? about cyno

low riderr

New member
ive been fighting with cyno for a little while now and its changeing color.its going from bright red to really dark red almost black. why? does this mean its gettin worse or going away or indiffernt . and it dose not seem to be as stringy. any ideas
 
Don't know . IIRC when mine darkened and matted it was near done.It's been a while since I had to mess with it. Maybe it's dyng or not and a new species,there are thousands of them, is dominating . Either way I'd siphon or net out as much as I could. What have you done to fight it recently?
 
I had that problem a couple of years ago, water changes, tried this and that, just would not go away. ABC in Syr. asked when did I last change my metal halides, huh! I bought new 20K's and within a couple of weeks . .my tank was clean and I've never seen that nasty stuff again!
 
If the rock and substrate has been exposed to high PO4 it can take a month or so of low PO4 in the water to get it to finish leaching it back. f cyano or microagle show up in teh tank there is enough in the tank forthem even if the reading is low.
 
As many others stated, PO4 is a contributor to cyanobacteria. Make sure the beginning water source is clean. RO/DI is the way to go to completely strip the water of anything. I agree with Tom. Rock and substrates can hold onto and gradually release the PO4 into the water column. I've never thought about a time frame of when the rock would exhaust itself of it. The correct spectrum of light is another issue. Older bulbs IME and pretty much everyone elses start to loose spectrum after a said amount of time. To us it may look bluish, purplish, etc. but in reality it changes.

HTH
 
Also eliminate areas of low flow in your tank. That is paramount also. Even with water changes and critters in your sand bed, if excess stuff settles in those hard to reach places it will feed the cyano like nobody's business. Good circulation, water changes, do not overfeed.
 
substrates can hold onto and gradually release the PO4 into the water column. I've never thought about a time frame of when the rock would exhaust itself of it.

The time frame I noted i, a month or so, is baed on some rock heavily exposed to PO4 and leaching heavily that I cured outside the tank in curing water kept at near 0 PO4 with daily additions of Lanthanum chloride. It took two weeks before the leaching stopped . Figuring a little longer in an active tank.

AS many of you know, cyanobacteria needs only light ,CO2 and water to thrive. Some species are cheoautoprphic ;those types don't evne need light. It can fix it's own nitrogen and make it's own sugars(orgnic carbon) but it can't make phosphate which it also needs.
 
You are welcome Mike, Sorry abut the typos.In particular, cheoautotrophic should be chemoautotrophic.
 
i dont think its my lights as i just went to leds and i do use rodi, 0 tds after the membrane and after the di resin. i think its from over feeding and my skimmer sometimes goes nuts and pushes whats in the collection cup back into the tank.i do empty it daily but sometimes it beats me to it.
 
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