Cyanobacteria and Algae

[Thunderkat]

I have tons of cyanobacteria and algae in my aquarium. I have bought a RO unit and it seems to have lessened the overall amount but there is still tons in my aquarium.

I love the green hairy algae but I hate the cyanobacteria and the green blobby algae.

Is there a way to get rid of the cyanobacteria and the green blobby algae and still keepy my hairy algae?

Right now I have a 55 gallon aquarium with a purple psudochrome, a yellow tailed damsel, a molly, a cleaner wrasse, and a fist sized tiger cowrie.

I need to get rid of the psudochrome due to aggressiveness, the molly keeps trying to make love to my cleaner wrasse, and my cowrie found a way to get back to the discharge of my Bak Pak Dual filter and causing water to spill out of my aquarium (loses 5-6 gallons before suctions start getting air). I would like to only have the cleaner wrasse in my aquarium for a while before I replace the fish with nano tank fish (thinking about clowns).

Would loading up the tank with macroalgae work? (I like that stuff too)

Temperature 75, pH 8.2, specific gravity 1.020
Also have the "bio-bale" in my cpr filter, and have bio wheel on my emperor filter- could that be causing the nitrates to be high that are feeding all the algae and cyanobacteria?

[don-n-sa]

Since you are now using RO water the cyano should slow down...just make sure you do not have any dead / low flow areas in your tank.

As for the existing stuff...do a 10g water change and just syphon up all the unwanted stuff out. ;)

HTH

[Polkster13]

When you say bubbly stuff are you talking about valonia or air bubbles under a mat of algae. Cyanobacteria will create lots of gas bubbles from photosynthsis. You can try syphoning them out or removing them by hand. To keep it gone once it has been removed, you need to increase your water flow. Stagnant water areas and high light will cause this stuff to grow like crazy. You can also do 10 percent weekly water changes for several weeks (siphoning out any detritrus or cyano that you see) and see if that helps as well. Also, look into beefing up your cleaning crew with a bunch of small blue hermits or red-legged mexican hermits. These will help scavange any left over food that makes it into any dead areas.

[Thunderkat]

Have changed around 20 gallons so far. Yeah, my cowrie is only active about once a week then one day it goes through and eats mass amounts but they all grow back quickly.

I went through and removed almost all the cyanobacteria I could over the weekend by hand and the next day I could see colonies all over and in new places and now I have more than before I removed them.

Its upsetting to say the least, will try beefing up the cleaners.

[don-n-sa]

Well if the cyano is still coming back then there is still the nutrients in the water that it needs...like phosphates, if your RO unit is working properly and you have at least medium flow without dead spots then it should go away. How long has this tank been set up BTW?

[Polkster13]

Also, how much Live Rock and Live Sand do you have? Has any of this been added recently?

[GaryP]

Cyano will often build up when there is detritus build up. The way to prevent that is adding scavengers such as hermits and nassarius snails. Micro hermits are good herbivores for cyano too. Keeping good current on the sand bed is hard to do. We often have good current toward the top or middle of the tank but rarely do at the bottom because of blowing sand issues.

[alexwolf]

Cerith snails also eat cyano.

[Thunderkat]

The tank has been up for at least 8 months now, I did not buy live sand because last time I used it in Hawaii and I had mad bristle worms in the tank- literally thousands. I had to take the fish and water out and let it stand with fresh water to kill all those nasty things.

I have one piece of live rock about the size of two fists. When I get this cyano and green gelatin algae under control I plan on getting more. I have two other rocks in the tank that are not live rock but have some much algae on them now it probably is almost as good now. I am also leery of live rock because my Hawaii tank also had a evil hitchhiker mantis shrimp and after its actions I HATE those things (I know some folks like them but not me). It was evil and tried to attack me and ate my barnacles.

The two rocks I have are large pieces of limestone. I also have a large mass of empty barnacle shells that my cleaner wrasse loves to sleep in.

The sand I use is aragonite sand about 3 inches deep.

[GaryP]

The reason you had tons of bristle worms was because of detritus. Guess what bristle worms eat. You aer not doing yourself a favor by not having LR in your tank. I think we need to see what your water parameters are. Have you done any analyses? Water changes aren't going to do it by itself.