Post-ChemiClean

[MichaelReefer]

Hello Everyone.

So I was struck with a HUGE Cyano outbreak about a month back, luckily none got on the rock or coral but my entire substrate was coated in it. (I literally had red sand) This was the first time I've had any kind of Bacterial or Algae like problem in my Salt-Water tank, so it had me in a bit of a panic (even though pretty much everyone has had this happen).

I tried for about a month to run GFO, Carbon, and I fed less but nothing really changed (I had a large phosphate spike for some reason, the GFO helped drastically). I even tried Dosing H2O2. I wen't ahead and ran the Chemi-Clean a few days ago and holy cow my tank looks new again. I know it's just a band aid and I more so did it so I could "start over." Now that I have GFO as well as am paying a bit more attention to my feeding routine I am hoping it wont happen again. My Protein skimmer went nuts (like expected) over-night last night. So I am just looking for some advice on how I should go on from here. If anyone that has dealt with this before has any advice It is greatly appreciated. Should I do a large water change this weekend? I also picked up Microbacter7, apparently some people dose it to help as a preventative? Would love to know if any of you do this.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Bump

 

[danieyella]

I've heard that from a few as well but haven't personally tried it. What ended up helping me most was adding a crosswave. It angered most of my LPS and I had to rearrange but the cyano is at a minimum. Also, as dumb and simple as it sounds, do a citric acid soak on your powerheads and clean them - they're probably performing below expected because of build-up.

 

[WVNed]

Take the skimmer cup off. Let it overflow for 48 hours.
After that.
Turn your ATO off. Replace your skimmer cup and empty it as it fills. I can drain mine to a bucket. That way you can tell how much water has come out of your system.
Keep emptying the skimmer until it goes back to normal.
Refill the system water removed through the skimmer with new salt water.
Turn the ATO back on.

Whatever the skimmer empties into the bucket is all the water change I do.

 

[WVNed]

Cyano

Gone

 

[Johniejumbo]

I didn’t think to let my slimmer drain like that. I left the top off for a couple days and and did about 20% water change after that.
I turned the light of for the second and third day of treatment and put the microbacter7 in after the water change to help eat up some of the newly freed nutrients and prevent the GHA from getting a boost. Seems to have worked well.

 

[PatW]

I have done chemiclean. Yeah, the skimmer goes nuts. What I do is to let the cup fill up. Then I empty it and discard and add the equivalent amount of salt water, let it fill up, empty it and keep at it until it gets kinda normal.

A way to attenuate the skimmer problems is to run chemiclean. Do at least a 50% water change, run carbon and then hook up the skimmer.

I had cyano in 2 tanks. One the chemiclean did the trick. The other, it reduced the cyano but it came back. I added a number of popular bacterial supplements to the tank. And the cyano went away.

I started the tank with dry rock. Some people seem to get cyano in that situation and perhaps from having an insufficient bacterial flora. If the cyano comes back, you might add some bacteria.

 

[GoVols]

Take the skimmer cup off. Let it overflow for 48 hours.
After that.
Turn your ATO off. Replace your skimmer cup and empty it as it fills. I can drain mine to a bucket. That way you can tell how much water has come out of your system.
Keep emptying the skimmer until it goes back to normal.
Refill the system water removed through the skimmer with new salt water.
Turn the ATO back on.

Whatever the skimmer empties into the bucket is all the water change I do.

I've choked down my skimmer's air intake line, to pull CC out, after the treatment is finished too.

 

[MichaelReefer]

I've heard that from a few as well but haven't personally tried it. What ended up helping me most was adding a crosswave. It angered most of my LPS and I had to rearrange but the cyano is at a minimum. Also, as dumb and simple as it sounds, do a citric acid soak on your powerheads and clean them - they're probably performing below expected because of build-up.

I actually just traded my Gyre out for two brand new Nero 5s. Gets rid of a lot of my dead areas and gives me some cross action going on.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Take the skimmer cup off. Let it overflow for 48 hours.
After that.
Turn your ATO off. Replace your skimmer cup and empty it as it fills. I can drain mine to a bucket. That way you can tell how much water has come out of your system.
Keep emptying the skimmer until it goes back to normal.
Refill the system water removed through the skimmer with new salt water.
Turn the ATO back on.

Whatever the skimmer empties into the bucket is all the water change I do.

Problem I'm having is dialing the skimmer in, in the first place. Its just dumping water in the cup. I literally get it just right, and walk away. Come back five minutes later and it's just overflowing again lol. I have my carbon running so i'm hoping that may help a little? Will mess with it when I get home from work tonight, maybe the carbon will calm it down a bit after running for a day. I finished the treatment last night. Haven't done a water-change yet

 

[WVNed]

Open the skimmer all the way. Like when you are breaking it in. Empty it to a bucket. Tune it after the CC is out of the system.
My system is 400 gallons. I end up pitching about 20 gallons and replacing it.

 

[danieyella]

I actually just traded my Gyre out for two brand new Nero 5s. Gets rid of a lot of my dead areas and gives me some cross action going on.

I had 2 great powerheads but due to my rock formation still had a big deadspot in the front left corner. The crossflow addition helped solve that for me. Ultimately, if you don't have deadspots, that's the key. Could try playing with the power on what you've got and see if that helps keep it from developing as well. Have you nailed down the main cause yet?

As far as the skimmer cup goes, I did the same as everyone else mentioned, turn off ato and monitor, top off with saltwater since my cup is filling so fast.

 

[Glott3133]

Problem I'm having is dialing the skimmer in, in the first place. Its just dumping water in the cup. I literally get it just right, and walk away. Come back five minutes later and it's just overflowing again lol. I have my carbon running so i'm hoping that may help a little? Will mess with it when I get home from work tonight, maybe the carbon will calm it down a bit after running for a day. I finished the treatment last night.

I had the same issue and was instructed to do a 20g water change on a 75g tank. I wasn't able to start my skimmer for a few days after that.