Nutrients and Cyano...

[Ryengoth]

Following.

When my po4 gets stupid, and my nitrates are dumb. I still don't get cyano.

I use higher light than many, much longer as well and have a large coral bio load.

One sumped tank with fuge and One non sumped tank

I think flow has a lot to do with where it develops. Do you have a shallow tank with high flow? My 90G starfire is really tall and it tends to build on low-flow areas and on the sand first.

 

[Ty Hamatake]

@reeferfoxx brought this up as well and makes a lot of sense. Not so much what I'm dosing, but the fact that my nutrient levels are fluctuating creating some instability in the tank. I'm going to continue dosing the NeoNitro (it's either this or Spectracide to keep my nitrates detectable), but I'm going to try to be more consistent with it. From reading a couple other threads on here I'm learning that even your feeding schedule can contribute to algal and bacterial outbreak, so I think I will also be getting an automatic feeder (it'll also make thing easier on the wife when I'm gone ).

Oh, as far as my TDS, I run a six stage RODI with dual TDS meters and my final output always reads zero. I've contemplated getting a hand held just to be sure, but as of now I don't think it necessary. Thanks for the smart input!

 

[Ty Hamatake]

I think flow has a lot to do with where it develops. Do you have a shallow tank with high flow? My 90G starfire is really tall and it tends to build on low-flow areas and on the sand first.

Meh, @saltyfilmfolks is just a freak. It's really kind of not fair

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Meh, @saltyfilmfolks is just a freak. It's really kind of not fair

Hahahaha.

I should sell my old tank water.
"Salty's Suff"

But yea I will say for the last couple years I have had really god flow too.

I still went through phases of higher and lower nutrints. Cyanos and algaes come and go. I think it's part of the process really. . The truly invasive and long term ones are a head scratcher.

 

[emixa]

@reeferfoxx brought this up as well and makes a lot of sense. Not so much what I'm dosing, but the fact that my nutrient levels are fluctuating creating some instability in the tank. I'm going to continue dosing the NeoNitro (it's either this or Spectracide to keep my nitrates detectable), but I'm going to try to be more consistent with it. From reading a couple other threads on here I'm learning that even your feeding schedule can contribute to algal and bacterial outbreak, so I think I will also be getting an automatic feeder (it'll also make thing easier on the wife when I'm gone ).

Oh, as far as my TDS, I run a six stage RODI with dual TDS meters and my final output always reads zero. I've contemplated getting a hand held just to be sure, but as of now I don't think it necessary. Thanks for the smart input!

So i have the same sort of RODI system and my final sensor would read 0-1. i have developed a case of Cyano as well and bought a handheld just to have redundancy. My TDS read 6. Since then i have changed the filters etc.

I am going to try and use the no-no (chemi-clean). I have used it before with no issues. A buddy of mine used it and it wiped out his tank. (sigh) Its to the point where even the shells of my snails have cyano.

 

[ReefingwithO]

I had a huge cyano issue last year on a tank with 0 nitrates and phosphates. It wasn't a nutrient or flow issue. I had 4 tunze 6095 on a 75 gallon tank.

In the end I used Cheni-clean and more than a year later it never came back. Didn't harm anything in the tank.

If you are going to use it follow the directions and do the follow up treatment if you see any small patches after the first treatment. Be prepared to do a large water change after and your skimmer will act funny for days after.

 

[nervousmonkey]

@Ty Hamatake , are you dosing Reef Biofuel or Katalyst?

 

[Grey Guy]

For the longest time I was struggling with bleaching corals and as it turns out I believe it was due to low nutrients. The problem I am having now, is that whenever I get them (NO3/PO4) where I want them, 2.5-5 NO3 (Salifert) and ~.03 PO4 (Hanna ULR), I get a cyano outbreak. Is this a common issue or am I missing something? PO4 was raised naturally through increased feeding and less frequent WCs and NO3 eventually had to be dosed using Brightwell's NeoNitro. I want good color for my SPS, but the cyano (while still controllable) is starting to have negative effects on my coral.

