Cyano & diatoms - would phosphate reactor help?

[agoutihead]

Ok I have been struggling with red cyanobacteria & also the rust colored diatoms all over my sand, back wall and once in a while on the liverock. Hair algae was an issue at one point but doesn't seem to be now.

 

I do feed daily & have fish to feed, so cutting back isn't an option as I don't want my fish to starve & then get sick. They're all fat & healthy & I prefer to keep them that way.

 

Would a phosphate reactor help with the cyano & diatoms? My tank looks terrible because of these two things and I just can't seem to get rid of it no matter if I do water changes or not & have my skimmer running.

 

I'm thinking of ditching the Tunze Nano Skimmer & replacing it with a similar in size phosphate reactor (if it will indeed help get rid of the cyano & diatoms)

 

My tank is all LPS, xenia, shoorms, rics, hammer & zoas - will adding a phosphate reactor stunt/stop their growth?

 

I think xenia like high phophate water don't they? They seem to be doing the best in my tank... (it's my favorite coral so I'm happy about that, but the rest of the tank looks like crap)

 

 

[hey]

More flow over the cyano will clear it up gradually, my last bought took about 2 months to get it clear from the sandbed. diatoms go away on their own.

 

some people have great results dosing chemiclean, I don't know whats in it so I am hesitant to even mention it as a way to clear cyano.

[agoutihead]

Increasing flow in my tank isn't possible at this point. There's actually a good bit of flow, but I still have this issue all over the tank. Remember it is a LPS tank.

 

This problem has persisted for months & months know to the point of me wanting to swap the skimmer for a phophate reactor (in hopes that it will clear both of these problems up)

[hey]

Increasing flow in my tank isn't possible at this point. There's actually a good bit of flow, but I still have this issue all over the tank. Remember it is a LPS tank.

 

This problem has persisted for months & months know to the point of me wanting to swap the skimmer for a phophate reactor (in hopes that it will clear both of these problems up)

 

It is quite possible a phosban reactor would be pointless in many cases of cyano, but heres this http://wateralchemy.blogspot.com/2012/04/cyano-tips-for-control-and-erradication.html which has many ways of dealing with it as its pretty easy to eradicate and occurs at some point or another in most tanks.

[jedimasterben]

More flow over the cyano will clear it up gradually

What happens when it is growing on powerheads?

[hey]

What happens when it is growing on powerheads?

 

turn them on? heh

[jedimasterben]

turn them on? heh

I have two MP40 on ~65%. Cyano mats grow on them no problem.

[hey]

I have two MP40 on ~65%. Cyano mats grow on them no problem.

 

I find that odd mostly because siphon manual removal is so easy is all. Also did you read that link I posted on a shared sump system flow disturbing the sand bed in one tank was the hypothetical for one tanks cyano issues.

 

I mention that because mp flow patterns are pretty notorious for disturbing the sand bed with the pull they create. Honestly I cleared my 2-3 month case of it up just by putting 2 more powerheads in the tank all intersecting the area above the cyano. Probably not the fastest way to do it but I can't complain now.

[rod00007]

Ok I have been struggling with red cyanobacteria & also the rust colored diatoms all over my sand, back wall and once in a while on the liverock. Hair algae was an issue at one point but doesn't seem to be now.

 

I do feed daily & have fish to feed, so cutting back isn't an option as I don't want my fish to starve & then get sick. They're all fat & healthy & I prefer to keep them that way.

 

Would a phosphate reactor help with the cyano & diatoms? My tank looks terrible because of these two things and I just can't seem to get rid of it no matter if I do water changes or not & have my skimmer running.

 

I'm thinking of ditching the Tunze Nano Skimmer & replacing it with a similar in size phosphate reactor (if it will indeed help get rid of the cyano & diatoms)

 

My tank is all LPS, xenia, shoorms, rics, hammer & zoas - will adding a phosphate reactor stunt/stop their growth?

 

I think xenia like high phophate water don't they? They seem to be doing the best in my tank... (it's my favorite coral so I'm happy about that, but the rest of the tank looks like crap)

 

Could you provide us a picture of your tank?

How long has it been established?

 

Fat and happy fish like to poo everywhere. I'm guessing you have too much in your tank and sandbed.

Keep the skimmer but I would take it out and completely clean it. Make sure that air is getting through the system correctly and that your skimmate is appropriately nasty. -- pictures of your skimmate would help too. Skimmers are the best waste removal system you can run on a saltwater tank. They actually remove stuff completely out of the tank when you dump the cup. If a seal is broken on the skimmer it could be that it isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing. Water changes are helpful as well when you have a lot of waste in the water. They remove waste if you siphon the places where waste is in the tank. A turkey baster or powerhead blowout of all your rock surface area might be helpful too but you will stir it up into the water column and it should be followed by a water change to remove the waste from the water column. Your sandbed probably needs to be cleaned and or removed depending on what you want to do. I run bare bottom now because its so much easier for me. I have not had any cyano since all my tanks went bare bottom.

