Still fighting the cyano

[cvonseggern]

All right, time for me to ask for help again. Some may remember that I've posted about cyano problems in the past. I'm still fighting that battle...as far as I can tell, I'm losing. The stuff is ALL OVER the tank. In some areas it's so thick on the sand that I can lift it out like carpeting. It's on the rocks, grows on the glass, and is threatening to choke some of my corals & polyps. I'm up for any and all input that anyone can offer at this point.

I use RO water, feed sparingly, skim aggressively, run a PhosBan reactor, and manually remove cyano on a daily basis. I have new bulbs in the lights and am about to replace the remaining PC fixture with a 250W DE halide to match the one on the other side of the tank. Photoperiod is only about 9 hours a day. I did a largeish water change last week (usually do only 5%/week) that has helped some of my inverts perk up, and am planning to do another after I get home from my current business trip.

Water chemistry has given me some trouble lately (CA way down but alk up slightly, pH up to 8.6) but the large water change really helped with that. I believe I was overbuffering and not testing frequently enough. I'm experimenting with dripping kalk but I haven't got a reliable delivery method yet...may have to just spend some more money for a dosing pump and floatswitch. Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are 0, although I recognize that I could actually have a lot of nitrates that are just locked up in biomass.

Still, I have lots and lots of cyanobacteria. What else can I do?

Chris

[alton]

Did you add Chemi-Clean?

[thedude]

Chemi-Clean is more of a bandaid than a solution. What kind of flow do you have? How heavily is your tank stocked? A good option for a reliable autotopoff/kalk drip is the Tunze Osomolator. What kind of sand is it, and how old is it? It sounds like something is leaking phosphates into your tank. Also on the phosban, how much are you running and how old is it? IMO, phosban should be used in TINY doses and replaced regularly. Do you have any other problem algae growing?

I personally have never had an outbreak of cyano in my new tank and I attribute it to tons of flow.

[cbianco]

cvonseggern

I found this on the web and I thought it may be of some use to you. I have never had cyano, thus I have never used this webpage for anything other than general knowledge.

This web page outlines eradication of cyano from an aquarium. Good luck! http://netclub.athiel.com/cyano/cyanos2.htm

Christopher

[GaryP]

It sounds like you are doing several things right. You didn't mention flow but in my experience increasing flow, especially towards the bottom of the tank where cyano seems to flourish makes a huge difference. Cyano likes areas with low oxygen levels and if an area is getting less flow, its also going to get less oxygen. I would also evaluate your feeding program to make sure you are not getting a lot of detritus buildup. Feeding smaller amounts several times a day is preferable to feeding a lot once a day for a couple of reasons. Siphoning the cyano as well as detritus during water changes can also be very helpful in that regard. I have found that hermits, especially the micro species are very good cyano grazers. They are also helpful in scavenging the detritus.

Chemiclean is good as a one time shot to remove the cyano but as was stated before you also need to address the issues that are causing the bloom on a system wide level as well. I would also encourage you to use carbon in addition to the phosban and replace both on a very regular basis.

[cvonseggern]

OK, let me try to answer some of the questions that have been raised...thanks to everyone who has chimed in so far.

Tank is 100g with 20g sump, about a year old. About 120 lbs of rock, maybe 50/50 live and base rock when set up. Sandbed is aragonite, 3" deep on average.

Bioload isn't that high. Six smallish fish (Banggais, maroon clown, small foxface, royal gramma and sixline), a bunch of xenia, three LPS, flower anemone, two serpent stars, two emerald crabs, assorted hermits & snails. I do have a flatworm problem but recently have made great progress reducing the numbers.

Flow: 700gph or thereabouts through the sump, with three Maxi -Jets (bigger ones, don't remember the model) spaced around the tank. Haven't identified any dead spots in the flow. Water should be pretty well oxygenated by the skimmer, but I guess there could also be local differences if flow is poor in places.

Using 150g of phosban. This is less than a month old...I just set up the reactor recently. Thre is some slight growth of green hair algae but in general the cleanup crew keeps it from getting bad. I keep the sump/fuge (small, I know) lit 24x7 to assist the macro growth down there.

A couple things I'm thinking about:
1. Skimmer (Euro-Reef ES5-3) is rated for 90 gallons. I think total water volume in the system is right about 90g as well. Should I consider upgrading the skimmer?

2. Reading ThunderKat's thread...reminds me I have maybe 10 lbs of limestone "holey rock" in the fuge. I put this in last year under the impression it would be as good as reef base rock, but I'm thinking I should take it out. Thoughts on that?

