Really thick cyano or something else?

[borillion_star]

What is this stuff, is it cyanobacteria or something else? it appears very jelly-like?

 

[borillion_star]

i mean the red substance.:sad2:

 

[RayAllen3422]

Is it just coraline algae?

 

[cloak]

Does it come off the rocks fairly easy?

 

[jraker]

looks like coralline to me

 

[borillion_star]

Some of its kinda bouncing in the current. I haven't tried pulling any off but it looks like its on there pretty good.

 

[cloak]

It's kind of hard to tell exactly what it is from that picture, but if it doesn't come off the rocks easily like Cyanobacteria would then it might be red bubble algae or something along those lines.

http://www.saltcorner.com/AquariumLibrary/browsespecies.php?CritterID=2087

 

[borillion_star]

Ok so I was gone for a while, hoping the stuff would die off with water changes and reducing to 8 hours of light. Its jelly like and scrapes off with a good push. I added the fluvial cycle stuff, over the last week stopped the changes to let the fluvial bacteria take. Its been 8 weeks and this tank was previously running and all I did was move it and set it backup.
It was down only about an hour.

I took out out bioballs and added filter floss, so far I have 90% of the old Nitrate and Ammonia pads removed, replaced it with just a 4x4 inch piece of filter floss. I came back from the weekend and its pretty bad, its growing in clumps on the sand Should I try and wait out more with water changes or nuke the tank boil and stir?

 

[borillion_star]

I have a few more pics here, sorry some of them are a bit dark.

http://s224.photobucket.com/user/etechsv/library/Biocube 29

 

[borillion_star]

Nobody?

 

[BeanMachine]

Looks like cyano to me.

 

[borillion_star]

I am at a loss of what to do here, should I tear it down and boil everything? What causes it to be so heavy. I only have some filter floss back there and small piece of nitrate/ammonia pad. I added carbon about a week ago.

 

[slief]

I am at a loss of what to do here, should I tear it down and boil everything? What causes it to be so heavy. I only have some filter floss back there and small piece of nitrate/ammonia pad. I added carbon about a week ago.

Poor husbandry and a lack of flow cause large cyano ourbreaks. Cyano bacteria feeds on waste that settles. Vacuuming the sand regularly to remove waste will help and vacuuming the rocks to remove the cyano followed by blasting them with a powerhead to remove detritus also helps. Then you need to increase the flow substantially so that stuff doesn't settle on the bottom of the tank and in the rocks.

Lastly, the only other thing that I have found that helps keep cyano at bay is a properly sized quality UV filter. That will reduce the cyano that is in the water column thus reducing it elsehwere in the tank while improving water quality but you still need to address the root of the issue. If you maintain a clean tank with lots of flow and no dead spots, cyano shouldn't be much of a problem.

Lastly, don't get caught up in red slime removers. They use antibiotics that don't differentiate between cyano bacteria and good denitrifying bacteria. Cyano removers like chemi clean damage the bacterial bed in the tank which can cause other issues and they are only a short term band-aid that will do nothing long term except impact your tank for the worse. You need to start taking care of the waste in the tank and address flow issues if you want to beat it.

 

[borillion_star]

Thing is I have no livestock in it other than live-rock, sand and some snails and hermits. I feed nothing at all. I bought it off a neighbor who was moving and set it back up within an hour, hoping to do a mini-cycle and add fish.

Its been about 9 weeks now and its just not seeming to settle in. I guess I am going into a full recycle. Even in this case I have not seen anything like this. My last two tanks never had this amount of cyanobacteria and those where new setups. I haven't done changes for about the last week and half in order to let the Fluvial cycle bacteria do their work.

I am using RODI water treated with Prime, Red Sea Salt and nitrates, nitrites, ammonia all at zero in the mix bucket. There has to be something I am missing. Whatever it is, it hasn't killed the CUC yet.

I am going to check levels again today after work, and return to 20% water changes daily? So lost with this one here.

 

[slief]

Just because you don't have fish, doesn't mean there isn't waste in the tank. Some of that could have be transferred when the tank was moved. There are worms and such in the rocks that pull nutrients from the water and create waste as well. I would start doing some vacumming and blasting as I mentioned above. Cyano generally only accumulates where there is low flow. Increase your flow and that will help. Also, you don't need detectable nitrates or even much Po4 for cyano to be present.

 

[Bent]

FWIW I still have cyano in my sump in low flow areas with a po4 of around .02-.04ppm.

That would read zero on any low res test kit. What are you testing with?

 

[borillion_star]

I have been testing with an API phosphate kit. The water from the RODI with the salt mix shows 0.
Testing from the tank I have somewhere between 0 and 0.25 ppm.

I have added a packet of purigen its been there for about a week now. Is it possible to leach from the rock, sand or acrylic back wall?

 

[MeghanisradxD]

I would definitely start by adjusting flow towards the areas where it settles, however, I know that's hard to do towards the sandbed as it will cause a storm.

I battled cyano in a new tank and it took 4 days of a blackout period followed up by one treatment of chemiclean to kill off the last little bit that just wouldn't go.

 

[borillion_star]

yea I put a Koralia 750 (recent) and a Koralia Nano 425 in the Biocube 29 I will point them down a bit more and see how that changes things.