Cyano battle........

schroedel

schroedel

New member
ok guys,
my 110gal reef tank has been fighting cyano. for a cpl months now. I have tried everything. I am currently going thru a regiment of Dr. Tims re-fresh and waste away and have de-nitrate running. hope this does the trick.My water tests are in good perameters but nitrate is a problem at about 20. I have tried bio-fuel,cheato(cant keep alive) added more powerheads(total of 4 almost sandstorm), instant ocean natural nitrate reducer,i have cut back my feeding(rinsed food) to where i almost feel bad , cut all light for 3 days twice durruing one of which i also did chemiclean,added copepods,(did this after cleaning rocks) cleaned all the rock in the tank with a toothbrush(done in the tank) and did a 80%water change then a week later did another 50%.(there were 30%water changes almost every other week durring this) I use ro/di water and have tested water tds is 0. the water I uses also has no nitrate. The tank has the LR raised about 3in off the 1/4-1/2 deep sand bed in the tank and about a 6in bed in refugium.I am running 2x250mh,2x54 t5. the t-5 are about 5mo. old. i still get the algae not using the t-5 also. The tank is 8mo. old. The coral is growing fine could have a little better color but not my focus right not not wanting to add more crap to the tank. my question is could it be my skimmer? I have an AquaC Ev-180. When i got it it had good review but never thought it pulled much skimmate but was told tank was too new. I was thinking of replacing it withthe Reef Octopus Extreme Series XS-160 Protein Skimmer. This is the only other thing i can think of.Before i spend another 300 on a skimmer am i missing something? Is my tank going thru a phase being new? I am loosing my mind!!!Dont know how but got all my fish in this one shot.
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sorry so blury
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Schroedel, it looks as if you are trying all the right things. Since your tank is 8 months old your DSB should be keeping your nitrates down so I am not sure why that is not happening. What are your phosphate levels? IMO I would not do 80% water changes since that can do more harm then good. More frequent 10-30% water changes will stress your corals & fish a lot less.

Back in the day I used to run a DSB in the main tank, but I had problems with this as the tank aged. I went with a Remote DSB in a 5 gallon bucket (w. lid to keep it dark) and it has kept my Nitrates near zero for the last two years. I did have some cyno/bubble algae but it was due to my phosphates. I have dealt with this with dosing vinegar and it has really cleared up my tank and the cyano is almost all gone. If you decide to go with a carbon base dosing just start real slow take your time.

I think you are fine with the skimmer you have, you may just need to tweek it a bit. Do you skim wet or dry?
 
karsco said:
Schroedel, it looks as if you are trying all the right things. Since your tank is 8 months old your DSB should be keeping your nitrates down so I am not sure why that is not happening. What are your phosphate levels? IMO I would not do 80% water changes since that can do more harm then good. More frequent 10-30% water changes will stress your corals & fish a lot less.

Back in the day I used to run a DSB in the main tank, but I had problems with this as the tank aged. I went with a Remote DSB in a 5 gallon bucket (w. lid to keep it dark) and it has kept my Nitrates near zero for the last two years. I did have some cyno/bubble algae but it was due to my phosphates. I have dealt with this with dosing vinegar and it has really cleared up my tank and the cyano is almost all gone. If you decide to go with a carbon base dosing just start real slow take your time.

I think you are fine with the skimmer you have, you may just need to tweek it a bit. Do you skim wet or dry?
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My phsphates were testing 0. The only reason iI did an 80% was cause i did not take the rock out of the tank to clean which made the water pretty yucky. so I wanted to get as much of the scrub off out. I was doing carbon doseing with bio-fuel but had stopped.. My skimmate seems to have to be wet for me to get consistant skimmate.(I hate my skimmer)My tank before this had rock sitting on bottom and a dsb and had it up fo 20yrs. Like you said wasnot until later did it star to cause problems. So a better skimmer wont help this prob.? Do you think this Dr. Times will do it?
Thanks for the response.
 
Well it sounds like you have been in the game as long as I have so not sure what other advice I could give you. I did switch from my old EuroReef skimmer when I started my newest tank two years ago. I went with a cone skimmer (I-Tech) and it trippled the amount of skimmate my old ER produced in a weeks time. So maybe a better skimmer could be of help. A lot of guys in my Reef Club use Octo's and are very happy with them. The one thing about the newer skimmers is that they are a lot easier to adjust to just the right level.

I had tried MB7 (BrightWell product) to reduce my phosphate and Cyno issues last year with little to no effect. I have been dosing Vinegar for about a month now and the results are the quickest/best I have ever seen in the 20+ years I have been in the hobby. My water is crystal clear and I only have one little spot of cyno (quarter size) compared to a month ago when almost 50% of my sand bed was covered in cyno. It has also kick started the growth on my SPS that were growing real slow. Good Luck!
 
maybe its no cyano. maybe its a Dinoflagellates bloom. My Ph has always been a little low which i read can help aid in this kind of outbreak.. Ordering a new skimmer reef octopus diablo 160 and raising my ph some.
 
schroedel said:
My phsphates were testing 0. The only reason iI did an 80% was cause i did not take the rock out of the tank to clean which made the water pretty yucky. so I wanted to get as much of the scrub off out. I was doing carbon doseing with bio-fuel but had stopped.. My skimmate seems to have to be wet for me to get consistant skimmate.(I hate my skimmer)My tank before this had rock sitting on bottom and a dsb and had it up fo 20yrs. Like you said wasnot until later did it star to cause problems. So a better skimmer wont help this prob.? Do you think this Dr. Times will do it?
Thanks for the response.
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Just because your phosphates test low doesn't mean much after the fact that you have cyano. Once cyano sits in it eats your nutrients so you get a false positive. Good luck on your ordeal. You could be feeding to heavy, you have to many fish, your sand bed is not being stirred properly, so many possibilities. Until you tell us your story it's hard to diagnose. I have no sand bed and controllable cyano if not none. Most people I know who have sand beds ecspecially deep ones have those issues. IMO overrated.
 
