Shady Advice?

[ClamFan]

I went into Pollys Pets yesterday just to see the peration and what they had when Paul, the saltwater "expert" talked to me for a little while about this red cyano that I have been fighting latley. His advice was to use freshwater maracyn to kill of the bacteria. Sounds like a good idea but for some reason it does not seem to make sense other than using an antibiotic to kill a bacteria. Also, I know that I will be taking a huge risk with my Biological filter. I have recently added a powerhead at 300 gph, from 160 and cut my light cycle to 8 hours a day. I have also added a protien skimmer and my 175 watt metal halide 20k xm, and am dripping kalk for calcium.

You guys have taught me not to listen to lfs without asking here first so here I am, let me have it straight.

ClamFan

[Brett Wilson]

How old is your system?
I would never recommend any chemical to take care of any 'problem' bacteria or algae.

[ClamFan]

System has been running since May of last year and then moved from apt, to condo in January. I have had this red stuff for almost a month.

[ClamFan]

I just saw garf, thanks KAJeff. I did increase circulation, and my squamosa is hanging on for dear life and the frogspawn is not too happy either. They are both in the area of least flow but to quote GaryP "I have seen this stuff grow on the outlets of powerheads". I do know that I have to get rid of the nutrients that are causing its growth but its been a month already and I have made numurous changes and my water has not shown any increased ammo no2 or no3. No3 was less than 10 ppm at AW and at home. I would buy a phosphate test kit but I hear they are inaccurate, so whats the point? Current powerhead upgrade has added heat issues that I solved by a, rather noisy fan, but if I had another powerhead I would be increasing temp again and turning up the fan, well I dont know, I guess is an option if this get worse.

I do agree with both of yall about chemicals and Im sure there is a better way to solve this problem. I also found my Cleaner shrimp had some eggs and now Im siphoning out tiny dead shrimp, but, like I said before, I am not reading any ammo.

ClamFan

[dan]

Also, increse you water circulation,

i think this is the key. slow flow red grow, fast flow red go. wow i should be a poem writer. he!he! :confused:

[ClamFan]

BTW, I will be ordering from garf on the 26th. if anyone wants anything.

[Brett Wilson]

You may not be reading any ammonia because the bacteria is using it up to grow...

How much do you feed and how often?

[Brett Wilson]

In a 20g, I had best results with two MJ 1200s, one in each corner pointing to the opposite corner(criss cross flow pattern), on a wave maker. And a MJ 900 on one side, not on the wave maker, pointing towards the middle. I had black sand though so I didnt have to worry about stirring anything up. (it's heavier and larger than SD)

[StephenA]

Any time I get I reduce lighting, check Hardness, and change the flow. It always receeds.

[Tim Marvin]

Flow has little to do with Cyano. Cyano bacteria has been around for 6 billion years. It is in every single tank, and ocean in the world. This is the first known bacteria. The object here is to keep it at a min. so you don't have to see it. Chemi clean will oxidize it and remove it from sight, but you need to take care of the problems causing it to bloom. ( I have used ChemiClean numerous times with no adverse effects). High nutrient loads help it to bloom. Flow will blow it out of the way so you can't see it, but most of us have at least a small patch someplace. You can use lots of critters in the sand bed and some hermits will eat it. Cucumbers also do a pretty good job of sifting through the surface sand. The key here is diversity. This stuff is very resiliant and can come back very quick. Get the critters and I bet your problems will be over.
P.S. I had a sump a while back that used to grow cyano pretty well. Of course it only had 3700gph running through a 40 gallon sump. I have even had skimmers grow it.

[StephenA]

My fighting conch seems to eat it.

[Brett Wilson]

My fighting conch ate it too but my blue leg hermits decided they wanted the fancy looking conch shell. :(

[Tim Marvin]

I've had good luck just useing one cucumber in each tank.

[Tim Marvin]

Brett, what about that sailboat...???? LOL....

[StephenA]

Tim, What type of cucumber did you use?

[Tim Marvin]

I bought a bunch a while back from the guy in the keys and was really surprise at the amount of sand they sifted and the cyano dissapeared at the same time......... It could have been because they clean up the leftover food I tend to feed.

[Nano_Steve]

i definitely agree with tim here, its all about the critters. and he's right about cyano being around forever, evolutionists say that it was the absolute first life on earth that transformed the deadly gasses present into breathable air in the beginning.

ive got a tiger tail cuke, about 10 nassarius snails(after my hermits took off with about 15 of the others' shells), 3 engineer gobies, and a dragon goby. all are fantastic at sifting the sand and if you have room enough for one i would definitely suggest a dragon goby. the guy sifts sand 24/7, no joke! he's done a great job and i have not seen a major outbreak of cyano in months!

hope it helps, steve

[StephenA]

Tim; do you have any extra cuc's?

xien2000corp; does the dragon goby eat pods?

[Tim Marvin]

I have one small one but we'd have to search for it....

[ClamFan]

Sounds like critters to me. I plan on ordering the 30 gal red cyano cleaning crew if someone need some of these I will have them after the 1st of June.

I have added some hermits and they are doing some good but all these astrea snails are loving my glass. I havent seen an astrea on a rock in a week.

Thanks for all the great input.

ClamFan

[Nano_Steve]

well ever since i had the mandarin dragonet in the tank in january i havent seen a pod since, and i know the copperband ate them and he just died a couple of weeks ago so im not too sure whether or not the dragon eats pods or not. :? i know that isnt much help.

steve

[SueT]

Steve, I'm so sorry to hear about the copperband. I know the last I read you were having problems with it after the move.

Sorry......

