Dosing Nopox, cyano, and red spectrum

[Potatohead]

So I have been dosing Nopox for some time, and it seems o be working well in bringing my nitrates down. However over the last week or so I have been getting a good amount of cyano on my sand. My nitrate is currently at 3 and phosphate at .03 (at least in the water). I understand cyano is typically caused by an imbalance between N&P with N being too low in relation, so because of this I have reduced my dose by 50% for now. I have been manually siphoning the cyano as well as increased flow in the tank.

I came across a couple posts by RedSea that they don't recommend much red spectrum when using Nopox as this can also lead to cyano. I currently have a Sunpower with four Blue+, two Coral+, one Purple+ and one actinic. I like the purple in there because I like the warmer look in the tank, but now I am thinking I should probably change the purple to another coral or blue, which I have as spares. My cyano is more brown than red, I don't know if that makes a difference.

Should I wait and see if the reduced dosage helps or should I swap the bulb now as well? I don't want to use Chemiclean or do a light shut down for a few days since I have lots of SPS in the tank.

Thanks

 

[timnem70]

How old is the tank

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[Potatohead]

How old is the tank

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This tank is only five weeks old, but I used half my sand from my old tank and all the rock is from the old tank. So, it's half new sand, if that matters. 95% of the cyano is on the sand but there is also a little bit on some rocks.

 

[timnem70]

Yep. Still new. Just ride it out and keep vacuuming, doing water changes and feeding a bit less. Wait for the "old sand" to rebuild it's buffering capabilities. You will be good. What kind d of skimmer and waste removal are you using? Sump, fuge? Any? Haha

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[Potatohead]

Yep. Still new. Just ride it out and keep vacuuming, doing water changes and feeding a bit less. Wait for the "old sand" to rebuild it's buffering capabilities. You will be good. What kind d of skimmer and waste removal are you using? Sump, fuge? Any? Haha

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I have a sump, but no fuge, just dosing Nopox and using a skimmer, which I just changed two weeks ago. I had an older Eshopps model and upgraded to the new S-120. However with both skimmers they seem to idle a lot since I got the new tank going (whole system is 70 - 75 gallons). When they pull stuff out though they do a good job. I do have a pretty light load in there.

 

[timnem70]

and a brand new tank.

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[bertoni]

Since the tank is fairly new, I'd just wait a bit to see whether the cyanobacteria goes away on its own. Are there any corals that are in trouble?

 

[Potatohead]

Not really, there's a bit on some zoanthid skirts but those heads aren't even closed.

Most of the cyano is in the front half of the tank, I had the purple+ in the middle of my lighting fixture and had the coral+'s toward the front and back, I swapped two of them so the purple is now at the back. I don't know if it will do anything but I figure it can't hurt.

I will keep monitoring and go from there.

 

[bertoni]

Okay, as long as the animals are okay, I wouldn't do anything drastic.

 

[Martin Kuhn]

From my experience Cyanobacteria are not impressed by the exact light spectrum of a tank.

They "occupy" available space of your sand and possibly also rocks if "no other (good) bacteria use this space."

Improvements will come if you
- have enough nutrient reducing bacteria in your tank
- have enough flow around the areas where cyano might attach
- remove manually now but later on have a living cleaning crew on your sand (digging starfish, v. Sexguttata, v. Puellaris. A.phalaena)

Cyano bacteria themselves are not brownish. If the coverings in your tank are, it might be a mix of cyano with
- diatoms
- golden algae
- dinoflagellates
Picture ?

In newly cycled tanks the measures that should be taken are the same



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[vashawn]

its funny cause i have a 1 year old 300 and i bought 3 bucket red sea coral pro and the NOPOX came free with it.
My phosphate was slight high so i decide to use it about 1/2 capful everyday started about 5 days ago. Now im cleaning my glass every 2 day and started to see red slime on my LR.
i will discontinue using the NOPOX

 

[tmz]

I'd bet on the old sand and organics embedded there sourcing it;though, it may be an adjustment to the new carbon sourcing and changes in the numbers of other organisms competing with the cyano for nutrients during start up or the cyano taking advantage of the increased orgnanic carbon from carbon dosing or a number of other things.

How much NOPOX were you dosing and how much are you dosing now?

I understand cyano is typically caused by an imbalance between N&P with N being too low in relation


Not sure of your meaning but 3ppm NO3 and .03ppm PO4 is not indicative of a nitrogen deficiency that could limit PO4 uptake if there was one which seems not to be the case . The cyano needs both nitrogen and phosphate and much of it can produce it's own nitrogen.

 

[Potatohead]

OK, bumping this up.

After fighting this for a couple weeks when this thread was originally posted, I ended up using Chemiclean. Stuff worked really well, but the cyano came back about a month later. Since then I have been fighting it for a couple months.

Steps I have taken in the last two months;

- I reduced my nopox dose from 3ml to .3ml over the course of about a week, and it has been .3ml for about five or six weeks now. Nitrate has of course increased to about 15 - 20, phosphate is .03 - .07 typically.

- Vacuum the sand and remove as much cyano as possible 1 - 2 times a week. Blow it all off the rocks, wait an hour, change filter sock. It comes back within 1 - 2 days.

- Increased my flow by about 20%, I have four MP10's in a 66g tank, lots of flow.

Initially the cyano was mostly on the sand, about a month ago it started to get better on the sand (maybe half) but it's now growing on the rocks as well.

The thing is my corals (mainly SPS and some acans) are actually doing really well, so I'm really just hoping this is a tank cycle thing, but I don't know. I'm starting to grasp at straws a little bit and wondering if it's my salt mix (50/50 Seachem Reef and IO), or thinking about pulling out my purple bulb for another blue, which is ultimately why I am bumping this thread. I've even thought about upping my nopox dose again to get nitrate lower. I don't really know if that will help or not but I don't know what else to try at this point. I can just let it ride and see if it goes away but it seems to me it shouldn't take this long if it was going to burn itself out. Who knows.

 

[ajoe]

Tough little sucker to fight and I know it's frustrating. I as well as most have had to deal with cyano at one time or another so we feel your pain. Other than being unsightly it offers no real harm to any organisms so no worries there. ChemiClean was worth a try and for some it is a one time treatment and problem solved. For others it is a momentary solution such as you are experiencing. Steps I took that seem to end the problem after trying things similar to your efforts.

1) stop broadcasting this throughout the tank with blowing/siphoning.
2) start running RowaPhos in a reactor and allow it time to catch up to your system
3) decrease what/when you feed and rinse all frozen food and drain off before entering tank.
3) feed every other day and only what they can consume in 2 mins or less
5) use zero phosphate dry food such as New Life Spectrum and/or Hikari pellets
6) 15% water change every 7 days and don't miss a week during this stage
7) decrease lighting intensity and duration: decrease white spectrum to no more than 15% (slowly of course) maybe 2% a day. Blues and Violets to 50-60% max. Coral will be just fine as the white light is for human eyes predominantly and with LEDs the intensity is already ramped up
8) 3 day total blackout may help but without steps 1-7 may have a temporary effect same as the chemiclean. corals won't love this and you will need to acclimate them back at the end of 3 days. You might skip this altogether but an option.
9) give it time.

I am sure others will chime in with some valuable advice that I am missing or success they have had. Each tank is unique and there is no one fix. If there was we wouldn't have to deal with this issue. This worked for me.