I bought a new house and moved the tank. Cyano has slowly been taking over again. Nitrates consistently test high (30-40ppm) and phosphate always registers 0.02 (suspect it might be 0) - both using Hanna checkers. Sump is clean, I’m blowing rocks off daily, starting dosing phosphate based on another thread but that makes the cyano worse while not really changing from 0.02. I already removed any GFO. No idea what’s using up the PO4 other than the cyano.

Any ideas?

 

[blaxsun]

What's the size and type (mixed reef, etc.) of your tank, what do you have for filtration, how many fish, what, how much and how often do you feed and what does your cleanup crew consist of?

 

[lba4590]

What's the size and type (mixed reef, etc.) of your tank, what do you have for filtration, how many fish, what, how much and how often do you feed and what does your cleanup crew consist of?

120g with 40g sump mixed reef. Protein skimmer, refugium (that grows chaeto like I dumped fertilizer on it, have to remove half each week), filter socks, some biomedia, that’s it really. I have about 8 small fish and 4 that are larger. I have lots of wrasse and a CBB that need to eat a few times a day, so I feed reef frenzy 2-4x per day, in small amounts. CUC - a lot died during the tank move, I’m guessing maybe 15 trochus, 20-30 cerith and maybe a few nassarius? Couple of hermits and brittle stars and a cleaner shrimp.

 

[blaxsun]

A good place to start is with replacing the lost cleanup crew. It probably won't have an immediate effect, but in the long run it will help. You must really be generating a lot of nitrates if you're cleaning out chaeto every week and still testing in the 30's and 40's. How often do you change your filter socks?

 

[CayeCaulker]

Maybe you need more good bacteria to eat up the nitrates. Some bricks in the sump? You are out of balance. If you are running GFO stop. Get your phosphates up.

With the system out of balance like that it's going to be a ongoing problem.

 

[ClownSchool]

120g with 40g sump mixed reef. Protein skimmer, refugium (that grows chaeto like I dumped fertilizer on it, have to remove half each week), filter socks, some biomedia, that’s it really. I have about 8 small fish and 4 that are larger. I have lots of wrasse and a CBB that need to eat a few times a day, so I feed reef frenzy 2-4x per day, in small amounts. CUC - a lot died during the tank move, I’m guessing maybe 15 trochus, 20-30 cerith and maybe a few nassarius? Couple of hermits and brittle stars and a cleaner shrimp.

Have you thought of adding Pom Pom?

 

[Derrick0580]

Are you positive it is cyano? Dinos look similar… does it get better when the lights go out and progressively worse throughout the day?

 

[lba4590]

Maybe you need more good bacteria to eat up the nitrates. Some bricks in the sump? You are out of balance. If you are running GFO stop. Get your phosphates up.

With the system out of balance like that it's going to be a ongoing problem.

Yeah I know it’s out of balance just trying to figure out what to do. No GFO. Dosing phosphates and bacteria (bio digest). Also dosing live phyto. I have 2 bricks in the sump.