reefmutt
Active member
No matter what people say about nutrient balances and ratios, sometimes cyano just appears and sometimes it appears because of too much po4 or too much n or too little.. or a dirty ro unit.. or dirty air.. or too little flow.... I really don't think that anyone could look at a system, do all the tests and predict it's arrival..
But once cyano does appear, it has many effects in a system. For one, it can completely mislead the owner about nutrient issues by skewing test results when binding nutrients. And once it has bound all the nutrients, it can starve other algae and or coral. All while creating a comfy little home for itself.
The only time I ever get cyano is when my nutrients are dropping.. when they have been high, my system is at its most algae free it seems.. I have cyano now in my system.. only appeared once n got below 1ppm and p remained high.. now that I am dosing n and LC to help reduce p, I plan on dosing some chemi clean myself..
As I've said before, I have watched cyano appear in wonderfully balanced systems where nutrient are low and corals and cheato are thriving. When cyano appears, cheato often suffers and suddenly the whole system gets out of whack.. treating with cyano killing products when you have systems in place to take up nutrient slack, isn't (I don't think) doing a bandaid treatment. It's altering the nutrient/element and micro faunal landscape to promote the health of the fuge and corals so that they can establish a balance instead of the cyano..
It's pretty near impossible to set up a healthy fuge when cyano has taken hold because it is binding nutrients and probably minerals as well.. it's often tough to do anything to rid a system without resorting to extreme nutrient stripping and lights out protocols which imo are way more detrimental to the system than adding a benign chemical to kill the cyano..
Brandon has a ton of biological media, an algae fuge and a good skimmer... there is a solid probability that once the cyano is killed off, his systems will be more effective at attaining a balance- cyano free..
This is the goal anyways and not always the outcome, I know..
Samm, sometimes (I know.. not always) treating with chemi clean or rsr IS treating the issue causing the cyano.. but not always.. it is most certainly not ALWAYS only a bandaid. But yes sometimes it is if no attempt is made to alter the system which caused caused the cyan in the first place.
Bulent, these products will not eradicate cyano from a system but they will kill it off, allowing a new regimen or filtration method or a maturing system to take over..
Sometimes it comes back, though..
