mcrist
Premium Member
It does sound like you headed in the right direction, I hope you are successful. I don't think cyano is ever actually beaten; it's always waiting to come back as soon as the conditions are right.
Cyano Outbreak
- Thread starter jbanks
- Start date
alexandernewell
New member
ahh its good to be back. My mac crashed, first time I have had that problem since i switched years ago and I almost forgot how to be a techie its been so long. Sorry for being long winded, but I am excited.
Cyano is gone! Well as gone as it gets i guess. I have no surface sand slime and its gone from all my rocks now as well. Biggest thing that helped towards the end of my initial inoculation with Special Blend is that the directions say to increase the dosage for saltwater. I had been dividing the 55-65gal dosage because I was treating a 29 and forgot to double again for the saltwater. I still have bits of red between the glass and sandbed but whatever it is it isn't hurting anything down there.
During the course of the outbreak I severely reduced feedings. I added no nutrients to the tank for 2 weeks. This seemed to have no effect on the growth. Returning to a normal feeding schedule also didn't change the growth patterns. As far as how it spreads in the tank, I am not sure. It managed to start completely isolated colonies on nearly every rock in my tank. Maybe a small piece would land and it went from there. I dunno. Sand is cheap so any that made a carpet on the sand simply got scooped out with the sand its on and tossed in the garbage. I mean like the top 1/8th-1/4 inch.
After the lights had been on all day, the cyano would make these thick luxurious looking bubble filled sheets. In the morning with only moonlights on through the night the cyano would be thin and retracted across the surface while putting up strings into the water column.
Kyley and dixiedog, If yours is growing better at night and under total darkness, it may be possible you are fighting a different strain. We all keep these enclosed little ecosystems. Its only a matter of time till something mutates somewhere. Bacteria are pretty awesome at that.
Oh and if skimming helps, it only does so much because I have the craptacular oceanic skimmer for the biocube. Trust me, skimming was not a factor in getting it out of my tank. I do think however that the UV helped a good bit. Speaking of which I forgot to turn it off after I dosed my first maintenance dose of SB last night, doh.
Any of the corals it started to climb on I blasted with powerheads to get the cyano off. I managed to only lose two of my acan polyps and maybe 3 or 4 individual zoanthids. I personally believe that the Special Blend played the biggest part in out competing the cyano strain that I was fighting. I have no desire to culture any strain of cyano and scientifically test the hypothesis but from here on I am putting SB in all my tanks, fresh and saltwater. If it comes back, I'll test another variable.
Cyano is gone! Well as gone as it gets i guess. I have no surface sand slime and its gone from all my rocks now as well. Biggest thing that helped towards the end of my initial inoculation with Special Blend is that the directions say to increase the dosage for saltwater. I had been dividing the 55-65gal dosage because I was treating a 29 and forgot to double again for the saltwater. I still have bits of red between the glass and sandbed but whatever it is it isn't hurting anything down there.
During the course of the outbreak I severely reduced feedings. I added no nutrients to the tank for 2 weeks. This seemed to have no effect on the growth. Returning to a normal feeding schedule also didn't change the growth patterns. As far as how it spreads in the tank, I am not sure. It managed to start completely isolated colonies on nearly every rock in my tank. Maybe a small piece would land and it went from there. I dunno. Sand is cheap so any that made a carpet on the sand simply got scooped out with the sand its on and tossed in the garbage. I mean like the top 1/8th-1/4 inch.
After the lights had been on all day, the cyano would make these thick luxurious looking bubble filled sheets. In the morning with only moonlights on through the night the cyano would be thin and retracted across the surface while putting up strings into the water column.
Kyley and dixiedog, If yours is growing better at night and under total darkness, it may be possible you are fighting a different strain. We all keep these enclosed little ecosystems. Its only a matter of time till something mutates somewhere. Bacteria are pretty awesome at that.
Oh and if skimming helps, it only does so much because I have the craptacular oceanic skimmer for the biocube. Trust me, skimming was not a factor in getting it out of my tank. I do think however that the UV helped a good bit. Speaking of which I forgot to turn it off after I dosed my first maintenance dose of SB last night, doh.
