CantImagineWhy
New member
Hello all. I have had a Biocube 29 set up since 5/13/15. This system was purchased used (already had fish, live rock, corals, inverts) and was set up at the seller's home for 2 years.
Recently, I upgraded the 2 Koralia nano 240's it came with to an MP10 with quietdrive. Shortly after, I began noticing red slime developing on a few of the rocks. Then it began overtaking the sand bed. Now my sand bed has a thick red slimy carpet on it and some of the rocks have long strands of it blowing around. I keep it off of my corals by brushing them gently with a soft bristled tooth brush. I did reading online, identified this as cyanobacteria, and followed advice from a top poster's thread on how to treat this. I did the lights out treatment first. I had the aquarium completely dark for 3 days. This seemed to work, until a few hours later the sand became spotted with the annoying red slime.
I've read that cyano exists in all systems, and only gets out of control when flow or bad lighting is an issue. My MP10 is set on reef crest mode at about 65-70%. It is on the right side of the aquarium in the center of the glass. My return output it at the surface to agitate the surface water to help oxygenate.
I still use the stock PC bulbs as I only have softies and they do well with them. I can't remember for the life of my how old the bulbs were (maybe 6-7 months), so I ordered new ones. They arrived today and I will replace them.
Today I also plan on getting in the tank with a small syphon and manually removing the cyano from the sand. This was my last resort because I already have a shallow sand bed and I don't want to lose any more sand.
Does anyone have any ideas as to why I am having such a hard time with this annoying bacteria?? Is my MP10 placement right? Anything else I can do to combat this aside from adding chemicals?
Recently, I upgraded the 2 Koralia nano 240's it came with to an MP10 with quietdrive. Shortly after, I began noticing red slime developing on a few of the rocks. Then it began overtaking the sand bed. Now my sand bed has a thick red slimy carpet on it and some of the rocks have long strands of it blowing around. I keep it off of my corals by brushing them gently with a soft bristled tooth brush. I did reading online, identified this as cyanobacteria, and followed advice from a top poster's thread on how to treat this. I did the lights out treatment first. I had the aquarium completely dark for 3 days. This seemed to work, until a few hours later the sand became spotted with the annoying red slime.
I've read that cyano exists in all systems, and only gets out of control when flow or bad lighting is an issue. My MP10 is set on reef crest mode at about 65-70%. It is on the right side of the aquarium in the center of the glass. My return output it at the surface to agitate the surface water to help oxygenate.
I still use the stock PC bulbs as I only have softies and they do well with them. I can't remember for the life of my how old the bulbs were (maybe 6-7 months), so I ordered new ones. They arrived today and I will replace them.
Today I also plan on getting in the tank with a small syphon and manually removing the cyano from the sand. This was my last resort because I already have a shallow sand bed and I don't want to lose any more sand.
Does anyone have any ideas as to why I am having such a hard time with this annoying bacteria?? Is my MP10 placement right? Anything else I can do to combat this aside from adding chemicals?
