Another stinking Cyano thread......

[MeVsTheWorld]

I'm having a real hard time with this stuff. It has been a couple of months with no real reprieve. My tank is over a year and a half old. It's a mixed reef 40g breeder with a 15g sump. I run a Tunze nano skimmer and also a phosban reactor which gets changed monthly. There is macro algae in the sump, cheato & calupra which gets pulled too. I also use a filter pad in my overflow which gets changed every other day(old gets thrown out and replaced). The flow is around 2600gph total and I run 4 T5's on a icecap. I have 5 small fish and a diversified snail cleanup crew. My sand bed is around 1 1/2" - 2 1/2" deep varying around the tank. I have 50+ lbs of live rock in the display and another 20lbs in the sump. My parameters stay stable at:

PH: 8.4
Alk: 9dKH
Cal: 420
Mag: 1500
Temp: 78F
SG: 1.026
Nitrate: 0

I change my water (10%) weekly with Reef crystals. My photo-period runs 9hrs. I have plenty of open space, caves and what not, so the flow is very good throughout. I just went through another 2 day blackout period, changed two bulbs out for new, replaced all my RO/DI filters, did a 20% water change after vacuuming out all cyano I could see. It has come back like I never really touched it. It seems to grow in the dark and high flow. It even grows in my phosban reactor. I am thinking about using red slime remover at this point, but I thought I would post here to see if there are any steps I'm missing. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I might just make it a goldfish tank:sad2: Any tips/tricks will be entertained. Thanks for taking the time to read this......

Bill

[MeVsTheWorld]

No thoughts?

[MeVsTheWorld]

Red slime remover was added yesterday. It has started to breakdown and dissipate. I will do another dose when 48hrs has lapsed.

[alleykat81]

Try the chemistry forum. They usually have threads about cyano.

[ChuckG]

Mentioning things for you to think about vs. actually providing instructions on what to do.. so please take it for what it's worth.

Chronic cyano and/or algae problems can be a result of a nutient snowball effect that starts the day the aquarium is set up.. where the nutient export is never in equalibrium with what was initially introduced via dead animals on/in the rock and that then remains in the rock or migrates to the bottom of a sandbed, plus whatever is added as food on a daily basis. Even digested food adds to the nutient sink unless the poop is caught by a method of export. Eventually a nutrient sink/snowball can balance out so long as nutient import is less than export by some degree. But when the imbalance builds up to a sizable level, this could take a really long time to balance out.

Fixing the imbalance depends largley how bad it is and where the problem areas of nutirent sink. remediation could involve many different fixes applied singly or together. The first place to start is with husbandry.. keep the sand clean, regularly baste detritus off the rocks, keep the sump clean, regularly replace mechanical filtration media, replace old bulbs, clean pumps etc..

If things aren't that bad, then larger percentages and more frequent water changes combined with cleaning the sand could help. If the sand has never been touched then DO NOT vacume it. It may need replacing which is requires a larger and more careful approach.

Bigger skimmers usually always helps to some degree, also regularly changed and properly deployed GFO media chamber and good carbon can help.

If after that, the system still does not balance then remediation might require more drastic measures.. Like evacuating all the aniumals, rocks, and most of the water without disturbing the sand to a temporary tub so you can replace an organic laden sand bed. Or if the problem is in the rock, (think 1 foot long worm has been dead in there from the day the rock was collected), then cooking off the rock in the dark for weeks at a time might be the best option.

Cetainly a lot to consider and I have not listed them all, just remeber that until there is a balance between nutrients that currently exist and are imported into the tank vs. what are exported, then cyano and/or nusience algae will just continue to do what it does.. which is consume excess nutients and flourish in the tank.

[Chooch1]

All good information above. IME I have found that old DI units or the sandbed itself are usually the culprits. I have changed out a portion of my sand and replaced it with fresh biologically active sand and that has usually resolved the problem. Sandbeds can become huge nutrient sinks that leach out phosphate if not properly managed. Try increasing flow in the tank as well.

[thomasp123]

I am in the same boat. I had a large section of my sump filled with ehime "coco puffs" like they use in the canisters. In the beginning i thought it would help with nh3 conversion to no3 and it may have but it also trapped lots of gunk. I removed it all this weekend and I am waiting to see if the cyano goes away.

tom

[Tswifty]

Blue Life Red Slime Control. Dose and be done. Shoot me a PM or give me a call if you want more details/info on my experiences with cyano.

[MeVsTheWorld]

My husbandry has never been an issue, not anal, but proactive. My sand has always been tended to by myself and by sifters of sorts. The rock came from established local tanks and gets blasted and vacuumed with every water change. I have always changed around 40% of my water throughout each month(10% each week). I change my bulbs (probably too soon) regularly and have 60x or more turn over flow in the tank with no visible dead spots. I run GAC and GFO which also gets changed out regularly. My skimmer is on the small side and am currently getting a bigger one. My cyano seems to defy all odds; it grows in high flow and seems to not be affected by darkness. I rarely feed as the fish tend to stay plump from feeding on the reef itself. It just seems that all the "easy/normal" solutions just don't seem to apply. I'm sick of people saying whats that pretty red stuff in my tank; if they only new. Hopefully this chemical warfare will work, if not I'm not sure what I will do.


Bill

[MeVsTheWorld]

2nd dose was added and all is good now. No trace of red slime. I did a water change today and added a bigger skimmer. Tank inhabitants seem totally unaffected, business as usual. My rocks seem cleaner looking too, so far so good. I guess time will tell.

[MeVsTheWorld]

Well, 2 weeks later and all is still good. No cyano and no coral/fish problems. Ultralife Red Slime Remover worked wonders.......

[ChuckG]

That's good news. I imagine the food source could be any number of things from one aquarium to another. I read a J. Sprung article (I think it was him).. any way some predominate writer say that organisms inside can rocks dies off long after the shock of collection, transport, acclimation, new tank cycle etc..

There is picture of a very large worm pulled out of a tank around here somewhere.. it was multiple feet long. Imagine what that would do to the organic balance of a closed system if it finally bit the dust after a year.

[Bontrager]

Red Slime remover worked for me on the first dose in a 65 gallon Red Sea Max tank. I had similar success with this product 3 years ago; spread the word!