I've got cyano in my lion tank, would removing the biowheel be okay? ,..

[Newreeflady]

I heard someone say that removing the bio-wheel sometimes makes cyano go away. I know that my dwarf fuzzy lion is supposed to produce a lot of waste, could my system do w/o a bio-wheel? Would the 30lbs of LR suffice in the 30g? I am feeding the lion every other day now with silversides. The green chromis damsel just gets a small pinch of flakes each morning. Remove the wheel or no?

Also, I am dosing small amounts of kalk each night so hopefully that will help. How much kalk is safe to dose with a small amount of water for a concentrated solution? The tank doesn't have much evaporation as lighting is only 40w NO.

Also, Could the bulbs be contributing to the problem? They are not that new, should I get new ones? And what kelvin would you advise?

The cyano is not bad yet, it is only in one corner. The tank is bare-bottom, but there was a little sand I couldn't get out and that is where the cyano is growing. I want to nip this in the bud. Any suggestions? There is no skimmer as this is an eclipse tank. There are just the fish, the rock, and a bunch of macro and snails and crabs.


Any help is appreciated.
Thx,
Angela.

[FMarini]

Angela:
Can you tell me what your water parameters are? i suspect your seeing cyano for a number of reasons, only one of them is nitrates. Since your feeding alot i hope your also exchanging water, ensuring adequate buffering ?.
W/ that said i suspect a few things.
1) you have elevated nitrates
2)- you have elevated phosphates
3)-you prolly have low water movement around the area where the cyano is present

So a few things; start doing water exchanges, 1 this week and one or two in the following weeks. Before you exchange the water scrub off all the cyano, or better yet vaccum the areas where the cyano exisits, then remove more water along w/ the cyano.
Next i would reduce the lighting, leave it off unless your planning on growing coraline algae on the rocks.otherwise reduce the light cycle by a few hrs.
As far as the biowheel.
Once you tell me what your water paramters are I suspect we can say yes. One point of interest. Many of the Emperor/penguin filters have little spray bars which squirt water over the biowheel, once you remove the biowheel these spray bars splash water and it makes a racket.
Cyano is really nothing to worry about, yes its unsightly, but its a nice warning flag that you water chems is not perfect.
Lets use it to our benefit
frank

[Newreeflady]

THanks, Frank! I'll get back to you on those water parms. I had been doing weekly water changes, but last weekend I could not as I was out of town. I'll be doing one this weekend, though. I'm trying not to overfeed, but he's so darn cute! :D My coralline is already bleaching, I suspect from low-light or low alk or ca, i'll be checking into the water parms this weekend and will let you know on that. Also, I think i'll leave the bio-wheel in I guess, I don't like noise coming from the tanks!

thx a bunch!
Angela.