3 Day Blackout/ Still Have Cyano??????

[kbriers]

So I did the 3 day blackout on my 40 gallon breeder tank because I'm getting tired of having cyano on my sand bed. Well it went away for about a week and now its back in full force. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure it is cyano. It is a dark brown/red almost rust color. When it gets thick enough, it will siphon off in "sheets" so I'm assuming it is in fact cyano. Sorry this is going to be a long post but, I'm trying to give a play-by-play of how I do things so maybe someone can come up with an answer. Tank has been up a little more than a year or so.

My water chemistry values are...
S.G.- 1.025 via refractometer
pH- Between 8.1-8.3 via Apex
Temp- 77-79 via Apex
Ammonia- 0 via API
Nitrite- 0 via API
Nitrate- 0 via API
Phos- 0 via API and Hanna
Calcium 430-450 via API and Salifert
DKH-8 via API and Salifert
Mg- 1400 via API and Salifert

I've only ever used RO/DI water from my Spectrapure MaxCap MPDI system OR distilled water from wally-world for mixing salt/topoff. The TDS meter on my clean water line reads 0 when making water. My topoff container is a plastic trashcan from home depot. Could this be the problem? I've never actually thought about testing the water coming from my ATO so maybe?

For salt, I use plain ol IO. I let the water come up to temp, add salt and let mix for at least 24 hours before doing water change. I mix the salt in a big rubbermaid container so could that be leeching phosphates? (I've tested newly mixed saltwater and phos/trates read 0) For waterchanges I do 10 gallons every 3 weeks or so.

I use BRS GFO in a reactor and have used it for 6 months? or so. I'm guessing between the tank/sump/rocks and sand I have roughly 40 gallons of water so I use 10 Tablespoons of GFO. I replace every 3 weeks or so when I do a waterchange. (Even if discharge line from reactor reads 0 with Hanna)

Lighting wise, I have 2 kessil a150's (The 15K one, forgot actual name) I have the left light turning on at 9am and off at 4pm. The right light comes on at 10am and off at 5pm.

For flow, I have 2 hydor evo 750's and my return line (mag 9 throttled back) One on each side of the tank pointing up some. They switch between them turning off and on every 5 minutes in "anti-sync" I have them turn completely off at 6pm and turn back on at 7am.

I feed rod's food every other day about a "dime-size" amount to a clown, goby, blenny, basslet, cleaner shrimp, some LPS and a monti cap. When I remember, I will put a few drops of Selcon on the food too.

I have roughly a 2 inch sandbed using tropic eden reef flakes and I used pukani dry rock when I started. CUC wise I have 5 or so nass. snails, dwarf ceriths, 1 hermit and a fighting conch.

What I don't understand is that it only gets on my sand bed and on the back glass. Nowhere else in the tank. I have never had any other algea problem at all.

Sorry for the bad pics but it will at least give you an idea of powerhead/light placement. The second pic is what it starts looking like before it "mats" up.

Any help/ideas/questions/whatever would be most appreciated. I'm beggining to get frustrated to the point where it is losing its "fun factor"

Thanks so much

 

[sirreal63]

Three days is often not long enough to effect a kill. I went 5 and on day 4 my skim started turning red, I let it go another 24 hours or so and there has not been a trace of it in months.

 

[kbriers]

OK, I will try that when I get back home. Do you think I should siphon off what I can, do a 5 day blackout, then a waterchange? Or small waterchanges everyday, or what "order" would you recommend?

Also, would you agree from my first post and the crappy pic, that it is cyano? And would you do any other testing, powerhead placement etc?

Thanks again.

 

[sirreal63]

It looks like cyano, mine was much worse than that before I decided to take care of it. It is best to remove what you can before the blackout. I did a WC after the 5 days and left the tank dark but not covered, our house can be very dark even though it is mostly glass in the family room. Incidental light did not seem to make a difference, though I know a lot of people cover the tank to keep all light out.

I kept all equipment running except the kalk drip, you will know when it is dieing, your skim will start turning red. FWIW the five days had no negative impact on my tank, most of my corals are sps and I did reduce my photo period for a few days after turning the lights back on.

 

[kbriers]

Good deal, I will try that. Thanks for you help.

 

[sirreal63]

Here is an early pic of mine, it eventually covered most of the sand and a lot of the rock.

I used to believe it was always a nutrient issue with the stuff, now I have my doubts. My tank was very nutrient poor at the time but this stuff can make it's own food and mine came in on a frag, I think, and grew rapidly. I have been running more nutrient rich since killing it and it has not returned but the corals look a lot better.

 

[kbriers]

Yeah I'm a little confused about the nutrient thing. I understand that cyano "feeds" off nutrients (along with light etc) so I could see where my water params would be zero to a certain degree. But what I don't understand is why I've never had any other trouble with different types of algea.

I'm a noob, but to me it seems I also have a nutrient poor system so I cannot for the life of me figure out why I can't get this to go away.