Kind of at a loss here guys, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have had some cyno problems, but I read somewhere to try water changes first. So I did and it worked. Soon the cyno was gone.

 

[Fercho]

It is a tricky balancing act between low enough nutrients to prevent algae and cyano, and enough to feed corals.

IMO, many people have been pushing the nutrient target levels higher and higher because they are not feeding organic nutrients to corals as foods, and this risks problem algae.

Would you say using an algae scrubber or biopellet reactor help combat the cyano?

 

[Snookster]

I've been fighting cyano for quite a while and am finally making good progress. My tank is 7+ years old and I used to feed fairly heavy. My skimmer was so-so as well. Over the years, the organics have built up in my sand and rocks to the point no matter how much flow I had, how little light I used or how many water changes I made, I was swimming upstream.
I upgraded my skimmer, and have removed the oldest rock . I'm stirring sand and doing filter sock changes every other day. I'm still doing fairly heavy WCs, but I'm convinced the bad stuff was locked up in my older rock and sand bed. I now only have little hints of cyano about once a week (still have a couple of rocks to remove).

Some of the rock I took out, I acid bathed, then beach soaked, then RODI soaked, then sun dried. Two weeks in to curing, the PO4 in the tub is .07. Coincidence? I doubt it, but I feel solid on this observation.

BTW - the pic of your zoas is exactly what was going on with me. My LFS owner told me that cyano is related to the red tide organism and will irritate corals, and that's why they ain't happy.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I've been fighting cyano for quite a while and am finally making good progress. My tank is 7+ years old and I used to feed fairly heavy. My skimmer was so-so as well. Over the years, the organics have built up in my sand and rocks to the point no matter how much flow I had, how little light I used or how many water changes I made, I was swimming upstream.
I upgraded my skimmer, and have removed the oldest rock . I'm stirring sand and doing filter sock changes every other day. I'm still doing fairly heavy WCs, but I'm convinced the bad stuff was locked up in my older rock and sand bed. I now only have little hints of cyano about once a week (still have a couple of rocks to remove).

Some of the rock I took out, I acid bathed, then beach soaked, then RODI soaked, then sun dried. Two weeks in to curing, the PO4 in the tub is .07. Coincidence? I doubt it, but I feel solid on this observation.

BTW - the pic of your zoas is exactly what was going on with me. My LFS owner told me that cyano is related to the red tide organism and will irritate corals, and that's why they ain't happy.

My po4 is .25 in the 55g , I have no cyano and I can show you a tank with the po4 at 2.5 with no cyano.

Cyano is not realeted to red tide. Red tide is a dinoflagellate.

 

[bubbaque]

That looks just like the dinos I had. They popped up in my tank a couple days after I dosed no3 like you did. I used a microscope to confirm the Dino. Here are the pics and look at the frag plugs to see it looks like yours.

 

[bh750]

Honestly like already stated the best way (and maybe only way) to figure this out is to ID under a scope. It could be cyano or spirulina or Dinos. To me impossible to tell for sure with the make eye. And each one has different treatments.

Sorry but that's really the truth IMO and I've been fighting all of them for a long time. Not until I IDd under a scope did I finally make progress.

 

[Hans-Werner]

... do you know if it's normal for the cyano to go away at night? Because mine does...

Yes, in some tanks it is normal. It is a sign that the cyanos are low in nutrients, always or in most cases phosphate. The cyanos are not going "away" they are going underground. In the interstitial rooms between sand grains the phosphate concentrations are much higher than in the water, at least in the tanks where this occurs. So in the afternoon when the cyanos run low in phosphates they start to go underground by a gliding movement which can also be seen under a microsocope. At night the cyanos fill up their phosphate stores and in the morning they start to go back to the surface and spread on the surface to do photosynthesis until in the afternoon ...

