Losing the Cyano Battle....Please Help

[Jamie]

Hello All,

My 150 gal tank has been up and running for about 5 months...1 month with corals. I'm a bit beside myself...trying to keep positive here.

Initially, I made several mistakes...ie...I used tap water, no skimmer, bad lighting, poor flow, etc. And as one would expect the algae went CRAZY.

Before I added corals, I made sure to get all of the proper equipment. I now have a nice skimmer, 3 Koralia 4's, T5 lighting, a phosban reactor, a large CUC, and have been keeping up with water changes using RO water...about 30 gallons every 3-4 weeks.

The Cyano is still as strong as ever. And now with the new lighting I'm additionally growing hair algae. The cyano is actually encroaching on my corals. It is on my euphillia stocks, around my zoas, and actually in the "branches" of my Kenya tree. The only ones that are actually spreading through it is the xenia. I know that there is usually an underlying cause, but I don't know what else to do. My water parameters are right where they are supposed to be.

Ph 8.2
Ca 350
KH 10
Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate all undetectable

I've only got two small fish, several different Zoas, a Kenya tree, GSP, two euphillias, two monti caps, and xenia, shrooms, and an acro that TroyValentine gave me. Plus a couple others. Everything has been doing great and growing very well. Though now I fear that they are starting to be held back by the algae.

I have heard of dosing an antibiotic to get rid of the cyano....but really wanted to let my tank work through it naturally. But I'm at my wits end and do not want my corals to suffer...I'm sick of looking at this unsightly stuff. If anyone has any suggestions, please share. If you have any experience with medicating, I'd love to hear you story...I just want this battle to be over.

Thanks, Jamie

[SoLiD]

Jaime, I don't know how much SPS you have but you might get a Orange Spotted Diamond Goby to sift through your sand. They can keep the cyano off the sand, but they can also cloud up a tank until the really fine sand particles are worked out by your filtration.

http://www.saltwaterfishshop.com/watermark_image.php?main=/home/fishshop/public_html/images/products/9225-DiamondWatchmanGody.jpg&watermark=/home/fishshop/public_html/my_store/images/watermark.png&transparency=50
picture belongs to http://www.saltwaterfishshop.com

[SABOB]

Cyano usually water quality related.How much do you feed and how often?Calcium is alittle low,any idea of Magnesium level?I'm sure others with chime in with recommendations besides chemicals.Maybe more frequent water changes.

[Ed]

Chemi Clean will clear your tank of the cyano temporarily. Just follow the directions on the package and you'll be fine. I've never had it harm anything else.

[ErikH]

How large is your CUC? Maybe try running phosban? Phosban is EASY, you can run it in a reactor or a filter sock. Make sure to wash it in some plain RO first, you'll feel it get warm. How much and often are you feeding/dosing? What are you feeding? You need something to sift some sand around. Your TDS may be off the charts, which could also be the problem?

[ErikH]

Are you running carbon?

[SoLiD]

After adding salt to RO water the TDS will\should be off the charts. The trick is to check the RO water for Total Disolved Solids before you add salt. HTH

[Jamie]

Thanks for all of the replies.

David, Is the orange spotted goby not SPS friendly?

I feed about 4-5 times a week...an amount that the fish can completely consume. I mostly feed spirulina enriched brine shrimp...but also will mix in some formula 1 and some gum drop stuff. All frozen foods.

I am dosing B-Ionic and am looking to get the Ca up to about 425-450...but I've been doing it slowly. I don't know my Mg levels...as I don't have an Mg test kit. I do have Kent's Tech M I won as a door prize at the February meeting...I dosed the recommended "not testing" method today. It said a capful per 50 gallons every 2 weeks if not testing for magnesium. One thing to note though...I don't have any coraline algae growing yet. The lights have been over the tank for a month or so...I figured I'd have some growth by now....unfortunately there's not a lot of real estate not covered by the cyano.

My clean-up crew is from ReefCleaners...about 350 mixed snails (ceriths,nassarius,chitons,fighting conchs,limpets,nerites,periwinkles)

I am running Phosban via a reactor. I'm not running carbon though.

TDS from the RO water is around 5.

Is the chemi clean an antibiotic or something else?

Thanks again for the input...I really want to get rid of this stuff. ANy other suggestions are still greatly appreciated.