Any of the corals it started to climb on I blasted with powerheads to get the cyano off. I managed to only lose two of my acan polyps and maybe 3 or 4 individual zoanthids. I personally believe that the Special Blend played the biggest part in out competing the cyano strain that I was fighting. I have no desire to culture any strain of cyano and scientifically test the hypothesis but from here on I am putting SB in all my tanks, fresh and saltwater. If it comes back, I'll test another variable.
alexandernewell
New member
Oh side thought, maybe its pH that is affecting growth. The drop at night might put it to low in some of our tanks for they cyano to be happy, while in others tanks the drop would put the cyano in its happy pH range. I don't think its photosynthetic but light has to play a role somehow.
ChuckG
New member
Based on the successes in this thread I made an initial dose of special blend for a slight cyano outbreak that started recently. I noted over the last couple days since the dose similar in that there seems to have been an up tick in cyno growth. I went with the standard dose and not the double dose recommended on the bottle for saltwater just to be safe. Maybe there is some sort of food in the bottle for the bacteria that the cyano feeds on initially at least until the bacteria start to proliferate in the tank.. that was my thought.
Question.. have any of you noted an increase in P04 as the cyano died off, or do most run GFO or something similar to export P04 while using this product? I am wondering if the bacterial stains will also reduce P04 to some degree even if it is not listed on the bottle.
Question.. have any of you noted an increase in P04 as the cyano died off, or do most run GFO or something similar to export P04 while using this product? I am wondering if the bacterial stains will also reduce P04 to some degree even if it is not listed on the bottle.
I never checked my PO4 directly after dosing. However, when I initially dosed, I experienced the same as you in that the cyano spread a bit, by week 4 It was gone in my case.. I currently run GFO full time. At the time of my initial dose, I would only use i after water changes, where I siphoned the substrate. My assumption is that an increased bacterial presence will consume PO4 and NO3... However, PO4 is usually the most stubborn.
ChuckG
New member
Thanks jbanks.. Thought I'd check back and add that the treatments are working. I am coming up on the 3rd dose and have been siphoning, basting the cyano into a filter sock weekly, plus reduced feedings and it is not growing back nearly as much.
red slime control
red slime control
red slime control, remover, what ever you want to call it.
I have had this issue for over a year now. I had it about a year after I started my tank. then I got an ecotech mp40. seem to cut back on the issue.
I will be honest. I am terrible about doing water changes, making sure my skimmer is working etc.
well one day I got all jazzed about my tank.
thought I would clean it all up and make it look nice. this was a little over a year ago. it cleaning up my mess of wires, hoses, etc I ended up knocking one of the wires to one of my 110v fans in the sump and I did not know this. 15 mins later everything was sliming, water was cloudy everything looked jacked! I was testing the water as fast as I could to try and figure out what went wrong. as a last ditch effort I tested copper. it was through the roof. I mean so hight that the test would not measure it. I was in disbelief. I ended up taking another sample and testing again. same result. how could this be? I ended up slowing down and taking a step back and working through the issue. that was when I found the wire laying in the water. I pulled it out and there was no copper in the housing. through electrolysis it has eaten away the copper wire and it was now in my tank. dissolved instantly. ran down to LFS and got some copper remover stuff that i put in a sock filter and put in in my over flow. I also did a 80% water change. what could it hurt right? I just wanted the stuff out of there! all my acros died, clams dead, birds nests dead. pretty much everything died but my LPSs and softies. still surprised they even lived. let the tank work it magic and everything started coming back even the red slime.
ok back on subject. sorry still gets me a little emotional.
ever sense then I have had red slime issues.
I have used red slime control twice. no bad side effects that i can tell.
protein skimmer is working great. doing regular water changes, checking perimeters, etc. everything is good. phosphates 0, nitrates 0.
Right now I am going to try the SB because red slime remover it cam right back after about 2 months.
I have checked my RO water, it is clean,
This stuff is growing everywhere.
A few thought after reading this entire thread, you guys can comment if you want or to correct me if I am wrong
At the beginning of the thread I would get mad about people talking about flow, my thought was if I have flow it may not grow anywhere because it can not latch on but it is still in my tank and I do not like that. I also think was bunk because I know people who propagate corals and they have hardly any flow in their frag tanks and they do not have the redslime issue.
My thought on this is maybe if there is enough movement in the water column it may have a chance to get taken out by the protein skimmer. So flow does have something to do with it just not in the way I "œwas" thinking.
Second is after my copper hit I know there was a lot of die off. Not just corals but pods, feather dusters, etc. A lot of good things that I know my reef was using to clean the water. Now I have to start over with all of that. With out those things taking out the bad stuff maybe that is why I am having such a big problem with red slime.
