BestMomEver
2500 Club Member
I have a Fluval M40 cube (14 gallons) that’s been up for over a year. It has a few softies in it... tree, toadstool, zoanthids. It has an azure damsel (3/4”), a lined Blenny (1”) and a pistol shrimp. After cycling, the tank went through the typical ugly stage... Cyanobacteria and hair algae. It cleared up and life went on. Over time, hubby’s job got more demanding and he wasn’t able to do the maintenance required for a nano (it’s his tank) and the hair algae came back with a vengeance. He scrubbed and picked and pulled. Finally he took the rock out and scrubbed it. It worked. A month later, the Cyanobacteria came back and COVERED the entire tank. It was stuck to the glass and floating on the surface in places. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I took the tank apart, put all the rocks in salt water and scrubbed each one. I did a gravel wash and drained most of the water. Put the tank back together and it’s been looking great. I tested ammonia, etc for a few weeks.... no cycle. Yesterday, I looked in and saw a tiny bit of Cyanobacteria on a rock. I’m stumped. Short of taking the tank completely down and bleaching and drying the rock on the porch, what other options do I have? If I took it down, I would have to return the fish and corals to the LFS as my 90 gallon is stocked to the max. I’m not keen on introducing the corals to my 90 because I don’t want to introduce that stuff to my bigger tank. Is there another way to do this? I’ve used chemi clean in the past and it helped but the red stuff comes back. I’ve tried dr Tim’s, vibrant, fluconazole, and other algae killing stuff. It always comes back. Suggestions?