Thanks,

Chris

[thedude]

To the limestone; I would yank it out just in case.

Your problem to me sounds like flow. I guarantee that although you can't identify any dead spots, they exist. Two tunze streams in your tank would be perfect IMHO.

[Thunderkat]

When I had the large amount of cyano I tried that chemiclean stuff and it didn't even phase it. I also had 0.0 nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia. Hair algae and cyano were eating it all I guess.

Yeah, I took out my limestone and cleaned out my main tank.

I put all my live rock and critters in my 10 gallon and 5 gallon aquariums and connected them both so the UV steralizer can work on them both to kill the free floating dinos.

I cleaned off the live rock just by putting it right in front of the discharge of my Tunze 6060 before I took everything out. The cyano just flew right off and the rock looked just like it came out of the store. :)

With all the live rock taking up much of the room in the 10 gallon and additon of fresh activated carbon my water is crystal clear. It took about 3 days to go from cloudy from dinos to clear. The cyano bacteria tried to make a comeback and there is still a little bit in there but not that much. People were right though about nutrients leaching back out of limestone and live rock, my temp tank is very clean but the cyano still feeding off of somthing (but very little now so its no big deal).

I used to have the cyano picking up the sand and floating around thing too but listen to the folks here and you can clear it up.

Found some interesting FYI stuff:


An ancient and pervasive group, cyanobacteria are found in soils around the globe in many diverse habitats. Cyanobacteria are prokaryotic autotrophs, producing their own fixed carbon by oxigenic photosynthesis, or by true anoxygenic photosynthesis. They are also capable of chemoheterotrophy. In addition, many cyanobacteria fix nitrogen via nitrogenase. Self-sufficiency and flexibility are the key to this group's ability to colonize inhospitable, widely fluctuating environments. These characteristics are also factors in the propensity of cyanobacteria to enter into a wide range of symbiotic relationships. Cyanobacteria are found in symbiosis with a limited number of species from all the major plant groups; algae, fungi, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms (Carr and Whitton, 1982).


Cyanobacteria: The heros


Phylum 5 - Cyanobacteria
The cyanobacteria are morphologically a heterogeneous mixture of bacteria. They come in five different types. Firstly they are either unicellular or filamentous. Unicellular species come in two forms depending on whether they divide by binary fission or multiple fission, the latter tending to be colonial. The filamentous forms are either branching or non-branching. The non-branching types are again divided into two groups depending on the presence or absence of special nitrogen fixing heterocysts.

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic organisms; like plants they trap the energy of the sun (autotrophically) to use in their own metabolism and give off oxygen in the process. In order to achieve this they have their own chlorophyll called 'Chlorophyll a'.

Cyanobacteria are often called blue-green algae, though they are not all a blue-green colour and they are not algae at all. The green colouration comes from their chlorophyll while the blue comes from a photosynthetic accessory pigment called phycocyanin. Some cyanobacteria have a different accessory pigment called phycoerythrin. This is red and combined with the green chlorophyll gives these cyanobacteria a brown colour.

Cyanobacteria can be found in many habitats; soil, on rocks, in fresh water and salt water. They can also be found in the desert where they remain dormant for most of the time, taking advantage of the occasional rains. In aquatic environments they often form thick mats. Like many bacteria they have a higher tolerance of heat and low pH values than green plants, so they are often the main autotrophs in hot springs.

Finally, a number of cyanobacteria have formed symbioses with other organisms such as liverworts, ferns and cycads, however, their best known symbiosis is with various fungi to form numerous lichens.

Cyanobacteria were probably the first organisms on earth to release oxygen into the atmosphere, in this way they would have played a major role in making the planet suitable for animals like ourselves. Important genera include Stigonema, Nostoc, Anabaena, Chlorobium and Hapalosiphan.

[Andrew]

I got a blue acro frag that says your sand bed is rotten after 1 year. Yank it out and no more cyano. ;)

that's what i'm thinkin, minus the blue acro frag (I'm not going to frag my frag and create fraglets).



andrew

[cvonseggern]

All right, I'm really skeptical about the sandbed being bad after a year. Nothing I've ever read or heard before indicates that the sandbed itself is likely to be a source of problems just from sitting in the tank for a year. It's not even that long a time...I'd barely call the tank mature. In fact, given the problems I'm having, I don't know that it's ever "matured." Anything I can read to explore that further?