 

[kabe87]

Cyano can also happen if theres lack of circulation(IME)

 

[sirreal63]

Cyano can also happen if theres lack of circulation(IME)

For some people it seems to make a difference, it didn't for me, I have 8700 gph wafting around this tank, not counting the return.

 

[CHSUB]

you have nutrients in your tank because without them you would not have cyno. hobby grade test kits are generally useless in fighting cyno because they simply are not accurate enough. a health reef tank will always have some type of algae growing in it, but you want to limit nuisance algae. blue/green algae (ie. cyno) tend to grow when n/p ratio is close to 1; when green algae grow the ratio is greater than 16 to 1. i suggest you continue to keep po4 low while increasing no3 to about .5 ppm.

 

[Squidmotron]

blue/green algae (ie. cyno) tend to grow when n/p ratio is close to 1; when green algae grow the ratio is greater than 16 to 1. i suggest you continue to keep po4 low while increasing no3 to about .5 ppm.

I had not heard this before. Interesting.

 

[footballdude2k3]

I had a problem with cyano, upgraded from 3 koralias to an MP20, gone almost immediately

 

[kbriers]

you have nutrients in your tank because without them you would not have cyno. hobby grade test kits are generally useless in fighting cyno because they simply are not accurate enough. a health reef tank will always have some type of algae growing in it, but you want to limit nuisance algae. blue/green algae (ie. cyno) tend to grow when n/p ratio is close to 1; when green algae grow the ratio is greater than 16 to 1. i suggest you continue to keep po4 low while increasing no3 to about .5 ppm.

What would be the best way to increase NO3 without affected other params? I've felt like growth has been slow and thought maybe because it was a lack of nutrients. (Cyano "taking" all the nutrients?)

As far as flow, I'm planning on getting a tunze 6095 to replace a hydor, eventually buying 2 to replace both hydors. Hopefully that will also help, or do you think that would be overkill for my tank?

 

[Adrnalnrsh]

I ran into this problem as well as many other do with biopellets. You end up exhausting all your nitrates and any remaining PO4 and Carbon feeds bad bacteria (Cyano) not the beneficial bacteria that bio-pellets attempts to grow.

Ideal scenario is to have

N03 < 0.2 ppm
PO4 < 0.03 ppm

a measurement of 0 means nothing, we need to know whats below that 0.x?

This is called redfield ratio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redfield_ratio

Make sure those things are in check first before moving onto other possible culprits.

A symptom I had along with Cyano was pale SPS. I had a green monti that almost turned gray.

My fix was to add more fish. Once I did this, I had increased my bioload/nutrient import to catch up with my nutrient export.

Be sure not to overfeed.

As for circulation for SPS tanks 40-50 x tank volume in turn over is a good rule of thumb.

 

[CHSUB]

What would be the best way to increase NO3 without affected other params? I've felt like growth has been slow and thought maybe because it was a lack of nutrients. (Cyano "taking" all the nutrients?)

As far as flow, I'm planning on getting a tunze 6095 to replace a hydor, eventually buying 2 to replace both hydors. Hopefully that will also help, or do you think that would be overkill for my tank?

the easiest and "funest" way is to add fish and feed more, the difficult part is keeping po4 low; or you could add KNO3 (Potassium nitrate), however not recommended. more flow, wc w/detritus removal, and manual removal help until you are able to balance n/p. i'm not advocating higher nutrients, because green algaes are no fun either. low nutrients, only in balance, to promote green algae and not cyno.

look at all the post that say, "cyno with 0.00 no3 and po4, why?"

 

[Adrnalnrsh]

the easiest and "funest" way is to add fish and feed more, the difficult part is keeping po4 low; or you could add KNO3 (Potassium nitrate), however not recommended. more flow, wc w/detritus removal, and manual removal help until you are able to balance n/p. i'm not advocating higher nutrients, because green algaes are no fun either. low nutrients, only in balance, to promote green algae and not cyno.

look at all the post that say, "cyno with 0.00 no3 and po4, why?"

Exactly - I had 0.00 nitrates. My test kit wouldn't even color up at all. Yet I had 0.04-0.06 P04 and it was enough to cause problems.
Upping nutrients doesn't equate to high nutrients. I was ULNS even after adding the fish

 

[kbriers]

Thanks everyone for the input. Sounds like I have more research to do.
Thanks again

 

[Adrnalnrsh]

My other suggestion as a way to prevent it from spreading and killing corals is to use microbacter7 while you ramp up your bioload. This will out compete the bad bacteria

 

[kbriers]

One more question, I see where a lot of people have .0x PO4 and 0.x for nitrate and I was wondering what kind of test kits were used to get these results?

I have read where the "normal" test kits are not accurate enough to show the true value, so where does the 0.xxx come from? I want to try and get the n/p ratio better as CHSUB said, but I don't want to "nuke" my tank either.

 

[AcroporAddict]

The easy way to deal with cyano is to use Chemi-Clean. Follow the directions, and it works every time.