Please help, Cyano ? It wont go away

[Mrt88]

Hi all,

Hopefully someone can help us in some way. So i am running this reefer for about the last year.
For the last 6 months I have had this issue with what i think is cyano but i cant sort it out with anything i try.
My wife is dosing Vibrant once a week for the last 3 or 4 weeks and i am constantly scrubbing the glass and the rocks.

I have added a few pictures if that helps anyone. We did have a large refugium that didn’t really take off even with a prime fuge. I have taken that out for now as that’s a recommendation from Vibrant themselves and i am running Rowa and carbon in one unit.

We are only feeding one cube a day frozen and dry seaweed 2-3 times a week.

If anyone can help us i would really really appreciate it as its getting the best of us now.

Any questions please ask and i will answer them best i can.

I have been running reef tanks for the last 10 years but nothing like this before.

Thanks
Theo & Louise.

 

[Hydrored]

what are your current parameters? I would not does vibrant for cyano along with ROWA. To me this seems like a nutrient imbalance

 

[brandon429]

Easy:

Drain water into two brute trashcans and hold for reuse.

Hold fish with the taken water.

Swish your rocks around in clean saltwater to jet off detritus/ accumulations

Set aside

Take out the entire sandbed and rinse it with tap water hose until it's perfectly clear. Final rinse in clean saltwater

It's now free of cyano and cyano food.

Now your whole reef is empty, disassembled


Reinstall everything it will skip cycle reassemble and have no cyano. Takes one day vs months

None of this is bad or harms your bac

If interested I'll show you thirty pages of this being done in one thread, hundreds of tanks. If no interest despite thirty pages/ rather keep as is I understand. That's the most common mode, a reason to keep the invasion. Hobbyists actually do not want quick fixes they're trained to see them as bad but they'll dose a med into a reef already packed with detritus and cloud, kill a target, and pack decaying target into the system on top of...


*we get those tanks eighteen months later in the emergency forum as severe gha cases

Your current invasion is simple. Next up, harsh

 

[Mrt88]

Thanks you for coming back to me.

So just tested Ph at 8.1/8.2 and Nitrates at 0. im waiting on a new photstate test kit to arrive.

 

[Mrt88]

Easy:

Drain water into two brute trashcans and hold for reuse.

Hold fish with the taken water.

Swish your rocks around in clean saltwater to jet off detritus/ accumulations

Set aside

Take out the entire sandbed and rinse it with tap water hose until it's perfectly clear. Final rinse in clean saltwater

It's now free of cyano and cyano food.

Now your whole reef is empty, disassembled


Reinstall everything it will skip cycle reassemble and have no cyano. Takes one day vs months

None of this is bad or harms your bac

If interested I'll show you thirty pages of this being done in one thread, hundreds of tanks. If no interest despite thirty pages/ rather keep as is I understand. That's the most common mode, a reason to keep the invasion. Hobbyists actually do not want quick fixes they're trained to see them as bad but they'll dose a med into a reef already packed with detritus and cloud, kill a target, and pack decaying target into the system on top of...


*we get those tanks eighteen months later in the emergency forum as severe gha cases

Your current invasion is simple. Next up, harsh

If you could show me what you think its best i am happy to listen. My only issue would be i cant remove the rockwork as its all bonded together. Im assuming that would cause an issue ?

 

[Hydrored]

You want some nitrate and phosphates in the tank, surprised you don’t have Dino’s. I personally would stop dosing vibrant, it’s just dropping nutrients even more. The reason you can’t keep macro alive is you have nothing to feed it. I keep chaeto but feed heavy just to see some nitrates and phosphates. I had some cyano but I seem to get it every spring and it goes away on its own over a month.

 

[Malifry97]

You want some nitrate and phosphates in the tank, surprised you don’t have Dino’s. I personally would stop dosing vibrant, it’s just dropping nutrients even more. The reason you can’t keep macro alive is you have nothing to feed it. I keep chaeto but feed heavy just to see some nitrates and phosphates. I had some cyano but I seem to get it every spring and it goes away on its own over a month.

Wrong post quoted lol

 

[Malifry97]

Easy:

Drain water into two brute trashcans and hold for reuse.

Hold fish with the taken water.

Swish your rocks around in clean saltwater to jet off detritus/ accumulations

Set aside

Take out the entire sandbed and rinse it with tap water hose until it's perfectly clear. Final rinse in clean saltwater

It's now free of cyano and cyano food.

Now your whole reef is empty, disassembled


Reinstall everything it will skip cycle reassemble and have no cyano. Takes one day vs months

None of this is bad or harms your bac

If interested I'll show you thirty pages of this being done in one thread, hundreds of tanks. If no interest despite thirty pages/ rather keep as is I understand. That's the most common mode, a reason to keep the invasion. Hobbyists actually do not want quick fixes they're trained to see them as bad but they'll dose a med into a reef already packed with detritus and cloud, kill a target, and pack decaying target into the system on top of...