Lastly I am thinking it has got to be light quality. I am a cheapo, I my ebay MH lights and they are over a year old. My T5 lights are some that I got for free that were over 6 months old when I got them a year ago.
Sorry this is so long winded I just wanted to make sure I covered all the bases. With all of my hobies sometimes my tank gets egnored but I have found this has never really been a bad thing. After my tank crashed and I let it go, everything grew really well.
Oh I almost forgot I have a sump with refugium, protein skimmer, and I dose home made 2 part with dosing pumps. Every once and a while I put a big Balance Block in there. Not sure if that even does anything but I have heard a few good things about them locally. I am thinking with regular water changes this will not be needed.
In short!
I think my red slime is because of 1 of 3 or all 3 things
1 Crappy lighting, my fault.
FIX - Orphek LED hood is 5 days away so we will see if that helps.
2 My copper crash, my fault again.
FIX "“ took electric cord out of water!
3 my lack of up keep on my tank, my fault
FIX "“ ummmm I am already doing more.
Now that I think back I also used flat worm exit because I had a bunch of the little red flatworms all over. It worked great but that could have contributed to the red slime.
Please remember this has been over a 5 year span. I do not just dump the next thing that I find into my tank.
I do regret doing the red slime control. That is what made me write this in the first place. I feel that it could have killed my natural beneficial bacteria.
Any suggestion would be welcome.
You guys are the bomb!
Oh I also dosed SB today. We will see if it works!
I got it at the LFS on my lunch it was their last bottle.
When I got home the freash seal was broken and it looked like it was 1 to 2 inches low in the bottle. I opened the bottle and it did not smell at all. This surprised me. I am wondering if it is still as potent. I am putting in an order online for some more today.
Thank you for reading.
Hopefully with will help bring this thread back, not kill it off totally with my bad grammar and run on sentences and really long post:thumbsup:
red slime control
red slime control, remover, what ever you want to call it.
I have had this issue for over a year now. I had it about a year after I started my tank. then I got an ecotech mp40. seem to cut back on the issue.
I will be honest. I am terrible about doing water changes, making sure my skimmer is working etc.
well one day I got all jazzed about my tank.
thought I would clean it all up and make it look nice. this was a little over a year ago. it cleaning up my mess of wires, hoses, etc I ended up knocking one of the wires to one of my 110v fans in the sump and I did not know this. 15 mins later everything was sliming, water was cloudy everything looked jacked! I was testing the water as fast as I could to try and figure out what went wrong. as a last ditch effort I tested copper. it was through the roof. I mean so hight that the test would not measure it. I was in disbelief. I ended up taking another sample and testing again. same result. how could this be? I ended up slowing down and taking a step back and working through the issue. that was when I found the wire laying in the water. I pulled it out and there was no copper in the housing. through electrolysis it has eaten away the copper wire and it was now in my tank. dissolved instantly. ran down to LFS and got some copper remover stuff that i put in a sock filter and put in in my over flow. I also did a 80% water change. what could it hurt right? I just wanted the stuff out of there! all my acros died, clams dead, birds nests dead. pretty much everything died but my LPSs and softies. still surprised they even lived. let the tank work it magic and everything started coming back even the red slime.
ok back on subject. sorry still gets me a little emotional.
ever sense then I have had red slime issues.
I have used red slime control twice. no bad side effects that i can tell.
protein skimmer is working great. doing regular water changes, checking perimeters, etc. everything is good. phosphates 0, nitrates 0.
Right now I am going to try the SB because red slime remover it cam right back after about 2 months.
I have checked my RO water, it is clean,
This stuff is growing everywhere.
A few thought after reading this entire thread, you guys can comment if you want or to correct me if I am wrong
At the beginning of the thread I would get mad about people talking about flow, my thought was if I have flow it may not grow anywhere because it can not latch on but it is still in my tank and I do not like that. I also think was bunk because I know people who propagate corals and they have hardly any flow in their frag tanks and they do not have the redslime issue.
My thought on this is maybe if there is enough movement in the water column it may have a chance to get taken out by the protein skimmer. So flow does have something to do with it just not in the way I "œwas" thinking.
Second is after my copper hit I know there was a lot of die off. Not just corals but pods, feather dusters, etc. A lot of good things that I know my reef was using to clean the water. Now I have to start over with all of that. With out those things taking out the bad stuff maybe that is why I am having such a big problem with red slime.
