Bacteria and cyano

tom obrecht

Active member
I have a larger reef that was started ~8 months ago with dry rock. Have been through the cycle stage and have been wanting to add sps. Have tried a number of pieces throughout the last month or 2 with no luck. Lps, a few pieces of ricordia and shrooms seem to be good. Have a decent fish load throughout the 8 month process and the fish are good. Since I'm 8 months in I'm figuring the sps issue is maturity of the system. So I've been adding bacteria's one a regular basis of different brand names. Been feeding fish daily but only once a day and in limited amounts. Within the last week or so cyano has been showing its face. I'm wondering if dosing bacteria on a regular basis could cause a cyano issue? Could bacteria from different brands mixed together over time cause issues?
 
Dosing just bacteria should be fine, in reasonable quantity, and mixing brands should be safe enough. I don't think that dosing further will do much. The problem might be too much fish food, or the bacterial supplements might be adding enough nutrients to cause problems. I'd dial the food back for a bit, and likely stop the bacteria altogether.
 
I have a larger reef that was started ~8 months ago with dry rock. Have been through the cycle stage and have been wanting to add sps. Have tried a number of pieces throughout the last month or 2 with no luck. Lps, a few pieces of ricordia and shrooms seem to be good. Have a decent fish load throughout the 8 month process and the fish are good. Since I'm 8 months in I'm figuring the sps issue is maturity of the system. So I've been adding bacteria's one a regular basis of different brand names. Been feeding fish daily but only once a day and in limited amounts. Within the last week or so cyano has been showing its face. I'm wondering if dosing bacteria on a regular basis could cause a cyano issue? Could bacteria from different brands mixed together over time cause issues?

If your po4 is low that can enable nuisance algae to become noticeable as its gets its po4 supply from rock & substrate.

Is your tank growing coralline algae? if yes, its a good indication for adding sps.
 
I would consider not dosing the bottled bacteria products if it's causing cyano. Recently there have been some studies done about what's actually in these different brands.

Some may not contain any bacteria and only carbon dosing liquids and/or others may be a combo of both.

I really don't think dosing bacteria is going to help even if the actual product is bacteria. You already have plenty in your stystem.
 
Great responses! I'm going to stop bacteria dosing. Yes rock has a good/great coating of coralline so I'm hopeful sps success is soon to come! I had not heard word about some bacteria's having an almost negative effect but it does appear that a certain brand has fueled the fire so to speak. I'll let things continue to mature and slowly add pieces. Thanks all!
 
Do you acclimated the sps? Things i learned when i was still new to sps was i shocked the sps. Also you need atleast dosing pump to maintain the parameters.

For cyano, do you have any reading of no3 and po4? Imbalance nutrients may cause cyano outbreak.

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