insane cyano bloom

[AlienAnchovies]

yea, in the span of a week i had an insane cyano bloom, all this after i upgraded my lights, im thinking im going to have to reseed my sand bed or find something that loves eating the said stuff, problem is i have no idea what eats cyano

[Tim Marvin]

CHemi-Clean munches down on the stuff and will clear the tank in one day. You need to find the root of the problem though. I am a firm beleiver that all tanks have hair and cyano. Controlling it is the challenge. Cyano has been around for 6 billion years and will probably always be here.

[NaCl_H2O]

Hmm, if I could only remember Gary's presentation better ... I think Cerith snails and blue leg hermits?

But, your best defense aainst Cyano is good/strong water circulation. Also, something to keep the surface of the sand bed stirred up.

[Tim Marvin]

Cerith, nassarius, cucumbers, and various organisms will sift the sand, hermits don't do a very good job of cleaning up a bloom. The object is to knock it out and correct flow, skimming, lighting, detritus, and water quality issues, or you will surely see it again soon. I had a ton of it on the rocks I picked up from Mihn in Chorpus as well as some bubble and hair problems. I dumped it all straight into my system and the critters went to work. I also have a refugium, large "Pete" skimmer, tunzes for water flow and a good sized return pump. If it isn't anchored to my tank it is blown away. Since putting it in the system all the hair and bubble is gone, and only a couple small pockets of cyano left. I expect it will be totally out of sight in another week.

[WolfReef]

Ceriths love it, i have 50 coming in on Thurday. Also bluelegs tend to eat it too.

[AlienAnchovies]

heres the funny thing, the cyano is growing the fastest in area's with the highest amount of flow, and the spots with almost no flow are 100% cyano free so right now i dont this is a flow problem, what i think might be going on is my skimmer just isnt cutting it any more (cpr bakpak2r moded with an airstone) lately ive been dumping 2 or 3 cups of skimate a day hence i think i have tons of disolved organics in the water
also along with the cyano bloom a few chunks of what i thought were long dead xenia took off and are growing like mad

[Tim Marvin]

Xenia love nutrients. Dump in some Chemato to grow for a while.

[AlienAnchovies]

now here comes the fun part, any one have some to spare i'll frag a chunk of encrusting gorgonian

[GaryP]

I've seen huge beds of Xenia growing where semi-treated sewage was being dumped in Indonesia. What does that tell you?

[newhomes4reef]

So I have a question related to this...I occassionally get some spots in my sandbed but i am fearful of putting too many critters in the sandbed as i have a Mandarin and don't want to jeapordize his pod population. Is there something that will turn the sandbed and eat just the detrius? Will ceriths be ok? I have a bunch of them on the rocks with some beautiful coraline on their shells but I never see them burrowing into the sandbed.

[GaryP]

Hmmmm! Nassarius?

[Tim Marvin]

Pods live more in rock and rubble than sand. Get the nassarius like Gary suggested and maybe a cucumber.

[alexwolf]

yeah the nassarius are great......i love em..

so does my flame hawk......

[technomex]

I had a crazy cyano outbreak and did the chemi-clean, water changes, increased flow, and added a micron sock. All that worked very well. I did have some small tufts of cyano on my rocks that would not go away. I happend to have ordered some electric orange hermits from samiam and they did a great job at picking away the rest.