Also...I'm definitely willing to consider flow, but a pair of Tunze streams at $250 min. a pop isn't going to fly with the missus :) I might get away with one. Any suggestions on where it should go?

Thanks,

Chris

[Thunderkat]

All right, I'm really skeptical about the sandbed being bad after a year. Nothing I've ever read or heard before indicates that the sandbed itself is likely to be a source of problems just from sitting in the tank for a year.


Simple Guide to Aquarium Bacteria
By OVAS - Date: 2004-08-18 19:14:20



by Josh Shilling
Tulsa Cichlids Website
This article appears here courtesy of Josh Shilling
and thanks to Marx who submitted it to OVAS.

This article is intended to be an introduction to bacteria in the aquarium for beginning aquarists. This is by no means a complete catalogue of all possible bacteria species that could be found in your aquarium. Many people think that the only bacteria in their aquarium are the "nitrifying" bacteria that we all hear so much about. Others think of dangerous pathogens that will harm their fish when they think of bacteria, which is not always the case, either. I am not including a discuss of blue-green algae in this article; even though they are actually bacteria and not algae, they do behave more like a type of algae and as such do not belong in this discussion.

There are basically four types of bacteria found in most aquariums. The first type are best termed scavengers or heterotrophic bacteria. These are bacteria that feed on various items in the aquarium. They feed on fish waste, uneaten fish food, rotting plants, dead algae and diatoms, dead bacteria, and other organic matter that is available as a food source to them. In most aquariums, at least in number of types and species, this constitutues the largest category of bacteria. These bacteria are a mixed blessing- they break down organic substances into metabolic byproducts that can be consumed by other bacteria. They are a sort of "cleaning crew", although most of what they eat is not visible to you or I. It is important to remember these bacteria. These bacteria are the primary cause of cloudy (grey) water. When you overfeed your fish, and they end up gasping at the surface of the tank, it is not really the fish food that is causing the problem. It is the huge increase in population of these bacteria that consumes most of the oxygen, and produces a large quantity of ammonia. If nothing were there to consume the fish food and use up oxygen to turn it into ammonia and carbon dioxide, overfeeding would not be as much of a problem. So, it is useful, especially when devising what type of filtration and stocking rates to use in an aquarium, to consider this additional biomass. These bacteria are like having a few more fish in your tank than you actually do. In proper numbers, they perform a valuable service by helping to clean our aqauriums; when out of control, their last meal will likely be your dead, rotting fish. It is important to provide a margin for error to plan for the worst case; for example, if you went on vacation, and one of your fish died, would the added load of the fish being consumed by the bacteria be too much for your filtration to handle? Many of us tend to stock our tanks to the maximum limit; I am as guilty of this as anyone. But bear in mind, that that one extra fish you are adding, may be the difference, if disaster were to strike, between losing 1 fish and losing them all. Also, these bacteria compete for living space with the important nitrifying bacteria, which means if you overfeed your fish or do not remove detritus from your tank often enough, your biofilter's efficiency will be reduced.

The second type of bacteria found in aquariums are also heterotrophic, but they are more commonly termed nitrifying bacteria. They comprise several different species, depending on your water temperature and parameters. There are basically two subtypes, one subtype uses ammonia and oxygen as a food source and produces nitrite as a biproduct of its metabolism. The second type uses nitrite and oxygen and produces nitrate. Ammonia and nitrite are toxic to freshwater fish in minute ammounts, depending on the pH of the water. The higher the pH, the more toxic the compounds become. At low concentrations, ammonia can damage the gills, skin, and fins of a fish, eventually causing death. Nitrites are not as toxic, but will still lead to death in elevated concentrations. Nitrate, on the other hand, is largely harmless up to relatively high concentrations. So the goal of a biofilter is to quickly and efficiently turn any ammonia excreted by the fish or scavenging bacteria into nitrite and then nitrate as soon as possible. The nitrate is then allowed to build up, and is dilluted by water changes in most cases. De-nitrate equipment and water treatments are available, but are more commonly used in marine aquaria because it is cheaper and easier to discard and replace the fresh water with tap water. Also, even if de-nitrate equipment is in place, there are other metabolic byproducts that build up that would have to be dilluted eventually anyway, such that water changes are inevitable at some point unless a great deal of effort is spent maintaining the water quality of the aquarium (for example, the top off water to replace evaporation would have to be distilled water to prevent salt buildup).