*we get those tanks eighteen months later in the emergency forum as severe gha cases

Your current invasion is simple. Next up, harsh

+1

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

its a little different, on our sand rinse thread we dont remove the sand while water is in the tank, we disassemble the entire system down to an empty aquarium. we dont do that to always take the long road its specifically to keep you from clouding up the tank while corals are in there. a 45 is...

www.reef2reef.com

See what he did there, that's a recent job we did. Agreed rocks might have to come apart, but then again this is long term planning where scape lock takes a back seat to earning after pics like those



You really can fix it other ways but they cannot prep your tank against future invasions like we do

His job was rock algae, yours is sand challenge = all same steps. Whether moving, upgrading, downgrading, beating an invader, same steps

Only hard work exports the feed that all invasions munch on

There's ten ways to fix your reef mines not the only way. It's just the first example u can track livetime in someone else's tank before you begin

Using other people's aquariums to pre model big decisions is a fun way to use the web to reef stronger

 

[Mrt88]

do you think that removing just the sand bed and starting with that is worth it ? or will the just come back from the rockwork ?

 

[waleedreef]

Start dosing NOPOX. it will feed the beneficial bacteria and compete with cyano bacteria. close light for 10 days now and start doing NoPOX.

 

[Mrt88]

just a question so i can understand for the future. Is Cyano something that can ocur naturanly or does it have to be brout into a systme ? I started with dry rock and dry sand. And i only added the fuge after the cyano started so i didnt bring it in that way ?

 

[Uncle99]

I see a bit of cyano but not epic amounts.
While I understand your tank has been running for 12 months, can you post your phosphate level when you get your kit.
For now, can you blow it off, suck it up and remove.
You say your dosing Nopox, but test 0 for Nitrates, that’s seems counterproductive, or maybe you bottomed out your nitrates with the Nopox. What’s was your nitrate level before the Nopox.
The problems you are having can be overcome, but, we’ve got to know what imbalance exists.
Maintaining nitrates in the 2-10ppm range and phosphate in the 0.03-.1 range is a balanced approach to nutrients you will need when you start to add corals.

 

[Mrt88]

I see a bit of cyano but not epic amounts.
While I understand your tank has been running for 12 months, can you post your nutrient levels?
You say your dosing Nopox and using GFO, is this because your testing indicates high nitrates and phosphates?
The problems you are having can be overcome, but, we’ve got to know what imbalance exists.

This might be on the wrong thread ? I have never dosed NoPox or i might have misunderstood sorry.

 

[Uncle99]

Yup, seen it on a thread above, you are not dosing Nopox.
But your dosing Vibrant?
what the thinking on this dose.

 

[brandon429]

That idea about removing sandbed and putting back later, to assess rocks alone, that's really keen. We use that in the sand rinse thread for sure. The key rule is that live rocks handle all bioload alone, without ramp up time required, and we use that to impose our will upon sandbeds if that method is interesting

Adding back rinsed and dried sand can't introduce anything bad, that delay time is handy for rock assessment and the act of disassembly cleaning will likely cure the mild invasion

You should put back as much clean water as you can muster, export all dosers start back from the clean condition

planning ahead for much tougher invasions is smart / before corals are antlered in place etc, pre export of waste vs dosing water meds has clear future impacts.

 

[waleedreef]

dont't worry about cyano. just control nutrients and start dosing NOPOX. it will prevent cyano come back.. it require months

 

[Hydrored]

I don’t agree with dosing no pox at all, nutrients are already bottomed and will make the cyano worse. Been there done that. Clean the sand and blow the excess off, stop dosing vibrant and figure out what your phosphates are at. I get patches of cyano every spring in 2 tanks, while it’s ugly it goes away on its own if it’s not matting. I actually find running a bit higher in nitrates helps the cyano go away, again this is all in my experience.

 

[Mrt88]

Yup, seen it on a thread above, you are not dosing Nopox.
But your dosing Vibrant?
what the thinking on this dose.

Its something i have on hand from my other tanks and used it as it mentioned it works with cyano. I dont want to use Nopox as acording to my tests i have nothing to Reduce.

It is matting a fair bit, Thats after 2 days of me stiring up the sand to try get it down into the roller fileter.

 

[Mrt88]

That idea about removing sandbed and putting back later, to assess rocks alone, that's really keen. We use that in the sand rinse thread for sure. The key rule is that live rocks handle all bioload alone, without ramp up time required, and we use that to impose our will upon sandbeds if that method is interesting

Adding back rinsed and dried sand can't introduce anything bad, that delay time is handy for rock assessment and the act of disassembly cleaning will likely cure the mild invasion

You should put back as much clean water as you can muster, export all dosers start back from the clean condition

planning ahead for much tougher invasions is smart / before corals are antlered in place etc, pre export of waste vs dosing water meds has clear future impacts.

I have a leopard wrasse so i cant leave the tank without any for an extended period of time ? or am i wrong in thinking that.