Cyanobacteria,The Red Death and how to deal wiyh it

rigleautomotive

rigleautomotive

Premium Member
This has been a question that I get asked most often so I thought I would start a thread here to try and help some with there battle.I have fought Cyano many times in various aquariums over the past 15 years and this list of things to do is a compilation of the processes I do to help with this stuborn pest.Together they have proven to me and others a viable method to deal with cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae, photosynthetic bacteria that contain chlorophyll.

The way I fight cyano is:
increase random flow(strong to very strong),remove sand in 3 steps at 1 week intervals.filter all surface skimmed water thru large 100 micron bags that you clean,change twice a week,increase protein skimming and clean skimmer often(every 2 or 3 days),reduce feeding,keep tank temp on the lower end of spectrum(77 f),turkey baste and syphon(manual removal) cyano weekly while doing 25%water changes with 0 TDS rodi water and good reef salt(red sea coral pro),clean deiterus and sediment from bottom of tank and sump weekly ,run a good quality GFO (phos ban,bulk reef GFO)and change every 3 to 4 weeks,run GAC and change monthly.

Thank You,
Dan Rigle
 
great post!
interesting on lowering the temp. Myself and several other reefers have experienced cyano as "seasonal"; it occurs in the spring - early summer when the weather warms. I don't run a chiller and the tank does get about 2 degrees warmer in the summer, so this might fit.
 
you know I have noticed that mine has started to disappear now that I am running the AC and the tank temp is lower
 
Thanks .I guess a spell and grammar check could have helped but even without that I believe it may help some peeps that are having issues.I get PM's and emails on this quite often.
 
vivek said:
How does gac help with Cyanobacteria ? Also what about starving the algae of all light?
Click to expand...


GAC will remove excess nutrients and impurities that the cyano may feed on.This plan is my compilation of actions I have taken thru the years with great success.There are many other methods and some may work for you but I personally cannot recommend any I did not try myself.The lights out period has been reported to have some initial quick results but often times the problem returns as soon as the normal photo period is resumed.My method removes the nutrients and particulates that the cyano seems to need and over time starves the bacteria out.Its not a quick fix and can take months to see a big improvement but it has worked every time .
 
Just bumping this up a bit.Still getting PMs and emails about cyano.Many that have tried this have reported good results so TTT again.HTH
 
bump,
cause my cyano problem has been killin me i just plugged my heaters back in maybe one has gone bad guess, i'm going another water change.
 
2.5 years since I wrote this.I still get calls and messages inquiring on how I deal with this problem so I figured it could use another bump.

The only thing I would like to add after 2.5 more years of experience is that I have found that elevating the ph of the system with lime water to 8.2 to 8.5 and keeping it there while keeping alk,cal and mg withing range also seems to eradicate red slime quite well.I will caution though that if you do not possess a good ph meter that is calibrated often,this is a risky way to go.PH can easily go beyond 8.6 or greater causing some negative responses from the animals
 
Dan,

thanks for the thread, i have beeen seeng some improvement in areas, but im stil not pleased..im doing my daily cleanings , changing media out, water changes etc.. but its has still affected a few a of my corals..The largest change i saw was the temp swing, when it got warm and humid thats when it started when i cooled my house down it dramatcaly is seeming to hault.. m als playing with dfferent humidties in my fish room which I also think has something to do wit it
 
And if all else fails...RED SLIME REMOVER.. I have done all of the above and it usually works. Within the last year it occurred twice and I had to go the Chemical route. Amazingly, nothing noticable died, not my peppermints, nor snails, nor various star fish, nor corals (sps,lps, and soft). I really was amazed at how well it worked. However, once you follow the directions, KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR SKIMMER. Man does it go crazy.

thanks

rich
 
Yes it can but.

Problem I see with this product(basically erythomycin) is the re occurrence of the problem cyano(unless the initial nutrient load and/or bank is removed from the equation) and each time it gets a bit more resistant to the anti-biotic in this product(do I hear super bug at some point)continued use will wipe out good bacteria populations and the micro fauna will suffer.This will work its way up the food chain and eventually be a negative to the animals long term.Erythomycin is not capable of selectively killing only nuisance bacteria and will put a dent in many beneficial colonies as well.I try not to recommend or practice bacteria manipulation as it is a loaded weapon and can get out of control quite easily.
 
You make an excellent point about resistance. However, if you have tried all other methods listed above, and you still cannot get red slime away, it is either live with it or try a baterial method. Considering how quickly it comes back and starts to "sufficate" non-mobile coral, I chose the baterial route. Mind you it was not my first preference, and I never thought of the resistance factor. It might be why it came back.

Excellent point made.

+1 rigleautomtive

rich
 
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