redslime remover and vertex biopellets

[saltyh20]

been using vertex biopellets for a month now and nitrates have hit 0 but the cyano is reproducing and some of the pellets have turned a pink color. I dosed MB7 for two weeks and thought the bacteria would out grow the cyano but not the case. i was thinking about using RedSlime Remover. Is it OK? Should i give it more time to work itself out? what do you guys think?
perams.
cal 400
alk 7.5
mag 1400
no3 0
phos 0
feeding 1 cube mysis and 1 cube phyto coral food every day. montis polyps where not extended so uped the feeding but the cyano started before i started feeding heavier. 40gal 125ml of vertex biopellets aquamedic skimmer t5 6x39w ati
Thanx

 

[Jabrams]

Rsr is very good at removing but it will come back.

What do you think the root of the problem is?

What live stock is eating all that food? Is it all being eaten ?

Can you cut back to twice a week?

 

[saltyh20]

if i cut back corals will start to starve.
is it ok to use the RSR while im using the pellets?

 

[saltyh20]

Rsr is very good at removing but it will come back.

What do you think the root of the problem is?

What live stock is eating all that food? Is it all being eaten ?

Can you cut back to twice a week?

i have 6 fish 2clowns, gobys, 2wrasses, baby blue tang. they eat everything

 

[Wind Seeker]

I have had the same issue with bio pellets. Chemi Clean will remove the cyano without problems to the reef. The root cause, however, IMO is that the cyano is using the excess carbon from the pellets. As you drive down nitrates and phosophates by the bacteria using carbon to consume the former 2, you reach a point at which carbon is not longer taken up. This results in excess carbon and cyano. You can have very low nitrates and phosophates and have cyano with the carbon. You must reduce the bio pellets to balance the system.

 

[saltyh20]

I have had the same issue with bio pellets. Chemi Clean will remove the cyano without problems to the reef. The root cause, however, IMO is that the cyano is using the excess carbon from the pellets. As you drive down nitrates and phosophates by the bacteria using carbon to consume the former 2, you reach a point at which carbon is not longer taken up. This results in excess carbon and cyano. You can have very low nitrates and phosophates and have cyano with the carbon. You must reduce the bio pellets to balance the system.

Ok makes sense. i have taken out half of the pellets i had running. so i have 60ml total. should i give the system a dose of chemiclean or wait a couple weeks and see if it goes away. the pellets are a pink color from the cyano. the cyano isn't terrible but just not going away. i'll post a pick

 

[saltyh20]

<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/?action=view&current=DSC03302.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/DSC03302.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

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[sfexplicit]

Following along. I beat the red cyan but traded it in for green cyano.

 

[Wind Seeker]

my experience is once you have cyano in a ulns the only way to remove it completely is with chemi clean. I have removed most of my bio pellets and my system is still has nitrates less than 1 and phosophates around .01 to .03. I have some cyano in the low flow areas. My sps are doing very well. good color and growth. I have a lot of flow in the tank now, but I think I will add a vortex to my system to increase the flow even further. I think this subject of cyano in ulns carbon dosing needs more thought and experimentation.

 

[saltyh20]

my experience is once you have cyano in a ulns the only way to remove it completely is with chemi clean. I have removed most of my bio pellets and my system is still has nitrates less than 1 and phosophates around .01 to .03. I have some cyano in the low flow areas. My sps are doing very well. good color and growth. I have a lot of flow in the tank now, but I think I will add a vortex to my system to increase the flow even further. I think this subject of cyano in ulns carbon dosing needs more thought and experimentation.

I def agree with you. I feel like the pellets should come with strict instructions or some kind of guildline to using them. I guess they where in a hurry to get them on the shelves. well anyway like its says on the bag and with everything in this hobby, use at own risk.
well its only been a couple days but with pulling half of the pellets out and using half of the recomended dosage of pellets the corals are noticeably better. the cyano is a little thinner but still there. so im gunna hold off on dosing RSR and hopefully i woun't have to.
my goal was to keep nitrates at 1-5ppm but it kinda got out of control with the pellets. so im still gunna feed about the same and watch nitrates to see what they do. so far still reading o ppm.

how long have you been running the pellets and what ratio?
i have 60ml/40gal

 

[chadfarmer]

I def agree with you. I feel like the pellets should come with strict instructions or some kind of guildline to using them. I guess they where in a hurry to get them on the shelves. well anyway like its says on the bag and with everything in this hobby, use at own risk.
well its only been a couple days but with pulling half of the pellets out and using half of the recommended dosage of pellets the corals are noticeably better. the cyano is a little thinner but still there. so I'm gunna hold off on dosing RSR and hopefully i won't have to.
my goal was to keep nitrates at 1-5ppm but it kinda got out of control with the pellets. so I'm still gunna feed about the same and watch nitrates to see what they do. so far still reading o ppm.

