Operation Cyano - Ughhhhh, tanksitter woes!

[uisge-beatha]

I am having a horrible time with cyano. First I was starving my coral. Tank was too clean. Now ithe cyano is out of control. Phosphates have remained at 0

 

It seems as though some tanks are more prone to cyano than others, meaning that the cyano will take hold given the slightest chance by an excess of nutrients. I suspect that some of us just have an incredibly opportunitistic strain of cyano.

 

My recent research into how to beat cyano says:

1. Yes, phosphates will read 0 (or close to zero) when you have lots of cyano, because the cyano "eats" phosphates as fast as the tank produces them. Nitrates often read low, as well.
2. Any long-term successful approach to getting rid of the cyano is based on removing the built-up nutrients (detritus) that supports the bacteria.
3. Obviously, you need to minimize the excess nutrients entering the system (i.e. nitrates from excess food, fish waste, tap water, etc.) by some combination of water changes, sand vacuuming, macroalgae, refugium, algae scrubber, deep sand bed etc. (but deep sand bed + vacuuming = bad news, so don't do that! )
4. You need to out-compete the cyano by fostering the growth of beneficial bacteria. This involves dosing with a bottled bacteria such as MB7 and/or carbon dosing to provide an additional food source for beneficial bacteria (i.e. biopellet reactor, zeovit reactor, Red Sea's NO3:PO4X system, vodka, or some other system). Some people don't need this step, because the bacterial balance in their tank already favours beneficial bacteria and not cyano, I suspect. We are not these people.
5. Antibiotics like ChemiClean work on some strains of cyano better than others, and are best used to wipe out any remaining cyano after the above steps have been taken. There may be a risk of your cyano developing a resistance to ChemiClean or a similar product, so you may only be able to use them a limited number of times before it stops working.

I wish I had a simple answer for you, but unfortunately I don't.

 

Not that its any consolation but cyanobacteria are thought to have caused the oxygenation of the earth and Prochlorococcus (a type of cyanobacteria) is said to provide half of the ocean's photosynthesis.

uwharrie, is that using a low phosphate test kit? Mine test close to 0 but that is with an api test kit which doesn't measure smaller amounts.

 

LOL the early earth must have been a very stinky place!!

[SquishyFishy]

Here is a pic of this mornings crop of cyano:

 

The strange thing about this stuff is that it diminishes during the night when the lights are off and 2 hrs after they come on in the morning the sand looks like this! When they first come on the sand is relatively white.

 

I ordered new Red Slime and dosed yesterday, am still dosing the NOPOX and have even put in some new bacteria from Dr. Tim. Have also used Chemiclean. Not all at once though. I have had this problem for several months now. I do run a skimmer.

 

I am about to just forget it and let it grow like a beoch. Remember this is new sand bed. You can't get better cleaning than I do, I scrape every time I walk by and blast at least once a day. Changing floss every 3 days. RODI WC weekly.

 

One thing I'm going to get is some more snails, I have very few thanks to my wrasse so will replenish them when I return from vacation next week. I do have 2 crabs and the shrimp, I expect to return to gargantuan amounts of crap in the tank! Thinking about removing the wrasse anyway and the bio load will be less at least.

 

I am not an over feeder either. As I said earlier, just a pinch of granual for the fish once a day and mysis once a week with some phytofeast once a week. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO frustrating.

[uisge-beatha]

Sorry to hear about your continuing trouble, SquishyFishy! Cyano is incredibly frustrating.

 

I'm happy to report that I've had to algae or cyano return in the two weeks since I rip-cleaned my tank. I'm still kind of expecting it to return, but so far so good. If you're interested in what I did to get rid of the cyano, I detailed the process over at my tank thread.

 

Good luck!

[SquishyFishy]

THX definitely going there right now, but I know I've probably already duplicated what you did, I changed out/cleaned all filtering mechanisms plus sand bed.

 

See on the flip side.

[uisge-beatha]

Yeah, I remember you did a thorough cleaning. Maybe the peroxide I used was the difference? Not sure.

[SquishyFishy]

I've been paying much attention to dosing...using the nopox and red slime remover plus buffer for ph....I know there are those that disdain the buffer, but the cyano seems to be better this morning. It didn't color up right after lights on...we'll see....maybe the slime killer is starting to work better.

 

Changing the filter floss almost everyday now. WC is scheduled for Tuesday day before we leave for vacation. Tank will not be attended for 3 or 4 days. Dtr is coming midweek to see to it. She will do a general cleaning of glass and change out filter floss, but thats all for a week, auto feeder working well, started that couple days ago to make sure its working. So the tank will only be getting the very small amount (1/8 tsp granuals) every day.

[SquishyFishy]

Hey hey....looks like I've got a handle on the stuff. Just a trace on the sand this morning.

 

I'll continue with all the measures I've been employing and see if it is totally gone in a couple more days.

 

However, my Rics have really taken a hit with all of it. They are getting smaller and smaller and the used to open up to huge sizes before all this. The GSP is also not happy, all other corals are great.

[jeffmr4]

Just a note to add. I had some cyano, just in the sand, and used chemi-clean to get rid of it. I did two doses and two water changes, siphoning the sand, and it is gone. Hopefully it won't come back. I lost an emerald crab but everything else is ok. I may have only needed to dose once. I'm not sure.

[CronicReefer]

One thing I have always noticed whenever I had cyano is that it only occured when I had something in the tank that was decaying. Whether it be algae, a dead snail, a half eaten silverside, the underlying cause of the cyano was always something actively decaying. I have never had to treat cyano as it always goes away once the decaying material is removed entirely. Decaying algae always seemed to be the biggest catalyst for starting a cyano outbreak in my tank as well.

[GOODgREEF]

You should look into to getting a fighting conch. I just got one for my nano reefer and it does amazing job keeping sand clean and even the rocks they are able to get to.