Lastly I am thinking it has got to be light quality. I am a cheapo, I my ebay MH lights and they are over a year old. My T5 lights are some that I got for free that were over 6 months old when I got them a year ago.
Sorry this is so long winded I just wanted to make sure I covered all the bases. With all of my hobies sometimes my tank gets egnored but I have found this has never really been a bad thing. After my tank crashed and I let it go, everything grew really well.
Oh I almost forgot I have a sump with refugium, protein skimmer, and I dose home made 2 part with dosing pumps. Every once and a while I put a big Balance Block in there. Not sure if that even does anything but I have heard a few good things about them locally. I am thinking with regular water changes this will not be needed.
In short!
I think my red slime is because of 1 of 3 or all 3 things
1 Crappy lighting, my fault.
FIX - Orphek LED hood is 5 days away so we will see if that helps.
2 My copper crash, my fault again.
FIX "“ took electric cord out of water!
3 my lack of up keep on my tank, my fault
FIX "“ ummmm I am already doing more.
Now that I think back I also used flat worm exit because I had a bunch of the little red flatworms all over. It worked great but that could have contributed to the red slime.
Please remember this has been over a 5 year span. I do not just dump the next thing that I find into my tank.
I do regret doing the red slime control. That is what made me write this in the first place. I feel that it could have killed my natural beneficial bacteria.
Any suggestion would be welcome.
You guys are the bomb!
Oh I also dosed SB today. We will see if it works!
I got it at the LFS on my lunch it was their last bottle.
When I got home the freash seal was broken and it looked like it was 1 to 2 inches low in the bottle. I opened the bottle and it did not smell at all. This surprised me. I am wondering if it is still as potent. I am putting in an order online for some more today.
Thank you for reading.
Hopefully with will help bring this thread back, not kill it off totally with my bad grammar and run on sentences and really long post:thumbsup:
Obi-dad
Active member
I had a major outbreak of cyano this summer (at least partly because I am outdoors all summer and neglect the tank), and tried SB. It didn't do much for over a month, but the cyano is almost completely gone in the last couple weeks. I think this stuff actually works.
Don't give up on it if you don't notice results immediately.
Don't give up on it if you don't notice results immediately.
DarkXerox
New member
I had a couple outbreaks that I wanted to take care of that started in July or so. I had cyano all over the sand and rocks, then red planaria on top of that! It was like having leopard spotted cyano and was pretty disgusting. I hit the tank with 3 treatments of Flatworm eXit and the population came down to the occasional one or two that I manually remove with airline tubing and a pipette tip. After that, I started using N/P biopellets in a phosban 150 reactor, which dropped my nitrates from ~15 to 0.2ppm.
Fast forward about a month to 11/5 where I started dosing SB after reading this thread. My 3rd dose is today and I'm going to do it at night as JB NY mentioned he does. In addition I'm going to pipette about 1mL doses into the sandbed to try and give them a foothold in the upper layers.
So far the cyano has gotten worse since I began, but I think I will start siphoning/agitating the sandbed as well since others have done this.
The tank is about 5 years old and I've had cyano once or twice in the past, but never any redbug treatments as I chose to "spot treat" colonies in a bucket instead.
Fast forward about a month to 11/5 where I started dosing SB after reading this thread. My 3rd dose is today and I'm going to do it at night as JB NY mentioned he does. In addition I'm going to pipette about 1mL doses into the sandbed to try and give them a foothold in the upper layers.
So far the cyano has gotten worse since I began, but I think I will start siphoning/agitating the sandbed as well since others have done this.
The tank is about 5 years old and I've had cyano once or twice in the past, but never any redbug treatments as I chose to "spot treat" colonies in a bucket instead.
ha just started taggin along. there are far worse things that can happen in our glass boxes. and ive got a few goin at the same time. 1 - red bubble(driven me nuts, wish i had the green that just flakes off). 2- ICH just lost a lytail anthias and a lemon peel, got everyone else in qt last night. 3- red slime, covering rocks around the red bubble algea and taking over sand bed.
going to get some special blend, and do insane amounts of water changes while my tank runs fallow for 8 weeks. i can hope and pray all these issues will be eliminated by the time i re-introduce my fish.
going to get some special blend, and do insane amounts of water changes while my tank runs fallow for 8 weeks. i can hope and pray all these issues will be eliminated by the time i re-introduce my fish.