how long have you been running the pellets and what ratio?
i have 60ml/40gal

i have it too and have over 60 times turn over and used chem clean and still have a little pellets have been out for over 3 weeks

 

[Reefer33]

My opinion is that the pellets are far more efficient than what the companies give them credit and we all have way too many variables with the reactors. How much flow, etc. I used maybe a quarter of the 250mL package ecobak pellets on my 240 gal in a JNS reactor, which is awesome at suspending the pellets by the way, and they stripped my nitrates down in NO time. I even had a little bit of cyano break out and my tank has never had it! My sps started to stn at the tips, in part due to my alk being high but at least the water clarity was great why I had them online I had to pull them offline to save the sps. I guess my .02 is to proceed with extreme caution when using them. I'm thinking once we strip down the nitrates to low levels it's like having a brand new tank again, and we all know that cyano usually creeps up on us when a tank is first getting set up since there is little to no bacteria/algae to compete with the cyano. Just my thoughts on the issue

 

[purge43]

RSR is a mild anti-biotic (bacteria killer). Im in the same boat but Im affraid of killing the bacteria that I worked so hard on establishing.

 

[saltyh20]

I'm posting my experience w/ vertex biopellets in a vertex reactor with 320 gph flow threw the pellets with a quietone pump. This is my second time trying to balance my system w/ pellets and seeing diffrent results with both cyano and the amount of pellets my system could handle before things started to go south with the corals. I'm hoping this can help anyone starting out and help w/ the cyano problem everyone seems to come accross.

I started the vertex pellets in november '10 just a month after setting up my 40gal. All live stock was from a 22gal cube that i had up for a year.
22gal:
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=40gal10-20-10134.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/40gal10-20-10134.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
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<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=40gal10-20-10150.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/40gal10-20-10150.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

and into the 40gal
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=40gal10-20-10269.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/40gal10-20-10269.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
I started the process with 2weeks dosing two cap fulls of MB7 every morning w/ the skimmer off for about and 1hr somethimes 2hr and 100ml of pellets. after 2 weeks everything looked good then added 100ml. (seems like a lot of pellets but everything was looking good. PE was great corals where bright, fish where loving the extra feeding and no cyano. i was feeding about a cube of mysis a day. at this point i had added 2 other fish.
So, this is the tank in December
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=second312.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/second312.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
then in jan '11
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=DSC02929.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/DSC02929.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
so water looks super clear, corals are very bright, fish are really fat.
I kept my regular husbandry. 10% water change every week and adding cal and alk w/ top off.
i was very pleased w/ results except for a green algae on the bottom of the tank. i still felt like there was phos in the tank because of the algae, so regrettably i added 200ml of pellets. (y i know, bad move)
so Jan 13 add 200ml for a total of 400ml, so two weeks later this is what happened:
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=redbugs003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/redbugs003.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
so, thought it was red bugs, thouhgt it was the pellets putting too much nutrients in the water (because i was told that they feed your corals and that you could not overdose) had no idea. i started water changes and everything got worse. well after taking the pellets offline and doing hrs of reading here on rc about everyone experience with biopellets i finally realized it was the pellets what stripped the nutrients and starved the corals. but never had a cyano outbreak..????
so after feeding for a month and i mean heavy feading i finaly started to see some nitrates. corals started coming back. actually everything started coming back, algae and for the first time a small amount of cyano, but nothing crazy, nothing that i was worried about. i figured i would be able to get it out with water changes and the reduction of nitrates.

 

[saltyh20]

so round two;
feb and march i was doing my basic husbandry. normal feeding (nothing crazy) and 10% water changes every week. after 2months nitrates where still reading 10-15ppm. tiny bit of cyano and dicyota algae had started growing on the rocks pretty aggressively. so, after thought of vodka dosing or GFO i decide to try vertex BP again since i had good results the first month. i was testing nitrates and phos. No3 10-15 and Phos 0. so i start w/ 75ml of BP and started 2 weeks of MB7 and turning off the skimmer for 3 hrs a day in the morning.

