Life after Cyano..

[Draco]

So for over a month, I've battled brown algae that turned into nasty cyano algae.. and I had it pretty bad in my 28 gal nano cube. No idea how I got it after 2 years of being algae free, and nothing new was added to the tank in many months and feeding remained the same. I guess it's one of those things that everyone just gets once in a while.

 

It smothered pretty much all of my corals, only my duncans survived. I have some tightly closed zoas and mushrooms that I am not sure will ever open again. I lost a damsel during the process- my six-line grew weak but is doing better now. I would've fought more to prevent them from getting smothered, but I was called out of town and had no choice.. my nitrates (or was it nitrite?) and ammonia went up in the beginning of the outbreak.

 

After upping water changes, siphoning, adding an extra powerhead and a skimmer, and reduced feeding, as well as adding some more snails, I am now almost a week clean of cyano. Water tested perfectly (and had LFS test as well for second opinion).

 

I am eager to rebuild my coral, especially my zoas, but I am nervous I'd lose them if I put them in too soon (dem corals are not cheap you know!). How long should I wait to make sure I am in the "Safe zone" again? Anything I should check for?

 

please and thank you!

[brandon429]

It's as soon as you want.

 

Cyano are universal invaders. World travelers, always getting in, and whether they express is a function of someone doing oppositely of the detail listed here:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/373790-so-iam-going-to-try-chemiclean-starting-tomorrow-for-cyano/

 

 

Cyano is optional, so your risk is gone as of now. The partial steps taken in your cure are simply the trade off to full cleaning a tank all at once, having a sandbed that passes a drop test, and having no cyano.

 

Recap, all cyano problem tanks are skipping the cure, and opting into the invasion. Reasons are listed why they will not run the cure, but that doesn't change the cure it's listed in detail there and open to any cyano challenge tank to try. Better export and flow while tank is running saves one from having to run the fix

 

 

 

Right now there is red cyano on the walls of my pico because two days ago i fed it bloodworms. Not in a hurry to clean

 

We do nothing to the tank water because of cyano, but we sure do something to the tank. Prob about Saturday I'll get tired of looking at it, my corals will appreciate the extended protein bump (so does the cyano apparently) and then I'll run the fix and be cyano free until the next neglect round

 

 

It means no fear

 

I opt into, and out of, all cyano invasions any time I want and your tank is the exact same. My tank will run cyano free all summer I'll do the next lazy round end of July perhaps, fully my call. There is not one invader in reefing that can beat my tank, and your tank is the same. I know of no tank invader where a water action would be my primary mode, it would be the mode I didn't use due it being a mode of variable outcomes.

[brandon429]

Sub-buried in that link is a link of cyano tanks back to back with every possible detail about cyano it's the best cyano thread I've seen. It's as R2R thread here

http://reef2reef.com/threads/back-at-it-peroxide-vrs-cyanobacteria.241002/page-44#post-2921322

 

Consider the repeating variables...it's not about what they dose it's about what brought the tanks to the need of considering a dose of anything. what design factor do they all share?

 

How many submissions had a sandbed

 

 

How many were bare bottom

 

 

How many of today's keepers run a sandbed that passes a drop test, the rules say to fill them up with cloudy waste. Is it remotely possible the masses are wrong especially for nano tanks?

 

The only way a stronger correlation could be made is if TWilliard didn't close the thread, and then three hundred tanks with cloudy sandbeds presented with cyano problems. How often do we see that many examples of cyano, and causatives, all in one thread and they are all running live right now

[Draco]

thanks for the reply, Brandon! more than what I was expecting. It is helpful

[brandon429]

I know how crazy it sounds to rip clean a whole tank over some cyano... Even in my dirty tank I can just siphon an area clean if needed, without the big clean. It's just that when it's rebound starts to climb, that big takedown cleaning literally stops it fully and after having repeated the cause/cure so many ongoing years now, my mini model shows these invaders to be strictly waste-related even if just a tiny area of waste getting capitalized as cyano feed

 

If the whole tank is pretty clean, then light spot cleaning and removal typically works

 

But if meds are being contemplated to win, that's where we replace them with tank cleaning and we get a sustained win