[SABOB]

Is the TDS reading from RO or after DI?Should be 0 ppm after DI.That could be problem.Are you buying water or using your own RO/DI system?

[tropicana]

I have a few soft corals and Sps, and a few fish, hermits, snails. I battled it for a while till I decided to use chemi-clean.

First I sucked up as much of it with a syphon, and did a decent waterchange. Where do you get your RO? The RO might be causing it, I changed where I got mine, and it helped(i bought an RO for myself and it helped) After you suck it up, follow the directions to the T. Then buy some scarlet hermits, and get a reef safe urchin, that will eat your hair algea. I have an urchin from Port Aransas and it doesnt harm a single coral, and it eats all algea, good and bad, but once the hair algea is gone you can trade him for something else.... The scarlets will control the cyano once most of the way gone. Just food for though, I have not seen my Cyano since the day I got rid of it, and I do water changes about every 5 weeks. (1/4 WC's)

[so-smrt]

i had a really bad case of it and tried everything finally much to my dismay i used chemi clean and it worked not onlt worked but worked great but you MUST FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!!!

[Kristy]

Be careful if your tank has no top, as our diamond goby leapt to his death.:(

We struggled with cyano when we set up our old tank and used chemiclean, but once again, be sure to follow the directions exactly. I am not sure what bad happens if you don't, but we got that warning repeatedly also.

[CoryDude]

First I sucked up as much of it with a syphon, and did a decent waterchange.

This is the best method I've encountered. One large water change, and then follow with weekly smaller RO/DI H2O changes. For some reason, when you syphon off cyano, it seems to go into some sort of self destruct phase. Good luck!

[jrsatx20]

i dont want to be yelled at but i wil confess that i didnt do a water change after nothing happened it did fix the problem

[MKCindy]

My first line of defense....lights. How long are your lights on each day? I have controlled algae by reducing light time. I have also heard of leaving the lights off for 3-4 days. I didn't try it because I didn't want all the algae to die at once and create a new problem in my cycling, but I did reduce my time by 3 hours a day. Sea Hares are another great option for hair algae. Sounds like you have a good clean-up crew going.

Cyano can be a circulation issue. Are all your power heads covering the sand bed or just barely above it? Clean all power heads to make sure it is not growing on them and being spread around the tank.
Blow off all your corals and suction out what you can when you do water changes.

Activated Carbon raises water quality and reduces waste product needed to grow algae. Find a good place to add a filter or use a sac to put it around your water return.

PhosBan works good for leeching out phosphate. I read recommendations of leaving it in for 4-5 days then remove the sac, rinse and dry for future use. Otherwise the phosphate can leach back into your water. I have been doing it once a week for about 3 months now with great results.

Also, drain the water off any frozen food before feeding frozen food to fish.

The Library forum has a slide show presentation that might help even more.

[envy]

when i had cyno in my nano i was overfeeding and my phosphate was off the roof. i was also told that is what causes the outbreak by lfs employees. so retest your parameters and take to a lfs and have them test and see where they are at some test are off and not as accurate as others. most will agree salifert is the best and will only use that to test due to how accurate they are. i recommend them. also try what tropicana said and syphon up all you can.

[envy]

another thing i did was change the type of filters i was using and havent had a sign of cyno in there for two weeks and they are on tapwater. the water is crystal clear. i'm using a floss pad, a nitrate pad, and an ammonia pad. its worked since i started and only spent about $18 dollars and can make about 15 filters from the nitrate and ammonia pad and about 40+ from the floss. just go to fintique and they will have what you need there

[Jamie]

Thanks for all of the replies again...

The 5 on the TDS is before DI. My lights run from 0800 to 2000....so 10 hours. My circulation....I have a 1200gph return pump...so lets say 900gph by the time it get to the tank, and 3 1200 gph power heads...that's a total of 30X flow per tank volume. The power heads are positioned at the top of the tank pointed slightly down. I do have some activated carbon laying around....it's pretty old but I'll put it in a bag and drop it in the sump.

I have a freshly mixed batch of water ready to go today. I do suck off as much of the algae as possible when I do my water changes...and the tank looks fine for a while....but by the time I need to do another change (my 3-4 week mark), its all over the place again. This time it's really crept onto a lot of the corals and I really need to just get rid of it once and for all.

