Experimenting seems counterintuitive as everybody always says stability, stability, stability but I think it's about the proper pace and proper choice of actions.
You don't want to do multiple changes at once and more importantly, you want to give enough time for whatever change you made to either work or not..
I remember that when my tank was doing crap, I was getting desperate and pi**ed off, I just started trying everything at once..
Bulent, would you kindly share you final method of vanguishing the cyano?
I know you have posted it either on your thread or this one, but I'm not sure where..
My cyano is down to small spots here and there but it is coming back ever so slowly..
You're method, I remember was mostly bacterial based.. I'd like to give it a try in the future.. I won't do it any time soon..
The next thing I'm going to try to get my cheato to grow better is redirect my calcium reactor effluent into the cheato. Maybe, hopefully the direct infusion of co2 will give it a boost..
You are absolutely right about pace of changes. It is for this reason that it took me over 3 years to experiment with only a handful of methods (such as wet skimming, Rowaphos, GAC, KZ coral snow, KZ ZEObak, KZ Cyanoclean, KZ ZEOzym, KZ A-balance). I gave each method (or a combination of methods) enough time to observe its effectiveness.
People have different theories about the causes of cyanobacteria, such as too much phosphates, too little nitrates, too much organics, red field ratio, etc. because every tank is different and there are different strands of cyanobacteria, what works in one set up may not work in another.
My hypothesis was that there was a nutrient imbalance in my tank that enabled cyanobacteria to exploit. Specifically, I hypothesised that nitrates and phosphates were not in balance in my tank. I further hypothesised that raising them in a balanced way will mean that cyanobacteria will not be able to compete against bacteria and algae that will thrive as a result. Until I started to use Tropic Marine NP bacto balance, nitrates and phosphate were not detectable and yet there were heavy cyanobacteria everywhere. Zero readings, of course, do not mean that there are no nutrients. It is in fact the opposite in that there is not enough to encourage other life forms, such as bacteria and macro/micro algae to thrive, so that there would be competition against cyanobacteria.
I devised a long term plan last February. I changed my skimmer to Deltec 1350 from Bubble Magus Nac 6. I installed a kalkwasser stirrer to raise pH as well as removing phosphates by means of chemical precipitation. In addition, I stopped using Rowa Phos to encourage corals to utilise organic phosphates in natural means. Importantly, I started to use a set of Tropic Marin products, NP Bacto balance, Tropic Marin Pro A- elements and Tropic Marin Pro K+ elements. I subscribed to a German forum to get as much information from Hans-Werner Balling as possible about these products. These products are really not designed for tackling cyanobacteria. The idea is to control nutrients in a reef tank. NP bacto balance introduces nitrogen, phosphates and organic carbon in proportion to each other. Nitrates are introduced to feed corals and bacteria, so that phosphates are reduced. Organic carbon is introduced, so that excess nitrates are consumed by them (note that some nitrates are still left in the eater column to avoid starvation of corals). Phosphates are introduced, so that even if bacteria reduce them there will always be some present in the water column to feed the corals, thus avoiding their starvation.
After starting with trace amounts of NP bacto balance, I gradually built up the desired dose by increasing and then decreasing the dosing amount. In addition, I started to use KZ sponge power, which I endorse wholeheartedly, at the maximum dose every day to encourage filter feeders to create a balanced environment. I also used KZ coral snow and ZEObak regularly to boost bacteria (though I stopped this practice shortly after using Siporax). Finally, I added a lot fish in the past few months to increase nitrates further. Where I am at at the moment is that my nitrate readings (Salifert) are constant at 2.5 ppm and phosphate readings (Elos high sensitivity) are constant around 0.015 mg/l (phosphorus) despite feeding my 16 fishes three times a day. Once nitrates and phosphates started to rise, I started to see first signs of micro algae/byropsis (in isolated places). When this happened, I knew that they would spell the end of cyano bacteria because finally I created an environment in which competitors of cyano would survive to outcompete cyano. And they did. The next challenge is now to ensure that these competitors, which are themselves nuisance, will simply keep cyano suppressed without allowing them to thrive, hence introducing additional methods, such as siporax, to keep nitrates in check. I may even use small amounts of GFO passively to fine tune my method at a later date.
Consequently, I believe that I proved my hypothesis correct (though not scientifically) in that once a diversified environment with readable nitrates and phosphates is created, cyanobacteria can be outcompeted. Further experiments are needed to confirm or deny my findings. A fellow reefer in Norway is trying my method (i.e. use of the aforementioned Tropic Marin products) to combat cyanobacteria. I will report back as soon as I hear from him.
I have realised that I have written too long. Sorry. :sad2:
. To bring it up just use the Brightwell "Potassion", the Zeo stuff is too dilute and too expensive. There are other similar products that will work as well if you can't get Brightwell.
