Shady Advice?

[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.