 

I understand the sand is pretty but it really just becomes a landfill under the water if you don't clean it constantly.

These are my suggestions. I hope it helps.

[jedimasterben]

I find that odd mostly because siphon manual removal is so easy is all. Also did you read that link I posted on a shared sump system flow disturbing the sand bed in one tank was the hypothetical for one tanks cyano issues.

 

I mention that because mp flow patterns are pretty notorious for disturbing the sand bed with the pull they create. Honestly I cleared my 2-3 month case of it up just by putting 2 more powerheads in the tank all intersecting the area above the cyano. Probably not the fastest way to do it but I can't complain now.

That page doesn't even mention the word 'sump'. Flow doesn't solve any problems with cyanobacteria, nutrient export does. Nutrient export is easier via mechanical or chemical filtration if flow is where it needs to be, but unless the nutrient export is happening, it won't help.

[hey]

That page doesn't even mention the word 'sump'. Flow doesn't solve any problems with cyanobacteria, nutrient export does. Nutrient export is easier via mechanical or chemical filtration if flow is where it needs to be, but unless the nutrient export is happening, it won't help.

 

You can't really export if it is leaching from your substrate or rock is what I am getting at short of exporting the rock or sand itself. I understand what you are getting at.

 

I read through your tank thread some btw sorry to hear the crap ur goin through currently with tank. Sounds like you will probably see more results with your skimmer pulling more crap than it had from the water. Do you vodka/carbon source dose at all?

 

Also 6th paragraph down was the mention of shared filtration I made the assumption of sump as its kind of hard to run a shared skimmer without one heh.

[jedimasterben]

You can't really export if it is leaching from your substrate or rock is what I am getting at short of exporting the rock or sand itself. I understand what you are getting at.

Nutrients (particularly phosphate) actually get bound to the aragonite and cannot be cleaved from it except by algae or bacteria (or very acidic conditions). Once this happens, though, hair algae is what begins to take over, but realistically, all tanks will have some algae or cyano in varying amounts, it's best to make friends with them and not stress too much over it, it'll all work itself out eventually as long as your nutrient import does not exceed nutrient export.

 

I read through your tank thread some btw sorry to hear the crap ur goin through currently with tank. Sounds like you will probably see more results with your skimmer pulling more crap than it had from the water. Do you vodka/carbon source dose at all?

Dinoflagellates, despite being able to bloom at any time, are carbon-limited and reproduce best under low-nutrient conditions, so even if I could carbon dose without forcing a bloom, they would still find conditions favorable. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them for over a month now, so I'm hoping they've encysted and won't be back for a while.

 

Also 6th paragraph down was the mention of shared filtration I made the assumption of sump as its kind of hard to run a shared skimmer without one heh.

Oh ok, I had skimmed through it and then did a search for the word 'sump' and it didn't find anything lol

[hey]

Nutrients (particularly phosphate) actually get bound to the aragonite and cannot be cleaved from it except by algae or bacteria (or very acidic conditions). Once this happens, though, hair algae is what begins to take over, but realistically, all tanks will have some algae or cyano in varying amounts, it's best to make friends with them and not stress too much over it, it'll all work itself out eventually as long as your nutrient import does not exceed nutrient export.

 

Dinoflagellates, despite being able to bloom at any time, are carbon-limited and reproduce best under low-nutrient conditions, so even if I could carbon dose without forcing a bloom, they would still find conditions favorable. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them for over a month now, so I'm hoping they've encysted and won't be back for a while.

 

Oh ok, I had skimmed through it and then did a search for the word 'sump' and it didn't find anything lol

 

Word, I always get cyano when I start a new tank and usually about a month after my diatoms die down. Sometimes I stir the sand and siphon detritus from it aswell, beauty of super shallow sand bed I guess.

 

Damn that really is a pita about the dynos, I really like to carbon dose whenever I feel like gha has grown too much for my liking. I am actually doing it now because of a skimmer mishap I had recently.

[jservedio]

The "Need More Flow!!!" for dealing with cyano is an old wives tale. My Acro only QT tank is 10 gallons and has 3140 GPH worth of flow when all the pumps are on simultaneously (yeah, 315x turnover...) and even that gets cyano... That's strong enough to blow AEFWs that aren't securely attached right off!

