Not sure if this is Dinos or Cyano

[MichiganMike28]

Hi I have been having this problem in my sand since may. I have tried everything to get rid of it. I have tried the lights out for five or six days and it will go away but shows back up after a few days when the lights come back on. My photo period was only 6 hours a day now down to 4. I run GFO 24/7 that is replaced once a month. I have a reeflo snapper as my return pump on my 150 gallon tank with two WP40s on each end, so i dont feel that flow is an issue. I also just replaced all of my filters on my RO/DI within the last three weeks. The other ones were a year old, the TDS meter I use to measure the RO/DI water was reading 0.01 before changing the filters and now 0.00ppm after. I felt that may have been the problem but I dont think it is either. Also I have boost LED lights that are a few years old but I am thinking that they may be the problem. Do you think that LED could have a shift in wavelength like MH or T5s? Maybe not as severe but a slight shift could cause something? My aquarium is in my basement and does not get natural light. I do notice that my pH will drop low to the point of irritation to me. My pH will be down to 8.0, I know that this isnt "that low" but its low enough. I change the water once a week 15-20 gallons and use Kent marine reef salt. Anyway here is a small video. I thought it was diatoms until i saw the snotty strings. but at the same time dinos would have air bubbles trapped in the snot, which this does not. So this leads me to believe that my problem is Cyano but If it is how do I get rid of it? here is a link and thanks for looking
IMG_05072.mp4 Video by MichaelJS28 | Photobucket

 

[Reefing Madness]

Definitely Cyano.
Phosphates? GFO won't do you any good if its full. If your running it 24/7 and its full, its not removing anything from the system. You'd have to check your phosphates daily to see if there are any, and if they are coming down. Then get a routine set off of that.
Nitrates?
PH is fine, your flow is definitely fine also, you can see it blowing in the flow there.
From what I know, LEDs don't shift spectrum like light bulbs do, and only being 2 years old, I doubt it at your current rate of use. They should go 50,000 hours. SO running them at 10 hours a day for 365 days your only looking at 7300 hours.

 

[Tahoe61]

Agree with Cyano.

 

[MichiganMike28]

thank you both. as for phosphates i only have a standard salfert test kit that only reads so far. i will look into picking up a hanna.
nitrates are undetectable. i had a feeling it was cyano and again thank you so much for the verification.

 

[CoralMD]

Carbon will aid in clearing cyno atleast it does for me. I run carbon only now . I used to dose vodka in a previous tank to remove it. Just a thought though

 

[Arkayology]

+1 cyno

 

[CaliO]

Cyno will blow off generally if you take a pump to it directly. I suck it up in wc's. Another thing, what do you feed and when. I notices cyno when I was trying this IO revolutionary gel food. I notices in the ingredients there were questioning to me. I stop feeding that and switched to frozen brine and krill, cyno disappeared. Now I am trying pellets but think cyno is coming back. API phosophates tests 0 but I doubt that.

 

[MichiganMike28]

Cyno will blow off generally if you take a pump to it directly. I suck it up in wc's. Another thing, what do you feed and when. I notices cyno when I was trying this IO revolutionary gel food. I notices in the ingredients there were questioning to me. I stop feeding that and switched to frozen brine and krill, cyno disappeared. Now I am trying pellets but think cyno is coming back. QUOTE]

Yeah my Cyno will blow off pretty easy, but comes back pretty fast. I also suck it up with water changes, but always seems to come back. I feed a variety of food, I use pellets and now that your saying that makes me think that could be it. I also feed frozen mysis shrimp. I do not overfeed but im sure some gets to the bottom of the tank. Im trying to figure out where the phosphate comes from. I do notice most of the cyano is on the live sand but i have a few dustings on my live rock as well. I will have to figure out the source, i just want this gone

 

[Reefing Madness]

Lights out for 3 days will remove it from your system. But you still need to find the source to keep it gone.
Heres a big write up on Cyano Do's and Don'ts
Mtrhs and facts about Cyanobacteria - Reef Central Online Community

 

[Mike J.]

I had some cyano show up, I have an outstanding maintenance schedule so it through me for a loop. I think I finally narrowed it down to my wife! She has these plug in candle melting pots. I've recently read that this is a cause for cyano outbreaks.

Anyway, it can be beat by repeatedly syphoning it out while it is in full bloom, which is in the middle of the light cycle. Then finding the cause, which in my case was my wife's candles.

Also, would recommend running carbon.

 

[YVR]

Cyano problems are usually caused by aquarium water with excess nutrients like phosphate, nitrates etc. You can try and siphon out what you can to remove the algae in the short term. In the long term you may have to examine how you care for your tank. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. If you have bio balls/media, check if they are dirty or get rid of them if you have enough live rock. Also, changing your photo period, light bulbs, adding more flow, using RO/DI water with a good salt. If your phosphates are high you can add a phosphate remover like Tropic Marin Elimi-Phos also, increasing flow in your tank may help too.

 

[MichiganMike28]

Cyano problems are usually caused by aquarium water with excess nutrients like phosphate, nitrates etc. You can try and siphon out what you can to remove the algae in the short term. In the long term you may have to examine how you care for your tank. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. If you have bio balls/media, check if they are dirty or get rid of them if you have enough live rock. Also, changing your photo period, light bulbs, adding more flow, using RO/DI water with a good salt. If your phosphates are high you can add a phosphate remover like Tropic Marin Elimi-Phos also, increasing flow in your tank may help too.

I do syphon out as much as I can, as a matter of fact that is where the problem started. When I started to vacuum the sand is when I noticed the algae. In the long term of how I care for my tank is how I have been taking care of all my tanks for the last 10 years. I change the water once a week with RO/DI water. As for adding more flow, if I added more my tank would be a hot tub.... I already have enough flow, WAY more then I would ever need. I would have to agree with what I was reading and that would be having more flow will only push the algae around versus removing it. I have seen algae just in the high flow areas and not the "dead spots". I also have two media reactors one with GFO and one with Carbon. So all of these theories are good but I have already thought of these and tested them. The only logical explanation to me would be the food that the fish are eating. I do not over feed at all since I only have 7 fish. The food they eat is consumed in a matter of a minute or two. The lights are not the problems since there are no bulbs to change. I have LEDs, and the photo period is only 4 hours. No bio balls thats a thing of the past lol. I dont think ive had those since my first tank 10 years ago. I do need to find the source of the phosphates. I thought it was my RO/DI filter but that is putting out 0.00 readings on the TDS and nothing on the hanna checker that I just purchased. I do have MACRO rocks and most of this tank was filled with it. I have 100lbs of macro rocks and 65 pounds of live rock from a local reefer that I purchased over 2 years ago. I used the previous LR from my old tank to seed this tank over a year ago. I dont know if Macro rocks has an issue with high phosphate or not but I dont think that would be the problem over a year later. So for me finding the source will be difficult but once I find it, the problem will be corrected.