cyano coming back
- Thread starter jraker
- Start date
slief
RC Sponsor
That'll do wonders for your bacteria bed.. NOT. FWIW, cyano is a bacteria and the antibiotics in chemiclean and other cyano removers aren't prejudice. They will impact denitrifying bacteria just as they do cyano which is never good because your tank will end up with less good bacteria which can then in turn impact nitrates and compound the issue.. Not only that, but unless you fix your issue, the cyano will come right back.
Cyano is usually a sign of poor husbandry and a lack of flow in critical areas. It's commonly found in the sand bed.. Why?? Because that's where there is the least amount of flow in the tank and consequently where food and waste settles. Add to that the fact that most don't vacuum their sand beds well enough and you have a great place for waste to collect and cyano bacteria to feed.
You want to get rid of cyano? Don't bother with chemiclean or other chemical removers because they are bad for your system and nothing more than a bandaid and not a cure. Address the issue at the source and vacuum vacuum vacuum and increase flow enough across the sand bed and the rest of the display to suspend the detritus and waste so it can go through the overflow. You may need to vacuum daily until you resolve the issue. Also, blasting the rocks with a powerhead also helps as it removes detritus and waste from the rocks as well. In addition to the above, adding a quality and appropriately sized UV filter will help but that still doesn't mean that the husbandry and flow issues don't need to be addressed.
CedzAquAddictio
New member
Agree with Scott. You need to figure out the cause, and cure that...
What kind of lights do you have, feeding habits, lights, flow, and (what solved my problem) are you using RODI water? I kept having small outbreaks until I realized my RODI filters needed replacing. I did water change after water change, and it got worse. Why? Probably because I was doing water changes with less than adequate water...
Hope this Helps!!!
What kind of lights do you have, feeding habits, lights, flow, and (what solved my problem) are you using RODI water? I kept having small outbreaks until I realized my RODI filters needed replacing. I did water change after water change, and it got worse. Why? Probably because I was doing water changes with less than adequate water...
Hope this Helps!!!
jraker
New member
i feed once per day, mysis shrimp. i am using rodi water, i got my unit about 2months ago so it is fairly new. i have a fluval m90 tank, so i have the standard equipment that comes with that. pump is fluval cp3 (740 gph) i have my lighting going for 8 hours a day
Johnseye
Reef Addict
Every two weeks, maybe every week to start. A tactic you can use is to vacuum the sand bed into a filter sock in your sump. That way you're vacuuming out the detritus but not having to change so much water.
I went through an early bout with cyano and haven't seen it return since making some changes. In the post I'm linking here I outline what I did to eliminate the cyano, reintroduce micro/macro fauna and follow good husbandry.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2533539&page=2
How old is your tank and what rock did you use to start. I disagree that cyano is always a sign of poor husbandry. My tank is 7 months old and hasnt had detectable nitrates or a phosphate reading over .04 since the cycle and i have cyano. I have no other pest algae at all in my tank.
CStrickland
New member
I dunno, the sand bed water is pretty rich, that's part of why the cyano is growing there. I think it would be better not to return it to the system.
motojoe1988
Member
Turn your lights off for 3 days of darkness always helped when I had cyano and it always worked. Also cut your light time down a hr or 2. But you do need to stay on top of your cleaning and maybe feed little less or keep food to a minimal to what you see fish and or corals eat and not dump it into the tank. Good luck.
jraker
New member
i do keep feeding to a minimum already.
i started with live rock from lfs (i know bad decision). no aiptasia surprisingly. my PO4 is at .03, but there still is a bit leeching out of the rocks and the sandbed. i am running a gfo reactor. should i get another circulation pump?
i tried the darkness technique, it worked some, but the cyano keeps growing.
johnseye, you said you used chemiclean along with the other techniques, do you recommend this?
i started with live rock from lfs (i know bad decision). no aiptasia surprisingly. my PO4 is at .03, but there still is a bit leeching out of the rocks and the sandbed. i am running a gfo reactor. should i get another circulation pump?
i tried the darkness technique, it worked some, but the cyano keeps growing.
johnseye, you said you used chemiclean along with the other techniques, do you recommend this?
Johnseye
Reef Addict
The reason would be to siphon out detritus without constantly having to change water. If someone wants to do more frequent water changes while siphoning the sand more power to them.
Johnseye
Reef Addict
Yes, here's what I did.
1. Put curtains on a window that allowed the sun to shine on the tank. I wouldn't worry about indirect ambient light, you don't need the tank in a cave.
2. Siphon sandbed
3. Changed powerhead placement and schedule change to eliminate dead spots and increase flow.
4. 3 day lights out. I don't think this really helped that much and is the reason why I went to the next and most drastic step.
5. Chemiclean. This was my last option and it had the best effect. I eliminated most of the cyano on my first dose. Then waited a couple weeks and did it again. That got rid of all the cyano. Skimmer goes nuts but just let the thing overflow until it calms down which could be a week.
6. After the Chemiclean I had to reestablish some good bacteria and KZ Zeobak along with Coral Snow has been known to help eliminate cyano on its own so I did that and am still doing it. KZ also makes a cyano product but I didn't read enough positive info on it. The Zeobak provides a positive competition to the cyano. Coral Snow helps the Zeobak.
7. GFO and GAC in reactors
8. Add pods and phyto
9. Increased my CUC. I added an emerald crab, some hermits and more snails of multiple varieties.
10. Keep sump clean of detritus
11. Regularly vacuum sand bed
IMHO letting the sand bed collect detritus and/or clump up, get hard around rocks especially contributes to the bad bacteria like cyano to take hold. That's just my experience and seems to be similar to others in what I've read.