 

The tank is barebottom and never gets less than 1500 GPH of flow - yet still develops cyano. There is no way you can add enough flow to eliminate cyano...

 

The reason "more flow" occasionally works is because you are able to suspend more detritus in the water column that can be skimmed out before settling and breaking down into nutrients. If you don't have a skimmer or some sort of very fine mechanical filtration, added flow will do absolutely nothing. Essentially, it is just dealing with your underlying nutrient problem. If you already have sufficient flow to keep the majority of your detritus suspended, more flow won't do anything.

[hey]

The "Need More Flow!!!" for dealing with cyano is an old wives tale.

 

The reason "more flow" occasionally works is because you are able to suspend more detritus in the water column that can be skimmed out before settling and breaking down into nutrients. If you don't have a skimmer or some sort of very fine mechanical filtration, added flow will do absolutely nothing. Essentially, it is just dealing with your underlying nutrient problem. If you already have sufficient flow to keep the majority of your detritus suspended, more flow won't do anything.

 

These contradict themselves, not trying to be facetious but in what is in my opinion most likely the majority of cases a nutrient problem caused by settling detritus is the cause. Get it skimmed away and the problem exits. I get it on new tanks and my theory is that the bacteria hasn't yet established itself enough to deal with the amount of waste produced but eventually gets there, took me 2 months with 2 extra powerheads blowing on the sand bed but it got there and they have been out of the tank for over a month and the problem is gone. Also i must say my tanks started with dry rock so the bacteria had to start from scratch.

[jservedio]

It doesn't contradict itself at all. People think the flow itself is what kills and removes the cyano and it couldn't be further from the truth. It is thrown out as a trope in every single cyano thread. Even in a full on SPS tank with massive flow.

[hey]

It doesn't contradict itself at all. People think the flow itself is what kills and removes the cyano and it couldn't be further from the truth. It is thrown out as a trope in every single cyano thread. Even in a full on SPS tank with massive flow.

 

Fair enough although I tried to provide a post with a link to a far more informative conversation of it than just flow causes it to disappear magically. I understand you don't like people throwing that information around without explaining what they are trying to do by increasing flow but the main point I was trying to get across is phosban/guard/whatever isn't going to remove phosphate in the substrate or rocks only what is leached in excess from what the cyano wouldn't use.

[farkwar]

I had three kinds(purple, green, and red) of cyano growing in my ATS.

 

It had lots of flow, lots of oxygen, and lots of CFL light.

 

It also was, and the chamber still is a detritus trap. I pulled the plastic canvas out. Stopped the air flow. And cut light in half.

 

It only barely grows red cyano now, I just pull that out with tweezers now. It still catches detritus, like a clogged toilet.

 

Point is, high flow and high oxygen will still grow cyano; and low of each as cause can be considered myths at this time.

[jservedio]

the main point I was trying to get across is phosban/guard/whatever isn't going to remove phosphate in the substrate or rocks only what is leached in excess from what the cyano wouldn't use.

 

Not necessarily though. Phosphate ions, just like any other ion, are going to flow from areas of high concentration to low concentration. The more dramatic the gradient, the faster they are going to move. Yes, GFO and Phosban only remove the phosphate from the WC, but once the concentration in the WC drops, the phosphate in the sandbed and rocks are going to migrate into the water column - and also be removed.

 

Of course rocks and sand can sink a massive amount of phosphates if they are neglected long enough, and cyano can utilize the phosphate directly from the rocks/sand, but eventually if the phosphate concentration in the water remains low, the phosphate sunk into the rocks is going to migrate out.

[jedimasterben]

Not necessarily though. Phosphate ions, just like any other ion, are going to flow from areas of high concentration to low concentration. The more dramatic the gradient, the faster they are going to move. Yes, GFO and Phosban only remove the phosphate from the WC, but once the concentration in the WC drops, the phosphate in the sandbed and rocks are going to migrate into the water column - and also be removed.

 

Of course rocks and sand can sink a massive amount of phosphates if they are neglected long enough, and cyano can utilize the phosphate directly from the rocks/sand, but eventually if the phosphate concentration in the water remains low, the phosphate sunk into the rocks is going to migrate out.

One thing I haven't been able to understand is 'phosphate flow' from aragonite. From my understanding, it can only be cleaved from the aragonite under low-pH conditions (and I mean really acidic conditions) or by algal/bacterial activity. Would bacteria be cleaving it from the surface, and then as those bacteria die or their film sloughs off into the water column it is released?

[jservedio]

One thing I haven't been able to understand is 'phosphate flow' from aragonite. From my understanding, it can only be cleaved from the aragonite under low-pH conditions (and I mean really acidic conditions) or by algal/bacterial activity. Would bacteria be cleaving it from the surface, and then as those bacteria die or their film sloughs off into the water column it is released?