 

[Hans-Werner]

In my opinion the cause for many pest "algae" (cyanos, dinos, hair algae) is the nutrient balance. 5 ppm nitrate and .03 ppm Phosphate is a ratio of 167. In my eyes it should be 10 or even lower. In my experience it is not necessary to have detectable nitrate, at least not above 1 ppm, but it is better to have detectable phosphate, somewhere between .02 and .1 ppm in reactive phosphate, detectable with a test kit.
Nitrate is the end product of nitrification. To occur there must be a surplus in nitrogen compounds. This is why it is not necessary to have nitrates at all, there are enough other nitrogen compounds the corals prefer over nitrate.

I am quite sure that is a matter of competitive advantage if pest algae grow. Corals, coralline algae and other calcifyers seem to have a higher demand in phosphate. They have a competitive advantage when the nitrat phosphate ratio is low, for example at 7. If the nitrate phosphate ratio is high, let´s say 100 or higher, the competitive advantage is on the side of the cyanos, hair algae and dinos.

 

[Ty Hamatake]

@Ty Hamatake , are you dosing Reef Biofuel or Katalyst?

I am not. I wasn't trying for a ULNS, it's just how it turned out. That is what those are used for correct? To achieve a ULNS?

EDIT: Or at least used to combat high nutrients? Then NeoNitro/NeoPhos used to bring levels back to an acceptable level? I may be completely off, I haven't researched them, only seen their suggested use on the bottle of my NeoNitro.

That looks just like the dinos I had. They popped up in my tank a couple days after I dosed no3 like you did. I used a microscope to confirm the Dino. Here are the pics and look at the frag plugs to see it looks like yours.

Are dinos known to "hide" during lights out like cyano is? @Hans-Werner did an awesome job of explaining why cyano do, so I wonder if dinos do the same.

 

[Hans-Werner]

I think there are also kinds of fluctuations in dinoflagellates but they do not show the behavior to go underground like cyanos. I think I can remember that I have watched a kind of swarming of dinoflagellates. They seemed to go from the bottom into the water column and cloud the water if I remember it right. In the morning the water was quite clear and got more and more cloudy in the afternoon.

 

[Jolanta]

I am not. I wasn't trying for a ULNS, it's just how it turned out. That is what those are used for correct? To achieve a ULNS?

EDIT: Or at least used to combat high nutrients? Then NeoNitro/NeoPhos used to bring levels back to an acceptable level? I may be completely off, I haven't researched them, only seen their suggested use on the bottle of my NeoNitro.

Are dinos known to "hide" during lights out like cyano is? @Hans-Werner did an awesome job of explaining why cyano do, so I wonder if dinos do the same.

In my case in this moment I have both ciano and dinos and when the light go off dinos go to a watercolumn and ciano stays in the rock, the other day when my lights go on ciano is still in its place and cant see dinos on rocks and how time goes on they start to reapear being the worst at the end of the day.

 

[ReefBeta]

I am having the same problem the pass couple weeks. Last week I did these change to the tank:

1. Reduce feeding by half
2. Increase vodka dosing from 5ml to 6ml daily
3. 30% water change and deep vacuum sand bed

So far the situation is under control. It used to be that I clean it one day, then the next day it's all back to the same amount. Now they stay back mostly after cleaning. But they are not going away just yet. Still need more water change probably.

The NO3 and PO4 have always 0. But I think it's still problem of exceed nutrition. The test doesn't matter in this case because in case of outbreak, the bacteria will keep growing until it used up the nutrition, so the test result will stay very low. So I think the solution is still reduce nutrition level.

 

[Duraticate]

When was the last time you changed your t5s? Poor lighting will make pest algae grow. There is some talk around about the red and green spec of lights cause algae outbreaks. I had a cyano outbreak once. I used chemi clean and the next day one of my clowns died. Not sure if its related. But at that point i decided no chems. I turned the lights off for a few days added stronger power heads and fed less. It took a week or so but eventually the cyano went away. Changed my lights since then no issues. Oh ya i also have on average perameters at ....