cyanobacteria

[triggerhappy21]

hi everyone,
Im new to this online community but i have a 55 gallon all glass aquarium. I Have fish and live rock and a couple of corals also i have this cyanobacteria everywhere in the tank. Does anybody know what there is that will work to get ride of the cyanobacteria.

[Thunnus]

Hey. Welcome to RC. Are you using tap water in the tank?

[InsaneClownFish]

Yes, he is.

[InsaneClownFish]

This is my cousin's tank..

The reasons for his cyanobacteria are threefold:
1. He uses tap water. I've already suggested he start using distilled water.
2. He had a crack in his sump, with bioballs. There was no way to remove the broken sump from the stand, so he purchased, against my advice, another sump with bioballs. After many frustrating hours of trying to get his overflow to function, we finally decided to can the wet/dry setup completely. He had just recently purchased a HOB skimmer. Unfortunately, the thing is junk. My suggestion was to slowly add the live rock from the sump to the display. I also suggested he increase the depth of the sand bed using an oolitic aragonite- currently he has 1.5 inches of a thinly crushed coral- very fine for coral substrate, yet way too large of particles for a dsb.
3. His fish load is WAY too high. Yet he still insists when things look good on adding more fish- and attempting corals. He currently has two Niger Triggers, a yellow tang, and a coral beauty in his 55. It's always ok to add more fish...the LFS says so.. I've suggested that if he can't get the cyano under control that he add a HOB biowheel for the time being while I help him establish a nice dsb. Preferably, I told him to purchase one from an LFS that has been cycling. Hell, he can even keep it on there after since he likes such a heavy fish load. I've also suggested he get rid of all but one of his fish for the time being until his tank gets under control. He can sell them, trade them in at the LFS, or he can even let others "hold" them...anything.

I told him to cut back on his feeding immediately. I got the, "huh?" "What?"

I even told him to use erythromicen. While this may only be a temporary fix, it will get his tank under control. I'm not too worried about it killing off the little "good" bacteria he has established.

I've tried to help him, yet he's still looking for the miracle solution in the DrFostersSmith catalog. What if I buy a phosban reactor? - or the 101 other useless, or unnessecary garbage gimickery.

I swear to God if the LFS told this kid to throw copper pennies in his tank and dance around singing "We are the World" in his underpants in order to erradiate cyano he would!

Yet the problem is not that my cousin has a very poor water source.
The problem is not that my cousin has too high of a fish load and zero nutrient export.
The problem isn't that my cousin had his main source of nutrient export ripped from his grasp.
Hell, the problem isn't even that he does little testing, and keeping your tank at 1.014-1.015 specific gravity, pretty much the consistency of fresh water, is ok.

The PROBLEM is that my cousin is IMPULSIVE. He listens to NO one- no one but the LFSs that is... It's ok, the LFS says so. No one can possibly know more than the LFS.. If I posted some of the things the LFS has told him, or encouraged him to buy, most of you would get nautious.

But it's not THEIR fault. You can see him coming a mile away- with a pocket full of money. I have to buy something NOW. I need something NOW. I have to have something for my tank NOW. I must get rid of my money NOW.

He takes the advice he's given and does the exact opposite. He does what HE wants.
Anything that will satiate him for the moment is good. It has to be right? The LFS said it's "good."

My cousin has absolutely no care for the hobby, proper husbandry, or any type of patience. In fact he has ZERO patience. Can anyone tell me what that means to reefkeeping? Can anyone tell me what that means when just trying to keep fish and a couple of boulders?

I even said to him, "I'm not trying to be mean, but salt water anything is NOT for you. You don't have the personality for it. You're way too impatient and impulsive. Period. You're much better off keeping African cichilids- the more in the tank, oftentimes the better."

He now wants to start a larger tank. Hey it's only money right? *sigh*

Keeping salt water aquaria, and especially attempting to keep any type of coral, is a constant education. Each purchase should be carefully thought out, researched, and planned. If you're not ready for that education, keep goldfish. Period.

Like they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. In this case, you can't teach a young one either. Maybe some of you on RC will have better luck than I've had getting through. Good luck, this skull is pretty thick.. I'm done.

[sunny d polyp]

Wow insane, sounds like you know this guy pretty well. I was going to suggest Chemi-clean, it worked for me when I didn't know what was causing it. Thanks to this board I was told to quit using tap and go with ro and I did. Was good advice, hopefully he will listen to you.
Sunny D.

[ihavtats29]

lol i hear ya chemi clean or antired will get rid of it ,lol if he wants some africans im getting ready to tar down my 100 gal african tank to convert to salt, pics of the africans are in a link in my profile its like a link in a link once in the first link click on jim and darlenes tank

[ufans]

I agree that Chemi-Clean is a quick fix but it doesn't solve the problem. Using distillied or RO/DI water is the only way to go. A good skimmer and efficient use of carbon (or Chemi-Pure) is a must as well to protect from reoccuring spikes.

Don't fret to much...everyone goes through this in the beginning. Start to listen to your cousin or make more posts to the boards before buying something or adding something to your tank. A lot of times it can just do more harm than good. You can monitor your levels all day long and add chemicals whenever something is out of wack but you will never win. You need to try to let the water stablize and your involvement should only be to stop adding more contaminants like those found in tap water.