 

That is how I always understood it to work for phosphate actually bound within the aragonite itself, based on what I've read. For the phosphate not actually bound to the aragonite it simply just follows the gradient. It just takes a long time because of the LRs incredibly complex internal structure with limited flow through it. I believe for the majority of systems, the latter is the case.

 

However, even for phosphates bound within the aragonite itself, there is a very limited amount that can be reached by surface algae and would be consumed fairly quickly after the tank was set up. Similarly to how we have a diatom outbreak that removes all of the silicate in the sandbed.

[xlzerolx]

I don't really understand phosphate leaching from rock either, but it is there.

 

The best method I have found for ridding live rock of phosphates is to (if you want the bacteria to stay alive) set up a separate container or tank for the live rock with a new batch of saltwater. Put a skimmer in this container with the rocks, start skimming and dosing lanthanum chloride and measuring phosphates. It may take a a little while to do but it works well and you can up the dosage of lanthanum since there are no corals or fish in this seperate system that the lanthanum can effect.

 

It's a repeated cycle, let the phosphates leach out of the rock -> skim away phosphates bound to the lanthanum -> water reaches zero phosphates ->let the phosphates leach out of the rock -> dose lanthanum chloride ->skim phosphates away etc

 

You will have to make sure that the alk doesn't drop too low as the lanthanum binds with carbonate as well, and I would think eventually there would be zero carbonate depending on how much phosphate you needed removed. However I think this point is onlybe important if you are dosing it in a tank with inhabitants. This is a quote from Randy on reef central :

 

"I expect most of the added lanthanum will precipitate as lanthanum carbonate and only a little will be lanthanum phosphate simply because there is so little phosphate relative to bicarbonate/carbonate. Lanthanum carbonate is quite insoluble.":

 

However, this is much cheaper alternative than GFO. You only need a few mls to treat a nano tank. And pool stores carry these under different names. In Canada it's called phosfree, I beleive in the states it's seaklear. I have used this method on the last batch of Live rock I got because I got frustrated with having close to zero phos and nitrates but still haveing cyano coat my rocks every time I have set up a new reef. I will be using this for every time I set up a new tank with store bought live rock!

[hey]

That is how I always understood it to work for phosphate actually bound within the aragonite itself, based on what I've read. For the phosphate not actually bound to the aragonite it simply just follows the gradient. It just takes a long time because of the LRs incredibly complex internal structure with limited flow through it. I believe for the majority of systems, the latter is the case.

 

However, even for phosphates bound within the aragonite itself, there is a very limited amount that can be reached by surface algae and would be consumed fairly quickly after the tank was set up. Similarly to how we have a diatom outbreak that removes all of the silicate in the sandbed.

 

Is it possible that the uptake from the cyano would utilize it before it hit the water column though making it important to manually remove it while using the gfo so the phosphates actually leach into the water column? Many reports of gha on rock with undetectable levels of nitrate and phosphate leads many to assume rock leaching and the nutrient being used immediately.

[jservedio]

Is it possible that the uptake from the cyano would utilize it before it hit the water column though making it important to manually remove it while using the gfo so the phosphates actually leach into the water column? Many reports of gha on rock with undetectable levels of nitrate and phosphate leads many to assume rock leaching and the nutrient being used immediately.

 

Of course there are hundreds of factors that would affect phosphate concentrations in various places and I would imagine the vast majority of them are poorly understood. That's why a multi-pronged attack always works best and physical removal is extremely helpful. Physically removing it can give other things a chance to compete for whatever the source of the phosphate is, especially if relative nutrient levels change.

 

In my tank oddly enough I can kill off the cyano by dosing nitrates, since it gives competing bacteria mroe favorable conditions (which also nukes the phosphate) since I only get cyano when nitrates are 0 and my phosphates get high - which may be completely different conditions than when it thrives in other people's tanks. It all depends on the tank itself and where the phosphates are coming from. GFO may not be a magic bullet, but it certainly helps. As do water changes, physical removal, and basting/vaccuming the rocks and sandbed.

[agoutihead]

Sorry the my absence everyone, here is a pic, doesn't seem that the diatoms are showing up today, which is unusual. i doubt the issue is resolved as I've been battling it for over a year now.

This tank has been established for about 3 years now.

 

What do you guys think? Would I be better off pulling out the skimmer & running a phosphate reactor? (I only have enough room to run one or the other)

http://s578.photobucket.com/user/JohnnyScience/media/Misc%20stuff/9045AF81-E0E0-4669-AF07-529CB26A7206_zps8wgfcmky.jpg.html][/url]