[GaryP]

Hust to clarify, cyano is a type of photosynthetic bacteria. That is the justification for using a bacteriacide to control it. I've never tried it and can't give any advice on its effectiveness, one way or the other. I do share the concern that it would have a detrimental effect on other beneficial bacteria in a system.

I do feel that phosphate is the ultimate cause of any pest algae bloom but as was stated there is no accurate way to measure it, at least on the hobbyist level. From what I have read and experienced, I think that the additional current doesn't necessarily provide direct control of cyano. Rather, it limits the amount of organic detritus accumulation that the cyano seem to thrive on. The worst case of cyano I have seen was in my own FO tank that was beeing fed heavily and had a minimum amount of circulation.

Gary

[Richard]

The advise to use maracyn (erythromycin) is not so much wrong advice as it is old advice. All of the "anti-cyanobacteria" treatments used to be some type of antibiotic. I think I still have some old books that recommend this, along with using undergravel filters. Things have changed alot but for some reason it takes a long time for old advise to go away in this industry. I would bet money that in 10 years the "Do I need to use Bio Balls on a reef tank" question will still be commonly asked on MAAST. The best rule of thumb is - No medications in your main tank.

Gary is right on about the phosphates. This is a problem I here from customers several times a week so I would recommend the following:
1st - Get your water tested for phosphate. Just keep in mind that hobbyist grade phosphate test kits won't read all forms of phosphate so if it reads zero and you have an algae problem...you still have a phosphate problem. So why bother to get your water tested? If you get a reading of say .2ppm - 1.0ppm then chances are you have built up some phosphates in the normal course of setting up a new tank or through normal feeding. If you get a reading much greater than 1.0ppm then it's time to start looking at additional sources of phophates (i.e. make up water, additives, over feeding etc.). I'm sure there are exceptions but IME algae problems are always a result of a phosphate problem.

2nd - If it's a fairly new tank, start using Phosguard regulary. Hopefully you have set the tank up so that you have some form of nutrient export ( DSB, sufficient live rock, refugium, macroalgaes etc.) but these take some time to fully develop and Phosguard will help keep things under control in the meantime. Rowa Phos is a newer product which I've been told is more efficient than phosguard although I have not yet tried it. Regardless of which product, it is ultimately way too expensive to control phosphates strictly with chemicals so some form of nutrient export is definitely the way to go.

As Tim said you will never have an algae free tank but since you were considering using antibiotics I'm assuming you have more than the usual amount of algae. Clean up crews are great for keeping things tidy but if you clean up the tank only to have it completely covered again two or three days later I would go for phosphate control approach plus some number of clean up critters (just not the 5 per ml or whatever the crazy number is that some places recommend). A quick fix that has worked well for me is to use phosguard along with chemi clean, if your phosphates aren't too out of control the cyanobacteria will be gone in a day or two and won't come back -well at least not until your phosphate gets too high again.

[Tim Marvin]

I copied this article and don't remember the page now, but Cyano favors high temps, low light, low nutrients, and lots of fixed nitrogen. SO don't lower your lighting times unless you are interested in growing more cyano. Keep tank temps down and change some water.


A fourth type of "algae" common in lagoons is the cyano-bacteria or blue-green bacteria. These organisms grow much as the true algae, with the exception that most species can fix atmospheric nitrogen. Blue-green bacteria often bloom in lagoons and some species produce odorous and toxic by-products. Blue-green bacteria appear to be favored by poor growth conditions including high temperature, low light, low nutrient availability (many fix nitrogen) and high predation pressure. Common blue-green bacteria in waste treatment systems include Aphanothece, Microcystis, Oscillatoria and Anabaena.

[Tim Marvin]

http://www.kazusa.or.jp/cyano/cyano.html

[GaryP]

here's another pretty good article about phosphates and algae control. Its mainly about bubble and hair algae, but I feel the same things apply to cyano.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm

Gary

[Tim Marvin]

Cyano is a nonphotosythetic bacteria that thrives on waste and decomposition, while algae also thrives off this waste it requires light as well, unlike the nasty cyano.

[Instar]

Cyano is not totally non-photosynthetic as we are led to believe. It receeds at night and is slow to restore to the surface of sand or rock until after the 10k to 6K lights come back on. If you think otherwise, look for the cyano growth about 0500. You'll likely think its gone. Garf has identified a number of animals that eat it and they do a great job if in numbers enough to control it. I got 100 micro blue leg hermits from Reeftopia and they plus a variety pack of snails kept the 125 clean all the time even though I feed a group of tangs and butterflies very well in there. A good refugium takes care of the export. No matter what advice is taken, cyano is a bother and can grow in all kinds of conditions, lighting and flow. I've had it grow over top of snails and hermits in 30 minutes and kill them. Mattered not what I did to beat it. I finally gave up and let it run its course in my 75 and now its under control with some micro blue legs keeping it in check. Cycles take time to move on into the mature tank phase. Just maintain your sense of humor if you have to deal with cyano like that.

PS: Dragons eat tons of pods. If your system if not full of pods, sell or give the dragonette away before it too dies.

If astreas love the glass more than the rocks, scrape the glass clean, extra clean and then use a magnet scraper on it all the time. Move the astreas to the rocks if they don't move on their own. They will clean that film off the glass that you don't see and stay on the glass so long as you don't keep it perfectly clean. They should loose interest when there is nothing to eat there anymore.

[ClamFan]

I have noticed that it would receed completly at night and grow to its full glory again by the time the lights go out. I will be ordering garfs 30 gal cyano crew with a few extra hermits and noticed that I dont have to clean the glass as much today. Maybe the phoszorb is working.