I like the idea of injecting into the sandbed.. However, you will note in this thread that after initiating SB, the cyano got worse for me and others as well. Then, started to receed. Good Luck to you...
Agreed in that there are worse things to contend with.. Carbon dosing has been a double edged sword for me. Far less anlage and more cyano.. However, the tank is starting to balance off nicely. SB is good stuff in my oppinion and if used properly, I do believe it makes a heck of a difference.
westreef
Lost as usual
Jbanks,
I have been struggling with red slime since April and have had no success nomatter what I did. Then I discovered this thread and started using SB. After finishing 5 doses, the red slime was in check and did not spread but still a lot of them on the sand and rock. At that time my scheduled vacation was up and had to leave the country for 3 weeks. I was a little panicked and wanted to make a decision whether I should use Red Slime Remover or not. Finally, I made up my mind not to use any chemical to mess around with my tank since I had added a few nice SPS frags.
So during the vacation period I had my friend kept an eye on my tank, with skimmer turned off, reduced feeding (once every 4 days), daylight lamps on only 6 hours. I expected that when I returned, the red slime would cover everywhere. To my present surprise, I did not find any red slime except a dime size of it behind a rock on the back wall. I can not pin point exactly what has or have contributed to this. But I think the SB may play a part on this. Thanks for this thread. I have just ordered another SB for maintenance and hope the red slime stay clear of my tank.
I have been struggling with red slime since April and have had no success nomatter what I did. Then I discovered this thread and started using SB. After finishing 5 doses, the red slime was in check and did not spread but still a lot of them on the sand and rock. At that time my scheduled vacation was up and had to leave the country for 3 weeks. I was a little panicked and wanted to make a decision whether I should use Red Slime Remover or not. Finally, I made up my mind not to use any chemical to mess around with my tank since I had added a few nice SPS frags.
So during the vacation period I had my friend kept an eye on my tank, with skimmer turned off, reduced feeding (once every 4 days), daylight lamps on only 6 hours. I expected that when I returned, the red slime would cover everywhere. To my present surprise, I did not find any red slime except a dime size of it behind a rock on the back wall. I can not pin point exactly what has or have contributed to this. But I think the SB may play a part on this. Thanks for this thread. I have just ordered another SB for maintenance and hope the red slime stay clear of my tank.
MarkGrant
New member
In the words of the Monkey's...I'm a Believer! I read this forum a couple of weeks ago after a fairly bad outbreak of cyano. Just put in me second treatment and I can no longer see any cyano, my sandbed looks pristine and my rocks (which were covered in a film) are now completely clean as well.
Special Blend...I'm a Believer!
Special Blend...I'm a Believer!
Last edited:
That's great news westreef. I have had nothing but positive results using this product. My apologies for not responding sooner. I had not not seen your post until the post by MarkGrant.
Fantastic! Make sure you follow through with all the treatments, then stay on top of your maintenance dosing.. You should continue to see good results. :thumbsup:
Just an update:
I have been doing 1 week water changes with the SB per instructions and I no longer have any red slime junk in my tank.
worked for me!
I might still do the maintenance schedule. I am not sure yet.
DarkXerox
New member
So after having no real results to show for two months (11/5 to 1/5) of special blend going by the bottle's dosing directions along with vacuuming the cyano during water changes, I decided to go lights out for 72h. I switched it up by also dosing SB daily for those 3 days. By the third day, the cyano had shrunk to little tiny balls about 2mm across. I siphoned those out that morning and went with actinics only the 4th day, then half halide duration the 5th, to normal lights on the 6th. So far I don't see any cyano left except for tiny patches that aren't growing.
So finally I would say the battle is pretty much won! My nitrates spiked a bit during this time due to the dieoff, so I added more biopellets (50mL) to compensate. Skimmate has been higher than usual and levels are dropping. So it looks like the good bacteria finally are back in control of the sandbed!
For reference, I had the cyano problems before starting biopellets. It's nice being able to actually SEE the sand again too. It's been months...
So finally I would say the battle is pretty much won! My nitrates spiked a bit during this time due to the dieoff, so I added more biopellets (50mL) to compensate. Skimmate has been higher than usual and levels are dropping. So it looks like the good bacteria finally are back in control of the sandbed!
For reference, I had the cyano problems before starting biopellets. It's nice being able to actually SEE the sand again too. It's been months...
