Could my LR be the problem?

[Bedroomgangsta]

5 months and still no coralline. I mean a speck here and a speck there. Plenty of coralline covered rock and snail shells, etc.. to seed it but no progress. Dont have a Mg test kit so Im sure thats part of the problem, that and my Oceanic SM. I have been transferring my LR from tank to tank through the last year and a half and I think it is poisened with phosphates or something. I Cycled my current tank with Tap water and then began doing WC's with RO/DI from my LFS. I still have issues with cyano here and there when Im not doing WC's and my skimmer is still pickin up quite a black nasty skimmate. I have 1 Koralia 4 on the bottom side pointing right and one K4 on the bottom pointing left. Also my mag 7 is @ full blast and the top water current is pretty blazin as well. No matter how many water changes I do the cyano comes back. and no matter how many times I change the carbon in my modified canister filter it still shows up somehow. I light my tank by 4x54 T5 HO, two 10000K two Actinic. Whites turn on in the morning for 2 hours before actinic, then whites shut off 4 hours later and i run the actinics for another 4 -6 hours. I run the whites for a total of 6-7 hours a day and the actinic for around 10. Im about ready to chuck all this rock out in the sun and kill everything on it and then either ditch it and go for a new SB, Dry rock, and a new tank. I also get this extreme tough neon green algae that covers every panel of glass on my tank in a very thin layer but scrapes off very toughly. I am lost. I keep my tank @ 1.025-.026 SG, Ammonia-0, Nitrite-0, Nitrate 0, ph 8.3-8.4, Ca 500, dKH 9-10.0...and I dont have a Mg test kit. HELP?

 

[Lynnmw1208]

It is probably your magnesium. Mine was so low with instant ocean at 1100 and now that I switched to red sea coral pro salt it's at 1350 and my coralline is growing everywhere now.

 

[Bedroomgangsta]

Any ideas on the cyano, besides phosphates? could me LR be like poisened or something along those lines?

 

[75pxatr]

Bet it is the live rock leaching phosphate. Do you run GFO?

 

[Chris27]

Any ideas on the cyano, besides phosphates? could me LR be like poisened or something along those lines?

Up the flow and manually extract the cyano a few times a week....it'll go away eventually. It's a bacteria, so it's very difficult to remove from the tank.

 

[Bedroomgangsta]

If i up the flow anymore, my anemone's tentacles are going to tear off. I have more then adequate flow but the damn cyano is just outrageous. I clean and clean and clean it out and it comes back everytime. I do not run GFO or Chaeto but i want to really bad, I just think my rock is seriously poisened. I have had it through 4 tanks, that were all FOWLR's and I over fed them a bit and I underfeed the hell out of this tank, I feed it 1 time every 3 days. A subtle amount of food.

 

[Bilk]

Have u tested the water from the lfs? Just because it comes from them doesn't mean anything. Maybe they don't change the filters. Get your own RO/DI and you have control over what you're putting in your tank.

 

[Bedroomgangsta]

Yea I know thats very true and they dont test it so I know its possible but still, the fact that it comes back overnight, I mean their RO would have to be pretty bad for it to allow the cyano to come back overnight...I have PLENTY of flow, almost too much, my anemone doesnt even look happy.

 

[jcw]

5 months and still no coralline. I mean a speck here and a speck there. Plenty of coralline covered rock and snail shells, etc.. to seed it but no progress. Dont have a Mg test kit so Im sure thats part of the problem, that and my Oceanic SM. I have been transferring my LR from tank to tank through the last year and a half and I think it is poisened with phosphates or something. I Cycled my current tank with Tap water and then began doing WC's with RO/DI from my LFS. I still have issues with cyano here and there when Im not doing WC's and my skimmer is still pickin up quite a black nasty skimmate. I have 1 Koralia 4 on the bottom side pointing right and one K4 on the bottom pointing left. Also my mag 7 is @ full blast and the top water current is pretty blazin as well. No matter how many water changes I do the cyano comes back. and no matter how many times I change the carbon in my modified canister filter it still shows up somehow. I light my tank by 4x54 T5 HO, two 10000K two Actinic. Whites turn on in the morning for 2 hours before actinic, then whites shut off 4 hours later and i run the actinics for another 4 -6 hours. I run the whites for a total of 6-7 hours a day and the actinic for around 10. Im about ready to chuck all this rock out in the sun and kill everything on it and then either ditch it and go for a new SB, Dry rock, and a new tank. I also get this extreme tough neon green algae that covers every panel of glass on my tank in a very thin layer but scrapes off very toughly. I am lost. I keep my tank @ 1.025-.026 SG, Ammonia-0, Nitrite-0, Nitrate 0, ph 8.3-8.4, Ca 500, dKH 9-10.0...and I dont have a Mg test kit. HELP?

For me, it took a long time to get to the right conditions. I think stability helps as well. Both stability in lighting and parameters. A big change in lighting with LEDS actually killed off a lot of me coralline.

I know your numbers look good, but do you supplement calcium and alk? It seemed for me at least that the coralline didn't really take off until I dripped one gallon of kalk per day. You might want to up your supplement just a little.

Good luck.

It'll come. Maybe even the cyano has to run it's course before it'll come.

My live rock was really bad. I had a really bad case of hair algae in my fuge.

 

[Bilk]

Yea I know thats very true and they dont test it so I know its possible but still, the fact that it comes back overnight, I mean their RO would have to be pretty bad for it to allow the cyano to come back overnight...I have PLENTY of flow, almost too much, my anemone doesnt even look happy.

If they don't change their filter and media, and you've been using their RO water for top-off and changes, then PO4 builds up over time. It's especially bad if they don't test for it. Maybe you can test the water when you get it. I would never add anything to my tank before testing, especially if I didn't have control over it.

 

[Bedroomgangsta]

Well I have a Kent 2 part system but I seldom use the Ca bc my salt mix is so damn high. I use the Alk to keep it as steady as possible but its very seldom that Ca goes down substantially. Its always around 500-520. I just feel like starting over for gods sake its driving me nuts. Just start completely clean with new sand, dry rock, brand new RO unit, etc...What did you do then to take care of you LR? Just let time run its course?

 

[jcw]

Well I have a Kent 2 part system but I seldom use the Ca bc my salt mix is so damn high. I use the Alk to keep it as steady as possible but its very seldom that Ca goes down substantially. Its always around 500-520. I just feel like starting over for gods sake its driving me nuts. Just start completely clean with new sand, dry rock, brand new RO unit, etc...What did you do then to take care of you LR? Just let time run its course?

If this question was for me, then yes. The pic above was only the beginning of the ha. At it's peak it was probably 3+ inches long everywhere.

For me, dosing carbon did most of it. Unfortunately, I think carbon can create more cyano problems.

Dripping Kalk also seem to bind up the last bit of phosp and kick the last bit of ha out.


What does your cyan look like? I may have some patches that look almost brown black.

I think it's a continuous never-ending cycle.

Did you try no lights for several days?

 

[needmore-reef]

I think everyone has had an issue with cyano bacteria. I had it something terrible!!!
It cleared it up in a few months by adding additional water flow, removing the sand bed, doing 10% weekly water changes using RO/DI and using only RO/DI water for evaporation.

 

[Bedroomgangsta]

You completely removed the SB? Some of the areas are brownish @ times but I seriously think Im about to get rid of it all. Ive tried Chemiclean, Ive tried lights out for 3 days, Ive continuously removed it from the DT day after day after day, lots of WC's, changing carbon as much as I can....etc...I havent been able to get my hands on any chaeto, or GFO to put in my canister filter that I have made into a reactor but Those two things are my last resort.