Plan to fight Cyano

[Theaviator]

Hello everyone. It appears that I have a bad Cyano outbreak in my tank. Its a 8 month old 80 gallon tank, 2 clowns, a conch and a ton of Trochus snails (They went crazy and reproduced). Recently I've noticed cyano starting to build on the substrate. I tried my best to siphon it out but my conch was doing a pretty good job controlling it. Well, the conch decided to bury himself and not come out for about 2 weeks now. He's still alive as I see his eyes every now and then pop out of the same. However, my cyano has now gotten worse. I tested my parameters and they all seem pretty normal except phosphate and nitrate which are both 0.

Assumptions:
Im guessing the cyano is more than likely eating all the nitrates and phosphates which is why they are zero. My second guess is that my frozen shrimp I'm feeding the clowns, probably is high in phosphates which is more than likely feeding the cyano. I couldn't maybe rinse the food in a coffee strainer before feeding. But there has to be a better way! Ive gotten lazy on my water changes, im sure that hasn't helped!

My plan is as follows:
Weekly 10% water changes and dose MicroBacter7 to try and starve out the cyano.
I will reduce feeding the shrimp and maybe supplement with pellets, but half of what im feeding now.
Im also vacuuming the substrate almost daily to remove as much as possible from the sand bed.
I have Chemiclean on its way too. Ive never tried it but I have no corals so I may give that a shot.
I think my flow is good but I don't have any kind of flow producer inside the tank itself other than my main return pump. I may add something to create more flow along the sand bed. Any recommendations here?

I really just want to know what you all think. Do you think my assumptions are correct about what's causing this. And do you think my plan of action is sound? Also any recommendations on flow? Thanks for everything, I would have quit this hobby years ago if it wasn't for you all!

 

[vetteguy53081]

You’re on right track. It’s photosynthetic and loves light
Generally tank will be high on phosphates and nitrates.
siphon this all up , increase flow slightly, reduce or turn off white lighting and add 1.5 ml of liquid bacteria per 10 gallons daily for a week and add 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons at night also for a week

 

[JumboShrimp]

I tried the @vetteguy53081 method in my 20-gallon AIO and it worked for me.

 

[Theaviator]

Ok then! Consider it done. As for increasing flow. My return pump is a one set flow and done. How would you recommend increasing flow at this point? Maybe adding a small fluval circulation pump?

 

[JumboShrimp]

Ideally I’d say a cheap wave maker that you can move around from place to place as a ‘utility’ flow-driver… blast the cyano where it’s causing you trouble spots for a few days at a time, then move it. Of course this is in conjunction with your other long-term strategies.

 

[Theaviator]

Ideally I’d say a cheap wave maker that you can move around from place to place as a ‘utility’ flow-driver… blast the cyano where it’s causing you trouble spots for a few days at a time, then move it. Of course this is in conjunction with your other long-term strategies.

Excellent! Thank you so much. I will give all this a try. I appreciate it!

 

[paulgriffin971]

I had a really bad outbreak last fall right when the weather changed and we went from using A/C to heater. Two years on in this big tank and it's the only one issue that really scared me other than the aptasia which is controllable now that I found the "cure" (hint--it's kalkwasser paste).

Something about the seasonal change and A/C vs. heat seems to trigger cyano I think. And seeing all that red in the tank......the....horror. On a 165 gallon tank with 2" sandbed, it covered pretty much 80% of the sand. Thought I was done for, but patience is key.

Here's what I did:
1) I used the recommended dose of phosphate RX and followed the directions to get phosphates down to as low as I could--somewhere below 0.05.
2) Once the phosphates were low, I used a rake/shovel to get out as much of the big chunks as I could. Once that was done, I sort of raked through the sand bed to stir it up a little bit and maxed out my powerheads to help filter the crud out of the water and into the filter socks/skimmer. Used a toothbrush on the rocks to get what I could there as well.
3) Threw an air stone in to aerate the tank for a few hours (about 3), then added the regular old blue box Chemiclean--making sure to follow the directions on the box.
4) After a couple days--per directions on the Chemiclean--did a 75% water change. (keep in mind I cleaned the filter socks and skimmer often to make sure anything the chemiclean was killing off wouldn't be broken down by the socks or ground up by the skimmer)
5) After the water change I did a double dose of Stress Zyme.
6) Added more nasserius and astrea snails since they are known to eat cyano.

Here's why I did it this way:
1) I figured the cyano covering the sand bed would starve the snails and other things living in the sand of oxygen, etc. It would also prevent the Chemiclean from reaching it. Hence the raking and stirring the sand bed a little bit, and the toothbrush on the rocks.
2) I was able to get as much as the "big" stuff out with the rake and brush, letting the mechanical filtration get the rest without breaking it down too much. Everything else would be caught by the skimmer.
3) Since my phosphates were already low, the cyano didn't have anything to feed on while the Chemiclean did it's thing.
4) I did a 50% water change to make sure I got most of the chemiclean out, while getting as much "new" salt, trace elements, water, etc back in.
5) You really can't over-dose stress-zyme, so I figured more would be better with this level of water change.
6) More snails are always better....
7) Lastly, I didn't have to affect my corals as much doing a full-on 3-day blackout period or similar.

And here's what happened:
1) I had to clean the filter socks and skimmer often. By often, I mean OFTEN. There was so much crud that got caught in the socks and the skimmer. I would have though I was cleaning 4-5 tanks with as often as I cleaned things. It was also probably due to the aeration stone and powerheads being maxed out helping move stuff around.
2) Most of the cyano was gone. All of it, no. But the stuff that was still there sort of slowly went away after a few days and hasn't come back. I was back to my normal routine maintenance.
3) The tank looked like a 1/2 fizzy sprite in a glass for a few days because the microbubbles from the aeration was still there. It went away in about 2 full days. Water was amazingly clear after that too.
4) I discovered I had more hermits because wherever they were before, they came out of hiding and were all over the sand bed.
5) The rock looked cleaner than before. Thinking here is the chemiclean got the other "bad" algae I couldn't see.
6) And....wait for it......nothing died!!!

Sorry for the blast-off on the write-up, but it's what should work and what I'll do from now on if it happens again. They say Chemiclean is the big hammer for a big situation. That may be true, but I wasnt about to waste my time on some other stuff/process that some guy told some guy's wife who told me and would "potentially" work.

Only thing I left out was I left a clip of seaweed in there for the tangs, and didn't change the feeding schedule. And I'm now using Phosphate RX to supplement my GFO to keep phosphates in check.

Good Luck

 

[Theaviator]

So after a month of dealing with this with chemiclean not doing anything. I started to suspect it wasn’t cyano at all. I was able to take a look under a microscope. It looks like Dino’s! I thought this whole time was cyano. I’ve struggled with Dino’s before for some reason on this same tank that ended up crashing during the Texas freeze. I thought I cleaned it out thoroughly. It appears as they they survived. What’s the best method for removing this stuff? Nothing I ever do seems to get it under control!