Lighting and correlation to bacteria/cyano/algae blooms?

[SaracensRugby]

I know there is potentially more to it as every tank is different, but can something as simple as changing one bulb to another type, say Blue Plus to 6500k, be the cause of a cyano/algae bloom?

The reason I ask is I have read a few times now on here where a change in lighting schedule, and or swapping out of bulbs over the same system, was the cause of a cyano outbreak. And the the change to get rid of the cyano was to go back to the original lighting schedule, and take out the 6500k bulbs (in these two cases).

Is this commonly seen?

 

[Dana Riddle]

Yours is the second report I've heard this week of a nuisance outbreak when changing lights (the other, from Texas, saw an outbreak described as 'bacterial.') As for my own experience, decades ago I saw some an overnight outbreak of an unknown (dino/cyano?) when adding actinic fluorescent lamps. Wish I had more to share...

 

[oreo54]

Photosynthetic organisms "acclimate" themselves to the quality of light they are receiving.
Possibility exists that destabilizing that creates an under-utilization of nutrients allowing a "opportunist" to get a leg up so to speak.

I would expect the change would need to be drastic though.

Is that real???....................???

 

[Dana Riddle]

Oddly enough, I changed the lighting two days ago on an established tank (19 months) and noticed a red cyanobacteria bloom today - a first for his tank.

 

[oreo54]

http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Cyanobacteria/cyano_1page/cyano_key.html

https://mbio.asm.org/content/7/1/e02130-15

 

[SaracensRugby]

http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Cyanobacteria/cyano_1page/cyano_key.html

https://mbio.asm.org/content/7/1/e02130-15

Thanks for these, this is the most scientific data I have read in a while in the hobby, I really enjoy this stuff. I do have to say I have to read a lot of studies published in leading medical journals to stay competent on the latest data for my job, and as far as complexity goes these blow those away. Holy smokes I will have to read them a couple times. Or maybe it is the terminology that I am not used to, but good stuff either way.

Thanks for all for the insights. I will be doing two things: changing out my 6500k bulb for an actinic, and stop dosing Aminos.

 

[arafas]

I have t5s and i also have 2 26hds over my tank. Lately I have been increasing the green led on the hydra to 150% but very slowly i def notices some cyano on one sec of my tank. Also my stylophora start to get these weird knobs on the stems of each shoot not sure if its from that. So now i put the green led back down and cyano is way less then it was so not sure if this caused it.

 

[A. grandis]

That's no surprise at all.
Yes, it has to do with nutrients and adaptation changing the bulbs for another type, and most of the time it goes away after the system reaches balance again.
Using 6500K bulbs is a challenge and harder to keep nuisance algae and cyanobacteria from blooming here and there, but one should know that in the ocean, with the sunlight (~"6500K"), that is very normal.
Not a big deal in the long run for any system with good maintenance.
If you take care of the nutrients with better import/export practices it will get to the sweet spot again. Just have to maintain.
It's better to choose what spectrum you really want and keep it then keep playing with it changing bulbs just because.
Not a big deal IMHO.
My $.02.

 

[SaracensRugby]

Thanks @A.grandis. I don't care for the 6500k look personally, I know people like them and have had success with them, but I don't care for the yellow look it gives. Add to it that it may be more difficult with cyano, and that is all I need to hear. I will swap it out for Coral Plus for daytime, and move the actinic to my dawn/dusk.

 

[jda]

My usual advice is that the light change is a symptom and not a problem. This would have likely happened with any type of light, but perhaps you just accelerated it, or made a more ideal condition for one over another... it was going to happen anyway. Consumers and water parameters are both the real problems and also the solution.

In the olden days, people usually blamed bulb changes for increasing algae, but they also changed their bulbs at the one year mark when tanks can often start to have algae issues. Keep in mind, there was no phosphate full dry rock and everybody used fresh sand (phosphate free) and live rock - algae developed later back then, not sooner. After a year of running, the rock and sand was binding phosphate for the reefer and keeping concentrations low. After a year, or so, the aragonite rock and sand was starting to get more full, and P began to climg. This was usually with low N concentration, so dinos and cyano popped up followed by hair if the reefer did not start to maintain. This was usually at a year. The lights got blamed.

 

[SaracensRugby]

Makes sense @jda. I just started dosing nitrate a couple weeks back to pump that up to 3-5ppm, from close to 0ppm. My gut says it is the Acropower that I dosed for a couple weeks, as everything was fine and no changes made to the system, and was on the up and up before then. Maybe acropower with lower nitrates set the bacteria up perfectly, as I have had the same bulb setup for almost a year straight. I know I am tempting fate even further by swapping out a bulb now, but want to try the actinic anyway. Maybe I will take out the Coral + and try the Actinic and 6500k to check out the view, which I believe you recommended to me in another post.

 

[jda]

The supplements are probably your issue. I won't get on my soap box too much about how I think that it is a bad idea (3-5 is no different than 1 since they are all surplus). My N is around .1 to .2 (need IC test to detect them) and I have no issues growing or coloring anything for decades.

Lasse had some awesome stuff lately about single cell organisms being able to use aminos rapidly... meaning the coral don't get any. You are likely just feeding stuff that you cannot see by dosing aminos.

IMO, if the stuff is going to grow, it is going to grow regardless of if you have C+ or 6500k/Actinic bulbs.