The third type of bacteria are termed as pathogenic. Some of them are the same bacteria in the first category, that will feed on a fish's dead skin when an injury occurs, for example. An analogy to this would be E. coli in humans. E. coli, which is infamous for food poisoning outbreaks, occurs naturally in the bodies of cows and humans. In its proper place, the bacteria does not harm the host and may even be beneficial. However, if you get E. coli in your food, or a pathogenic strain of E. coli, you could be in trouble. This is much like the oppurtunistic pathogens; they do not bother the fish until the fish is wounded or weakened by some other stress. Others are truly pathogens, and can be present in the aquarium at any time. These are constantly fighting a battle with the immune system of the fish. As long as the fish are healthy, the immune system is able to fend off these pathogens. When one fish becomes weak and succumbs to a pathogen, this sometimes gives the pathogen a host to allow it to multiply to large enough numbers that they can overwhelm the immune systems of the other healthy fish. Keep in mind that in an aquarium, the number of fish per unit volume of water far exceeds any found in nature in most all cases. The stocking rates in nature would be like a single neon tetra in a 55 gallon tank. So in nature, when a fish sucumbs to a pathogen, the bacteria are dilluted by this large volume of water and cannot overwhelm the immune system of the sick fish (the same is true for many parasites, such as ick or velvet- it is not uncommon to collect wild fish with a single spot of ich on them). The best way to combat these pathogens is to prevent stress. The second way to control them is to limit exposure by quaranteening new fish; the pathogens that are dependant on hosts for reproduction will eventually dissappear from a tank full of healthy fish. Keep in mind the methods of transport of pathogens are not just fish; nets, filter materials, wet arms, etc may all transport these bacteria. Drying them out may not be enough to kill them in all cases, so use caution. Most good fish stores can give you really good tips on how to prevent cross contamination; because they have so many tanks, and most fish are stressed by shipping, they live on the front lines of this battle.

The fourth category of bacteria are lumped together as anaerobic bacteria. They may include some of the bacteria above; some of them have the ability to switch from operating in a mode that needs oxygen to a mode that does not. The aerobic mode of operation is more efficient, and is usually preferred. The anaerobic bacteria live in areas devoid of oxygen, such as deep in the substrate of the aquarium or in areas where decorations cover the substrate. Some of the anaerobic bacteria are beneficial; some of them convert nitrate into nitrogen gas. This is why most denitrators have such slow flow rates and long coiled tubes- the idea is that bacteria will colonize the first part of the tube or denitrator and consume all of the oxygen, so everything from that point on will be anaerobic. In large quantities, anaerobic bacteria are bad because some types produce hydrogen sulfide as a metabolic byproduct. Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs; in marine aquaria, just stirring an anaerobic pocket can kill the fish. In freshwater it is largely less toxic, but is a symptom of poor husbandry techniques. These anaerobic areas also indicate lost bio filter real estate. Some of the other byproducts of anaerobic respiration are toxic if allowed to build up, but hydrogen sulfide is the most noticeable. The main way to fight anaerobic areas are to avoid placing rocks and decorations in a way that water cannot flow over the surface of the substrate. Decreasing substrate depth or increasing particle size will allow more oxygen to go deeper in the substrate. Fine sand has a tendancy to get packed and turn anaerobic; livestock ranging from Malaysian livebearing snails to horseface loaches to eartheater cichlids to (small) softshell turtles may be needed to prevent anaerobic pockets from forming.

[thedude]

First off let my say that the Tunze streams, if you buy one you WILL want another and also take in to consideration that they use almost no power. That being said, I would place it either in a back corner diagonally hitting the front glass panel, or side mount it, allowing it's wide sweep to try to cover the whole tank. But again, just do the two streams and ditch all those maxi's and your electricity bill and tank will thank you.

[cvonseggern]

Right...nothing there that's a big surprise to me. However, I have a hard time believing that a hydrogen sulfide problem from a rotten sandbed would manifest as a cyano outbreak...I'd expect to start losing livestock. And I've never had a rotten egg smell from the tank or seen any of the dark patches on the sand that I've read are characteristic of a sandbed gone bad.

I *did* discover this afternoon that 2 of my four maxis are DOA...I haven't been cleaning them periodically and I think they died a premature death by neglect. So I've had almost no flow except for what the overflow/return creates. I'm going to replace those tomorrow, and I think I have the wife talked into getting one Turbelle 6060. If that one works out I'll lobby for another :)

Thanks for everyone's input. I think I may be on the way to getting this licked, although I'm still doing a lot of work to try and rectify the problem.

Chris