Views on Cyano Treatments

[PaulKreider]

So I've been dealing with cyano for the past two months, and its pretty nasty. Covers every rock, zoa, and sand bed overnight. Every day I brush it off with a toothbrush, and clean the zoas off with a power head.

Back-round: I had a small amount of cyano prior to moving the tank, I moved the tank about a month ago into my new house, keeping the sand bed in the tank during the move. I know this stirred up all kinds of detritus and nasty stuff. So I'm being patient and just doing weekly 15 gallon water changes on my 55gal.

I've never had cyano this bad though. So I'm wondering how most people would deal with this.

Just let it run its course?

Add nitrifying bacteria?

Blackout?

Let me know how you've dealt with it in the past!


The tank has been running for 2.5 years, it was moved a year ago and during that move I replaced the sand bed with live sand. Still using the same rock and all.

 

[Alesolra]

Ultra red slime is perfect for cyano

 

[mike007]

Try some nualgi this stuff works great.

 

[shred5]

Find the source of the nutrients... If it is covering everything you have phosphate that needs to be taken care of... Cyno is doing you a favor by using up those nutrients otherwise you could end up with phosphate binding to your rock and sand etc. If you kill cyno with chemicals later you will have bigger problems when another algae takes over that is worse. Cyno is telling you something is wrong..
You may need to treat your tap water more, you may need to feed less, maybe you have to many fish, maybe your skimmer is too small, maybe you need to start running some phosphate removers, maybe you need to do more water changes.. could be allot of different things.

Cyno really aint that hard to deal with, nothing like dinoflagellates. Learning to deal with problems instead of throwing chemicals at it will help you later down the road.

 

[MikeAndrews]

You will always have cyano in a reef tank. That doesn't mean it will always bloom into a disgusting problem. Nutrient management, good water change schedule and sand sifters like conch and cucumbers will control it in my experience.

 

[PaulKreider]

Well the nutrients are clearly stirred up from the tank move. And using Ro/DI water too so that's not the issue, Feeding every other day. What I'm asking is the best way people delt with it.

 

[beaslbob]

I vote black out. and stoping all feeding curing the black out as well.

If you can find the lighting and feeding schedule where the cyano dies off and does not come back but corraline, macros, and corals thrive, you're there.

my .02

 

[Reefing Madness]

Well the nutrients are clearly stirred up from the tank move. And using Ro/DI water too so that's not the issue, Feeding every other day. What I'm asking is the best way people delt with it.

I'd just leave it alone for a bit. Once the tanks dose a final settle, you should be able to just wave the stuff off the rocks one day, and it won't be back.
Or
Did you add more dry rock to the system? Anything that would have locked up phosphates or silicates in it?

 

[dankreef]

I'd just leave it alone for a bit. Once the tanks dose a final settle, you should be able to just wave the stuff off the rocks one day, and it won't be back.
Or
Did you add more dry rock to the system? Anything that would have locked up phosphates or silicates in it?

This.

Every now and then if I dose too many aminos I will get cyano. You can deal with it by either adding a small amount of carbon, or just wait for it to go away naturally with water changes. It takes about a month to go away after the problem is cured. Ie. for me I cut back on aminos, or add a small amount of carbon to get rid of excess nutes.