 

[SaracensRugby]

Its funny, only 3 years in I will try something like Acropower after seeing something about it online somewhere (possibly here), and wouldn't you know every time I tinker with my tank with something like that, things go sideways for a spell. It has taken me this long to really learn the lesson that any knee jerk moves usually have consequences, which aren't fun. So going straight basics from here on out. Salt, water, light, and flow.

 

[jda]

Here is my second soap box in three posts. My sincere apologies.

Lots of people use a product and think that they see a difference. There is a clinically studied mental bias for this where the name escapes me. It is only when you quit using it that you also can tell a difference that it matters. You see this with glucosamine and joints - huge love at first and nobody can notice when they quit. Probiotic yogurt, too. You saw this with coral snow, DTs phytoplankton, Kent Essential Elements, etc. I am not saying that they do not do anything, but with the stuff that really works you will start to see a critical mass of posts like "I quit and regretted it" that were by just more than fanboys. Instant Ocean salt is like this... where people go to a different salt and come back a lot.

Ok, I am done for a while... I promise.

 

[taricha]

This is a topic I've been curious about.
I got my hands on a spectrophotometer and have been playing around with analyzing the spectra of pigments from various organisms in our systems. I thought about making a thread but I didn't know if there was much interest other than my own.
I'll post up later, I think it would be relevant to these discussions.

p.s. @jda got a link to Lasse's stuff on who eats aminos? I missed it and it sounds cool.

 

[User1]

Well, I don't know if mine is directly related because the tank is still maturing (40 breeder upgrade to a 210 gallon) - so started last Feb with cycle, April with moving the breeder into the 210, and slowly mature since then. Never really had any ugly cyno or hair algae outbreak which I thought was weird but had diatom dusts here and there. Usually kept in check by clean up crews that I try and balance based on what is going on.

Anyway about a month ago I took a pair of multi chips off line while bringing another pair on. Basically cleaning up some of my older DIY mess. The chips I took off line had 13 limes each which I really liked. They provided a really nice crisp white look when mixed with the other LED's on the puck. So I took this offline added 4 different chips and now I have a pretty consistent algae mix something growing similar to brown hairy wavy stuff that I'm not sure my snails are eating or not.

Could be that I took off the lights, could be that the spectrum change, could be that I'm running a lower par all together, or could be that my tank is delayed in getting the traditional algae outbreak on new tanks even though it is a year old with water. But it did happen after I did this but probably related to other things as well.

 

[A. grandis]

What if you have a Coral Plus and change for a GE 6500K and you get some cyanobacteria and algae growing, then you change the GE 6500K again for a Coral Plus after a week or two and the cyanobacteria and algae are gone after 24 hours? ;Wideyed Everything else remains the same and the system gets back to normal even if there are nutrients in the system. I did that more than once to see if that was the case and that is what happened.
I use different types of amino acids in my systems too. Don't think Acropower would do that. I also use Acropower among others.
6500K halides same thing. Hard to get it to the point that I can keep the system like I keep with the 20K bulbs.
Again, nutrients are what makes it happen, but the spectral differences in fact have some influence.
It's just harder to maintain with 65o00K bulbs, like I've said before, but if you are diligent with the nutrient import/export not too bad. It will balance out after some time depending on nutrients/ bioload/ maintenance.
Plus... having a 6500K bulb in a 6 or 8 combo isn't that bad too, but will still shows the difference when first introduced.
Food brings the phosphates and detritus are it's best friend! Easier to maintain with 14K or 20K ish combo IMO.
Just my experience with my own systems here...
Good thread!
Cheers!

 

[jda]

p.s. @jda got a link to Lasse's stuff on who eats aminos? I missed it and it sounds cool.

See if this works:
#1 WHAT IF I TOLD YOU... Ammonia is causing your algae problems?

After reading, I looked it up and the post appears right from what I can tell with 60 minutes worth of reading. You are likely feeding single cell bacteria and algae with aminos.

 

[SaracensRugby]

So the question becomes, how many water changes do I have to do to get the aminos out of there? Or, how long until the cyano/bacteria completely exhaust the aminos? I guess only A. Time or B. Daily water changes will tell.

 

[oreo54]

Well to throw a bit more in this.
Amino acids can be broken down to, in part ammonia.

Other microbes break down the complex
proteins in plant and animal waste to yield simpler
amino acids. This is called aminization. Then, those
amino acids are converted into ammonia and
usable ammonium. This is called ammonification

Ammonium is needed for algae spore germination. The only n that they can use at this stage.
NOW this is strictly for green algae not blue-green bacteria.

After germination they can now utilize other forms of nitrogen..not sure if amino acids is one of them.

AS to BG bacteria (some of which can fix N(atm))

Cyanobacteria
are capable of assimilating dissolved N in form of ammonium, nitrate, and nitrite, and some can
utilize urea, cyanate as well as several amino acids [56]. Notwithstanding, ammonium is the N species,
which is directly incorporated by the GS/GOGAT cycle while other combined N sources require
reduction prior to incorporation. Therefore, ammonium is the favored, least energy-demanding
N source for most cyanobacteria

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/8/4/52/pdf

as well as several amino acids

Which ones??

Some amino acids like arginine and glutamine can also contribute N to some cyanobacteria; however, urea and amino acid utilization have been poorly investigated thus far. Pathways of N assimilation in cyanobacteria are induced upon ammonium deprivation, ammonium being the preferred N source.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...latory_Nitrogen_Metabolism_and_Its_Regulation

not even sure where I'm going w/ this..