jdsabin1 Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 Hey all, I have what appears to be small very light reddish spots on my live sand and wondered if this was algae of some sort (camera doesn't get the colors very accurate). I just did my weekly 2 gallon wc two days ago. 12 gallon eclipse, all levels are normal (I tested them all last night). I had just two small patches of this before the water change and siphoned them off the sand but as you can see they are back big time now. Tank has been running for 3 months now with two fish, a pep shrimp, emerald crab, blue legged crab. I feed very lightly just twice a day, 32 watt retrofit runs 12 hours a day. I also have 19 pounds of LR and 20 pounds of live sand. Plan to start my coral 'gardening' this saturday with a trip to the lfs. Anyone tell me how to best rid my tank of this (if I need to?). Thanks all! Link to comment
caja Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 jd, I got those too when I retrofitted my tank with the new CSL. It's probably cyano. My marine fish store suggested keeping the lights off for two days and doing a larger water change plus siphoning up as much as I could. Worked like magic! Check your phosphates, mine were pretty high when I was in mid-cyano attack. Link to comment
Xavier Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 exactly cajastan... definitely start with the lights out, water change, and either PhosGuard or the phosphate absorption pads... siphoning will help, but if you're not doing the previous steps, it'll grow back faster then you realize... if your phosphates are high, find the source, probably the water you're using.. make sure it's not tap water.... cyano (which is actually a bacteria - cyanobacteria) also tends to explode in areas of low water flow.. direct a power head over the area to keep the water moving but just because it's there doesn't mean you're doomed.. we all have it to some degree, and new tanks seem to be a pretty easy target.. it usually comes, is defeated, and you can usually go on with life if you can nip it in the bud... don't let it get out of control.. and avoid the chemicals cures if possible (don't get me wrong.. they work great.. almost TO great in the size tanks we have)... Link to comment
Dave ESPI Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 fwiw, you coould let the cyano grow, and let it burn out naturaly. once it has done so, chances of it returning are slim. I usualy let teh salinity get jacked up, then yank the rug out from under it on a fairly new system with cyano plagues in it. Slightly stressfull to some inverts, but then the "Curing" process is 100X more worse. After a few W/C durring the week with very limited lighting on, Consider it a job well done Link to comment
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