Cyano

[alanmorehead]

So I have added nearly 100 lbs of sand and I am still 3 inches of water over the sand level, am I OK or do I need to be closer to and inch water level over the sand.

I don't think that should matter. As long as you have enough flow to keep the detritus suspended in the water column you should be fine.

 

[huskerreef]

rsdb is up and going, still need to add 20 more lbs of sand. Did a 100 gallon water change. Also cleaned my sump, not 100% because I ran out of water to flushout the last 1" of dirty water. Maybe some of my issues have to do with a dirty sump. It was loaded with handfuls of what appear to be some sort of worm or worm waste. Can't find anything on it. Its the color of skimmate and resembles string, it was all over the rock and under it, it very easily turns to mud. I flushed a lot of off the rocks and scooped out as much as possible. I always think of worms as being good but not sure if these guys are parasite or what. I added a power head to the sump to keep organic matter from settling on the bottom and hopefully keep in suspension to better skim out. Any help to ID these worm like stuf would be great.

 

[bohlke]

rsdb is up and going, still need to add 20 more lbs of sand. Did a 100 gallon water change. Also cleaned my sump, not 100% because I ran out of water to flushout the last 1" of dirty water. Maybe some of my issues have to do with a dirty sump. It was loaded with handfuls of what appear to be some sort of worm or worm waste. Can't find anything on it. Its the color of skimmate and resembles string, it was all over the rock and under it, it very easily turns to mud. I flushed a lot of off the rocks and scooped out as much as possible. I always think of worms as being good but not sure if these guys are parasite or what. I added a power head to the sump to keep organic matter from settling on the bottom and hopefully keep in suspension to better skim out. Any help to ID these worm like stuf would be great.

How deep did that make your RDSB?

 

[huskerreef]

the rdsb is about 15" deep. planning to add about 2 more inches of sand so my water over sand depth is closer to 1". Let the denitrifiction begin!

 

[huskerreef]

OK, I am getting impatient with the cyano, have done everything I can think of to correct everything that can be adding to the issue, my phosphates are still high .56, although I have not checked for about a week and I am waiting for Joel to stop back by and test again with the photometer, he has been doing the testing for me. Since my last test I have 1200g of rowaphos in the reactor going on day 2 and the rsdb running for about a week, added tons more flow with the new Tigershark and have done about 100 gallons of water changes with good 0 TDS water. How long do you think I will have to ride out the cyano? also what is the opinion of using a chemical attack? I am nervous about doing anything not natural as I have many wrasses that are not easily replaced. Maybe I am expecting to much to quickly.

 

[bohlke]

When you do your water changes are you vacuuming the sandbed to suck some of that out of the tank? The only other thing I would suggest is the 3 days of dark treatment to help you get ahead of the cyano. I have been fighting a bit of a strange cyano problem in my tank and I feel your pain, that stuff is such a pain to get rid of.

 

[alanmorehead]

I got impatient with the cyano in my 180 too. I talked to Jon a little about it and decided to go with the 3 days of darkness. The two stock tanks on the same system don't have it anywhere (lights are not on as long), so it makes sense. Today will be day 2 of the darkness treatment.

Chemi-clean is the chemical treatment that I've used once before with success. IIRC, the cyano was gone after about a day and didn't notice any negative effects. I think it also kills a lot of beneficial bacteria too, which is one of reasons it should be a last resort.

http://www.melevsreef.com/chemicals.html

 

[huskerreef]

Does good bacteria consume cyano? The reason I ask is that I have in the past been adding TLC and SAT wich is a bacteria that combats things like hair algae naturally. When I had hair algae issue I dosed this weekly and in short order the algae basically just disappeared. I haven't dosed it in quite some time, so maybe its time to do it again.

 

[huskerreef]

if you go 3 days dark, what about feeding fish?

 

[alanmorehead]

Does good bacteria consume cyano? The reason I ask is that I have in the past been adding TLC and SAT wich is a bacteria that combats things like hair algae naturally. When I had hair algae issue I dosed this weekly and in short order the algae basically just disappeared. I haven't dosed it in quite some time, so maybe its time to do it again.

I think one of the problems is that we don't know what is in the Chemiclean product, so don't know exactly what is going on.
I would assume the bacteria that you were adding before was consuming the nutrients in competition and starving out the hair algae, rather than doing something directly to it.

if you go 3 days dark, what about feeding fish?

I have been feeding my tank during the darkness treatment. I don't think the feeding should really matter since you're focusing on photosynthetic starvation and not nutrients.

 

[huskerreef]

Last night I dumped in a gallon each of Marine SAT and TLC bacteria,turned the skimmer off for 3 hours and turned out the lights. I dont know If I can survive 3 days without the lights on but going to try. Also did a 20 gallon water change on the 90 that has one 2" patch of cyano.

 

[alanmorehead]

I'm on the last day of my dark treatment, so we'll see how it looks tomorrow. Are you doing lights out on just the big tank?

 

[bohlke]

I have done a few 3 days of dark treatments and I havent lost a single coral, not even a small frag. One time I even covered the tank

to make sure no light got in. Even then I didnt lose any corals though they were happy to see the sun again

 

[huskerreef]

lights back on normal cycle today and no cyano to be seen in the 620...fingers crossed. still some in the 240, removed some yesterday and it seemed to not come back as bad so hopefully a sand vacuum will do the trick and maybe adding 20 more lbs of sand.

 

[bohlke]

lights back on normal cycle today and no cyano to be seen in the 620...fingers crossed. still some in the 240, removed some yesterday and it seemed to not come back as bad so hopefully a sand vacuum will do the trick and maybe adding 20 more lbs of sand.

Nice! I would vacuum both tanks if you can that way you get anything else out. Now you can hope that your new RO/DI can keep that stuff out of there.

Still fighting mine beginning to wonder if it is something else.....

 

[alanmorehead]

Well, looks like the 3 days of darkness is still doing some work. I turned my lights on Saturday and there was still some pockets of cyano that only looked like they receded a little. I've noticed over the past few days that the cyano has continued to disappear with the normal lighting schedule. :beer:

 

[huskerreef]

With everything i did im not sure what the most effective thing i did was. Im guessing the full assault did the trick, but i think the lights off was the finishing touch in the battle. Mainly because i still have a little still in the 240 and i never went dark on that one.