I haven't been draining the water off my frozen foods...I'll start doing that.

I know that cyano is usually a water quality issue....but my test kits are saying I'm good to go. I have used three different brands to test the nitrates..all say 0. I only have one kit to test the phosphates...but it says 0 as well...and as I have a phosban reactor going I figured it was safe to believe it.

I may end up ordering the chemi clean....we'll see after this next water change how things develop.

Thanks again...and more suggestions are always welcome.

[ErikH]

10 hours could be an issue, and I was glad to ready that Cindy had brought that up. Try 7 hours per day and I would bet you'll see a drastic change.

If the infestation is very bad, you could do the three days lights out treatment. Do a large water change, turn the lights out for 72 hours, feed very lightly if at all. After three days, do a large water change again, and ramp the lighting back up to 7 hours for the halides. If you have a significant amount of hair algae, now is the time to start to manually remove it. It will be brittle and weak from no light, thus easier to remove. The cyano will have, or should have completely subsided. If this doesn't work the first time, do it again in two weeks. This method can be found on REEF CENTRAL if you want to dig around, but I basically summed up about 70 pages of threads in a short paragraph. :) Your corals will be fine without the light.

[tg1119]

I had terrible cyano and was going out of town so I shortened the light period and asked my roommate to feed my tank once while I was out of town for about 4 days. My roommate overfeed my tank by at lease double what I normally feed. When I came back my tank was covered in cyano worse than ever. I pulled as much cyano out by hand then did a water change and sucked out any more that I could get with the hose. I also turned the lights off for 24 hours when I got home. About 3 days after that my cyano was completely gone and has never come back and that has been more than a year ago.

The only thing I can think of was there was so much food and nastiness that the good bacteria went crazy to catch up and then after the all the extra food, detritus, and cyano were removed it allowed the tank to finally finish its cycle. This was after battling cyano for month and months almost to the point were I was ready to go back to fresh water.

It made me so mad because I had read and researched and all it took was the opposite off everything I had tried. I had tried everything except chemicals because from what I understood is that it would also kill beneficial bacteria and I would just go through the whole battle again.

[bigmoe21]

just go to fintique and they will have what you need there
the member is from corpus..

[Jamie]

Thanks Erik, I may try the black out method. I figured 10 hours would be OK since I have T5's...but I'll reduce my lighting period to 7 hours....probably from like 2PM to 9PM so we can enjoy the tank while we're home. The corals had been doing fine up to this point...but if 7 hours means no algae...I'm totally for it.

So to sumarize your summary...lol
-3 days complete black out...in the past I actually taped heavy duty black trash bags to the outside of my tank. Works really well.
-Do a large water change
-Keep the lights off for three more days (Should I keep the tank covered up still?)
-Do another water change
-Turn the light back on (7hrs)

[Jamie]

tg, yes this is so frustrating...I WILL BEAT IT THOUGH!!! Hopefully with a reduced photo period, I'll start to gain some ground.

Also, from what I read...the Chemi Clean stuff does not affect the good bacteria. I'm not sure what it's made of...but it's awful tempting. But I still want to try sans chemicals. The Chemi Clean will be my last stand. From there...I'll just keep waiting if it doesn't clear up.

[Gilbert]

you need snails and hermit crabs to take care of the fish poop and the extra food that falls to the sand bed. thats what was causing the red stuff to grow in my girls tank, and the snails got rid of it.

[envy]

the member is from corpus missed the location part

[envy]

i have heard the same thing from others about cutting down light time just like what erik was saying is pretty effective

[coraline79]

I have a diamond goby, and it is everything safe. I have SPS, xenia, zoas, leathers, and it has never caused a problem. They create a series of tunnels under you rock for protection, and they constantly sift. I have it in the tank w/ a firefish goby, and a 6 line wrass. I have never had a Cyano breakout except for in the sump, which I think is good. This is my oldest fish/first fish I put in my tank,and has survived my crappy care, and is naturally resistant to ick.

Oh, and I have bought stuff at every store in town sponsor or not. It's my wallet andI will spend where ever I can save a buck. You can read some of my previous posts and realize I am a cheap Maastard.

[ErikH]

Jamie, big thing here is to gradually ramp back up to 7 hours. Your first day with lights try three hour photo period, and gradually increase an hour extra for the first two days after (5 hours lights on, day three) then the 4th add the last two hours. This should not affect your corals or bleach them out in any way what so ever.