A better skimmer might help, if the current one doesn't work, but I don't know anything about how well various skimmers are rated, so I can't help much there.

How much food is going into the tank per day, and what kinds?
 
bertoni said:
A better skimmer might help, if the current one doesn't work, but I don't know anything about how well various skimmers are rated, so I can't help much there.

How much food is going into the tank per day, and what kinds?
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Only mysis shrimp rinsed and only enough to make sure they eat all. maybe 3 times a week. have cut that way back.
 
have you tried brightwells macrobacter7 and reef biofuel? i had a small cyano outbreak and it cleared it up. hth
 
there was a good thread awile ago about Dinos and did alot of rerading (up way too late) and it seems to fit my profile just not as severe of a case.They did talk about cyano changing into dino. I am changing my approch. I will have klights out 2 days in a row a week with the licht cycle cut to 4 hrs a day. I took out my denitrate and put in carbon to be replaced every few days. no water changes no adding suppliments and raising ph to 8.6 if possible with kalk slury added at night and a wet skimn. i hope the new one gets here fast... So i need to go get more kalk and carbon.
 
schroedel - your story sounds so much like mine! I will say the cyano has been my nemesis for a few years now. i swear each time I've tried everything, then i discover something else to try, and it comes back. Its the kind of thing that makes me want to give up after almost 10 years. In the end I consider myself pretty educated on fighting it. what I've learned pretty much boils down to this:

Cyano needs the following:

1) Light - I run 100% T5s and eventually changed out my entire bank of lights. didnt notice a difference with regards to old flourescents and lighting spectrums.

2) Nutrients - in the form of Phosphate (I think)

3) Carbon - this one I recently discovered and find interesting b/c I hear people dosing carbon to get rid of it. So still researching.

The best thread to date I've found is recent. check this out:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2095174
 
bheron said:
schroedel - your story sounds so much like mine! I will say the cyano has been my nemesis for a few years now. i swear each time I've tried everything, then i discover something else to try, and it comes back. Its the kind of thing that makes me want to give up after almost 10 years. In the end I consider myself pretty educated on fighting it. what I've learned pretty much boils down to this:

Cyano needs the following:

1) Light - I run 100% T5s and eventually changed out my entire bank of lights. didnt notice a difference with regards to old flourescents and lighting spectrums.

2) Nutrients - in the form of Phosphate (I think)

3) Carbon - this one I recently discovered and find interesting b/c I hear people dosing carbon to get rid of it. So still researching.

The best thread to date I've found is recent. check this out:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2095174
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Man i would shoot myself by that point. I hopoe i dont have to fight that long. I see that carbon doseing does need to stop. I was useing bio-fuel but stopped. I was wondering if it is ok to run carbon in my reactor or is this also adding a carbon source to the water? I still dont think mine is cyano anymore but morfed into dinoflagallates. I hope we can kick this and learn from the pioneers before us. I want to give up too but have so much money invested in this new set up.
 
Unfortunately, whether the fish eat all the food or not isn't all that important. Most of what goes in, comes back out. :) I might reduce the feeding to something like a 1/4" cube for a week or so, to see what happens.
 
IMO you need to get your nitrates down. Try a carbon source like vodka or bio pellets. Also that looks more like diatoms to me not cyano
 
Was doing bio-fuel and also running de-nitrate. my nitrates are about 10 right now. Talked to Dr.Tim and doing a regiment of re-freash then waste -away. I als hope the new skimmer will do a better job too.
I thought it could be dino? I am not sure. Was reading a thread here on RC about Dinoflagellates and they were saying to stop carbon dosing. I will cut back on feeding, tank is wrapped with blanket right now for 2 days to keep black-out.
If anyone can correctly ID this stuff so i can try the correct treatment i would be a happy camper. I tried to treat it as cyano and no change so on to dino i guess.( I looked at images of Diatoms and it also looks like it could be that too.)

Still working on bringing my low ph up to 8.6 temporary.
Thanks for all the feedback!!
 
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OK I just was reading a thread and saw someone who had a diatom bloom everytime he replaced his carbon cartridge that had plastic around it. So got me thinking??? maybe jimrawr is right. Could it be diatoms? I decided to test the water in my plasic jug i use to top off with and it came back with a reading of .03 to 0.1. OMG. So i went to test the water that i have pre made sitting in a plasic trash can and sure enough the same reading. So now i will have to assume that it is somehow slipping through my RO/DI system unless it is leaching out of the trash can? I cant test the water directly out of the RO/DI unit yet. I have to wait for the hose connector to get here first(i ran it over). OK now the strange thing... I tested the tank water and it reads 0. No silicate. So i assume it is being consumed by the algae bloom and giving me a false reading? Could this small of an amnt.of silicate be the cause of all my trouble? Does activated carbon get rid of it or I do have phosguard that actually says it does.
This may change everything but what im not sure of is what event happened with my RO/DI that let the silicate through?From what i understand and could be wrong is the DI part of the system is what removes the silicate. my TDS always read 0. I am more lost than ever now.
 
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