here are some pic before the 2nd attempt, you can see algae and cyano and death from 1st BP dose
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=DSC03064.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/DSC03064.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
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75ml and a month of running BP nitrates still 10-15ppm so i added 75ml total of 150ml. within three days nitrates hit 0. i started feeding more because fish where starting to get skinnier than i liked them and i knew i was going to have to compete with the pellets for nutrients for the corals. 2-weeks later corals looking not so good and cyano still on the live rock and it looked to be spreading. these are pics at the tanks worst
<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=DSC03283.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/DSC03283.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
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<a href="http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/?action=view&current=DSC03285.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x444/rickcar11/biopellet/DSC03285.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
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everything looked pale, frogspawn wasnt coming out, and so on. fish loved it because they where being fed constantly.
i had been debating whether to dose RsR or see if reducing the pellets to half the dose would work.
in conclusion everything was looking pretty bad and cyano wasnt budgging so i took the pellets offline. the day i took them offline the frowgspawn opened up huge. its been about a week and everything looks good and cyano is starting to go away and i havent done a water change. feeding has been 1/4 to half a cube of mysis a day.
i wish i had the answers to my questions, so thats y im posting my experience w/BP, either to hopefully help someone thinkin about doing it, or get some answers from others that have succeeded at it.
i feel like it would be great for a fish only system that wants to do some serious feeding or some one with a large tank and heavy bioload. my02
mybe i'll try it again:spin2:

i'll post pics in a month w/out Bp and see where the cyano is

 

[Dog boy Dave]

I understand that the cyano may be an indicator of a nutrient imbalance or more accurately perhaps a sign of a bottle neck in your nitrogen cycle. As such it may be useful to monitor and assist you to manage your cycle. However, it seems that some of the posts here are concerned about the elimination of the cyano rather than balancing the cycle itself.
I see how you may use the cyno as an indicator and management tool, but why the concern about eliminating it altogether? In my experience, cyano by itself doesnt hurt anything. I would be more concerned about introducing a product toxic to bacteria into a system that depends on bacteria for final nutrient reduction. Why all the hate?

 

[Wind Seeker]

IMO and iME, BP's can lead to excess carbon in ULNS which can lead to cyano. Cyano can lead to coral death IME. In my system (400 gal), I never use more than a cup of BPs. I think less, much less, is better. I have also got my flow rate up to 40x turn over which has help with the elimination of cyano. BTW, the vortech pump (my new additon) are great for increasing flow. My system always has low nitrates and Phosaphates (<1 and <.03). Unfortunately, this hobby/obsession relies on both knowlege, experience and experimentation. To many variable in everyone's systems to declare any absolutes.

 

[Dog boy Dave]

I have seen corals thriving with cyano covering the substrate up to the edge of the coral many times in many systems including my own. I have to ask myself, If cyano kills why didnt these corals die? My conclusion is that cyano is a symptom of a bottle neck in the nutrient reduction program. Somtimes the nutrient issue is bad enough to kill corals. In that situation, you probably will have cyano also. But its not the cyano killing the animals. If cyano itself did damage then the corals with cyano near them would show stress. I have seen many situations where this is not the case and the corals thrive. My answer in this situation is to do things that improve the health of my nutrient reduction system. My concern is that an antibacterial poison is not going to increase the capacity or efficiency of my nutrient reduction system which depends on bacteria to thrive. I would prefer to increase cyano growth in a low flow section of my system in order to use up the excessive nutrients that allow the cyano to thrive. This allows me to bring balance to my system.
This isnt a flame, I see a lot of people using algacides and antibacterial treatments to kill and hide unpleasant symptoms of underlying nutrient reduction issues. I wonder how this works long term as eventually the nutrient bottle neck will cause damage to the corals with or without the cyano. I would assume that one would eventually need to adress the real underlying issue. Is this the case? Would anyone care to post some images of a sucessful tank that has thrived after adding algecides and antibacterial compounds to eliminate cyano or hair algae? The reason I ask, is in my experience everyone I know who ever got on that train eventually either changed their husbandry techniques or got out of the hobby. When i go back and look at previous posts from the people on these threads I see most of the individuals seem to be on a bit of an additive roller coaster. Is this stuff really solving your nutrient problems or just hiding the symptoms?

 

[Wind Seeker]

DbD. You make some excellent points. As previously mentioned, my system has low nutrient levels, great PE, colors and growth. But I still have cyano in the low flow areas. So, I am still trying to reconcile the two. However, your points are worth pondering nonetheless.

 

[denash24]

I think it's easy to test for phosphates and get a 0 reading by mistake or from using a poor quality test kit and assume that the bio-pellets are doing such an excellent job that they completely eliminated all phosphates from a small tank getting heavy daily feedings. I can almost guarantee that there is no product that will remove that much phosphate on a daily basis, so it leads me to believe that you have a problem with high phosphates. Keep in mind that phosphates affect PE and create cyano blooms so it's easy to incorrectly diagnose the problem. Try removing the bio-pellets feed normally and use GFO in combination with w/c to eliminate the phosphates or do some reading and dose vodka and you'll see the huge difference this makes. Good luck....