I have two engineer gobies that stir my sand constantly, both are almost a foot long. They don't cause constant sandstorms, although with the sandbed depth in my aquarium I do have to keep a mindful eye on any corals that may have been covered.

[SaltyJim]

My lights run from 0800 to 2000....so 10 hours.



Check that math again. If you are leaving the lights on from 8am to 8pm you've got a 12 hour photo period. Try cutting that back first to 9-10.

Also, I wouldn't recommend a Diamond Spot Goby unless you have a mature sandbed with lots of critters. They eat all day long, and will quickly decimate the fauna in your sandbed.

[Jamie]

lol Jim...thanks for keeping me honest. I meant 1000 to 2000 for a total of 10 hours. Right now I'm going to go to a 7 hr photo-period and see how the tank reacts. If it starts to get better I'll just monitor. Otherwise, I'll do a blackout to gain an edge.

[johnmaloney @ Reef Cleaners]

What do you have in your clean up crew. Large doesn't necessarily mean good. You have to have a well balanced team to get it all. 80 turbos in a 20 gallon tank is large, but they are terrible at getting rid of cyano, so there is still that problem. Hermits IME don't even touch the stuff, so...what do you got? Please give a detailed answer if you can, 30 snails isn't helpful.

[Jamie]

One thing to note...and I just realized that I hadn't specified this. I am not talking about red slime algae. I'm talking about green cyano. It is putting a light green film over everything. Would the chemi-clean work on that as well? Does the color of the cyano change the way you treat it?

...break...

Hi John....I actually got my snail package from you...what you recommended.

[tropicana]

One thing to note...and I just realized that I hadn't specified this. I am not talking about red slime algae. I'm talking about green cyano. It is putting a light green film over everything. Would the chemi-clean work on that as well? Does the color of the cyano change the way you treat it?

...break...

Hi John....I actually got my snail package from you...what you recommended.

Trust me chemiclean is safe lol. It works on all Cyano, red or green. I had red and a little green, I havent seen it since the week i used chemi clean over 6-8mo ago.... I have a few sps and quite a bit of soft corals, and zoas, and they are doing as great as ever... Just be sure to follow the directions closely.

[johnmaloney @ Reef Cleaners]

Are the ceriths eating it? If not I would love a sample for testing. They eat the red stuff no problem.

[johnmaloney @ Reef Cleaners]

From the description in your thread it sounds like you may have Lyngbya, which is a type of Blue Green "Algae". (this "algae" is really a bacteria). Apparently there is nothing in the ocean that eats this stuff. The only way to permanently rid it from your tank , (as one of the members here said), is to completely eliminate all phosphorous from your tank, and starve it out. It only "eats" phosphorous, and doesn't not need nitrates to survive according to Dr. Goldstein's Marine reef Aquarium Handbook.

[demodiki]

I have used Chemi-Clean twice on tanks and it worked every time...no problems since then.

[Jamie]

This is what I've got...doesn't look like the stuff you're talking about John...but it's definately a form of cyano. I think I'm just going to use the chemi clean...seems like the quickest way to get rid of this junk.

Everything I've read says that water quality is generally the problem...but I don't have a nitrate or phosphate problem :confused: I got a TDS meter and tested my tap since it is what I started out with...it read over 450!!! So maybe that is still lingering, though I've done 6 good RO only water changes since then.

For all of you who have used the chemi clean, did you have a couple airstones running during the treatment?

[Jamie]

Also, my LFS doesn't have chemi-clean....but they do have RED SLIME CONTROL by BLUE-LIFE. Will this work on the green stuff just as well even though it says "red slime"?

[ErikH]

What kind of sand do you have? Is it araganite based or silica? It sounds like you are having diatomatic algae growth.

[ErikH]

siphon it off the sand and keep up with your water changes. Run carbon and skim wet.

[Jamie]

I've got the sugar grade aragonite sand. I just got a silicate test kit, so I'll be checking that today.

[ErikH]

Have you done lights out yet?

[johnmaloney @ Reef Cleaners]

The green cyano bacteria is a form of blue green algae according to the reef handbook I got. The picture makes me think thats what it is too. Let me know if the chem clean works, or if phosphorous removal works.