Restarting Tank... cyano & heat battle

[Aurortpa]

Having an extremely bad fight with cyano, almost scraped my entire tank but cyano seems to not be regenerating as quickly.  Not quite finished with the war but have been able to control it with more frequent water changes--would prefer to starve it than chemically treat.  Cyano choked out probably half of all my corals 😩

 

I'm trying to prioritize my battles here, as I am also trying to figure out a rise in heat in the tank.  Not sure if that played a role in the cyano?? Peak temp with lights on is about 83, which probably isn't helping the surviving corals.  I switched out my Koralina for my smaller one to see if that was it, but doesn't appear to be so.  I'm thinking the stock pumps, Accelas, at 12w each may be heating up the water, they are +2 years old now.  Thinking with going with Tunze 1073.008--they are a bit slower in flow but their wattage is minimal and I heard they are much more efficient??

 

Funny enough my monti forest fire didn't seemed very phased at all by the mess.  However, sps are just a bit out of my league at this point, so thinking of going with easier corals first like LPS and shrooms first, after things stabilize.  Current tank parameters, sg 1.024, ammonia 0, nitrates 15 ppm, dkh 9, calcium 400.  Have 1 lawnmower blenny, 2 percs, 1 watchman, 1 springeri damsel, a strawberry conch, emerald crab, scarlet hermit, zebra snail, urchin, rock anemone, forest fire monti, duncans, small frogspawn, small acan, and some xenia. Filtration, from top to bottom is filter sock, polyfilter, carbon, changing 5-10 gallons a week at the moment.  

 

Any advice on cyano and pumps would be appreciated, this has been on going for weeks now and I'm starting to wear again 😞 I love my tank and hope I can help it bounce back to a new glory!

 

[ninjamyst]

For the heat issue, a fan blowing at the top of the water helps tremendously.  Nice tank.

[seabass]

3 hours ago, Aurortpa said:

would prefer to starve it than chemically treat.  Cyano choked out probably half of all my corals

That's exactly why we all use ChemiClean.  The loss of animals is greater than any desire to not dose chemicals.  Plus, ChemiClean is pretty safe.  The main thing is to correct what was causing the cyano in the first place (like organics from over feeding, high nutrient levels, or poor maintenance); then remove as much cyano as possible prior to dosing ChemiClean.  Follow the instructions carefully.

 

3 hours ago, Aurortpa said:

Peak temp with lights on is about 83

That's actually not that bad.  I'd set my heater to 81, to help prevent larger swings.  Hopefully, that won't cause the temp to get driven much higher.  At 84, I start getting worried.  You have a couple of fish that have been know to jump, so some care has to be made if you are leaving the top oven to encourage cooling via evaporation.

 

3 hours ago, Aurortpa said:

I'm thinking the stock pumps,

That's a good place to start.  Also, you might set the AC down a degree or two (or open up a vent in the room).

[Donny41]

Just wanna say that rock work is awesome!

[markalot]

I like the rockwork, well done.

 

For heat the fan and if you can afford it an MP10 to get the motor out of the water.   You need more flow based on the visible pumps and what looks like an SPS up on the rocks.  The additional flow will also help with the cyano.

 

Keep in mind the sizes of the corals.  Duncans and that Frog can get large so you may need to re position.  The front rocks would be awesome for polyps, zoas, encrusting SPS, etc.  IMO.

 

 

[Clown79]

If an outbreak is bad enough and hasn't gone away after making changes, then using chemiclean is a good option.

 

 

Cyano can be caused by a few things. 

 

Water source

Husbandry of filter media, back chambers

Effective water changes

Over feeding or types of food fed

 

 

If you have the hood covered, that would cause heating issues.

 

Some pumps do cause temp increase while others don't.

[Aurortpa]

 

2 hours ago, Clown79 said:

If an outbreak is bad enough and hasn't gone away after making changes, then using chemiclean is a good option.

 

 

Cyano can be caused by a few things. 

 

Water source

Husbandry of filter media, back chambers

Effective water changes

Over feeding or types of food fed

 

 

If you have the hood covered, that would cause heating issues.

 

Some pumps do cause temp increase while others don't.

Funny enough I had tremendous flow, a hydor evolution pumping 850 gph but the cyano had spread as if the flow was spreading fire.  I think I was changing too little too late, as I was on a once every 2 week schedule at 5 gallons.  I feed extremely conservatively, once a day pellets except on maintenance day and frozen maybe once a week or even every 2 weeks. All fed via target feeding and I turn off the pumps except the hydor so that all the critters are stimulated to finish it off, moreover I net put any excess.  

 

I do run my actinics 24/7...but I heard blue light doesn’t feed photosynthetic things alone, wrong spectrum for them—is that true?  Just occured to me.  

[seabass]

7 minutes ago, Aurortpa said:

I do run my actinics 24/7...but I heard blue light doesn’t feed photosynthetic things alone

That's not really true.  Plus, there's a difference between PAR and lumens (or lux).  I would use actinics for dusk/dawn lighting, as well as to supplement daylights.  However, I would not run them 24/7.

[Aurortpa]

1 hour ago, seabass said:

That's not really true.  Plus, there's a difference between PAR and lumens (or lux).  I would use actinics for dusk/dawn lighting, as well as to supplement daylights.  However, I would not run them 24/7.

Wo, true—perhaps that was the significant contributor to cyano growth then! I’ll stop running actinics unless my daylights are on.

[Clown79]

Many of us run our tanks with only blue leds and little to no white.

 

You would not want to run the lights 24/7.

 

Blue led run at very low percentages(3%) can be used for moonlighting but it's still advised to have a complete dark period.

 

If it's t5 lighting, actinic definitely should not be on 24/7

[Aurortpa]

Update on my battle with cyano. It is, dare I say, under control now and almost completely diminished. I opted not to treat chemically but rather increase my nitrifying bacteria via adding more live rock, diligently blasted my rocks and sandbed of detritus every day plus washed out prefilter 30 mins afterwards, and was doing twice a week water changes, 5-10 gallons (28 gallon tank minus liverock h2o displacement) to siphon it out.

 

I anticipate once the new rock settles in, my tank will balance out and the cyano will be eradicated hopefully. This is the first week I have returned to just once a week water change. I will test my parameters tomorrow. I didn’t so to speak cut down my lighting schedule except for the actinics, which i was running 24/7, that seemed to really play a role IMO because the growth slowed down tremendously after I stopped that. I still ran actinics with daylights for the normal 6 hr cycle I have for my tank—no blackouts.