How to get rid of Cyano bacteria

[Plantbrain]

Well it takes a plant person to kill a plant, well Cyanobacterial, but they are radically different than any bacteria and also radically different from any algae or embryophyte. I'll call them BGA being a phycologist and aquatic weed person.

So to kill them:

Remove all the BGA you can manually first, clean and scrub filters etc, dead areas. Next do a water change, add 5-10ppm of KNO3 afterwards. If you whine about having high NO3's already, calibrate your test kit against a known standard. Poor test kit readings have caused more misinformation in this hobby than I care to express.

NO3 and PO4 are the two worse.
If you are certain of the levels being high, do a large water change(40-60%). Yes, this maybe a lot and cost a lot in salt, but the make up afterwards will drive growth much better and let you know where you are at.

Reefs do love large water changes.

So after you have done this, trash bags, towels, blankets etc and turn the lights off for 3 days and cover the tank so that no light gets in, feed fish etc, increase skimmer aeration etc.

Wait 3 days.

Remove cover, vac up any left over junk.

Measure NO3, see how fast it is removed and dose to keep 2-10ppm in there each week.
The PO4 should decline as well.

as long as you keep up on the KNO3 dosing(or more food etc), the Cyano should not return.

Do not fight the macro algae, grow the macro algae.
Give them what they need to grow well, other wise something else will grow..............something you do not want....

This method cost nothing(well, the KNO3 which is dirt cheap), takes 3 days, is free and anyone can do it easily.


Regards,
Tom Barr

http://reefcentral.com/agreement.php

[Seahorsewisprer]

Thanks, Tom!

[Harmsway]

Can you explain the concept behind adding the KNO3 ?

Gene

[Samala]

Try these threads:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=611702

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=640715

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=614791

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=599093

There is a caveat on this approach to removing cyanobacteria.. you have to have something that is growing on the nitrate products you are adding. If you are not exporting N's via macro, or other rapidly photosynthetic organisms, I dont know if I'd recommend adding in nitrates. A simple tank blackout would probably work for that instead.

>Sarah

[Harmsway]

Thank you so much Sarah. Those threads are enlightening.

I am glad to see we are taking note of lessons learn from our more experienced FW aquarist. This whole subject is refreshing to me as opposed to so many threads on techi equipment solutions. ( Techi for girls, Sarah and Techno for guys )

With that said though let me propose a sloution to dosing with KNO3. A little history. Twenty some years ago wet/dry trickle filters hit the scene and caught on like gang busters. This seemed to be the answer to everyones fish problems with the tricky bio-cycle. If nothing else the opportunist made big bucks on marketing little platic "golf" balls and boxes to contain them.

None the less reefers tossed their bio-balls and walked away from wet/dry sumps. Many refer to those systems as Nitrate factories. Considering NO3 as one of the bad guys we want to export out of our systems until it's unreadable. No wonder you nitrate dosers are looked upon as a little strange.

Now think about this. Why not put in place a small nitrate factory ( wet/dry system ) to keep a carefully balance NO3 level for the veggies. The Techno folks will want to call it a Nitrate Reactor. Whatever. Throw that into the mix of your research projects.

Gene
BTW: Nice website Sarah. Keep the projects and results posted.

[Samala]

Gene.. thanks for the compliments on the site.

The idea to re-instate wet-drys and similar nitrate-factory filters onto tanks where you WANT the nitrates has been suggested to me, though I think you're the first here to say it. A local LFS, the one who experiments with cocktail shrimp additions to exclude cyano, also tried hooking a wet dry inline to see if it boosted macroalgae growth. I havent checked in with him in awhile, I should see how that is progressing.

Or, wait, I nearly have this system in place. A small hang on filter on a 5.5 gal nearly bare, Chaetomorpha full, quarantine tank with dwarf seahorses. These guys get a LOT of food and the bioload is sky high.. the Chaeto doubles its size every three or four days. If you see the latest pictures I took out 90% of the Chaeto so you could see the ponies. I only add micronutrients (Fe, etc) to the tank at the water changes, just a tiny bit. I wonder if I took the hang on filter off if the nitrates would plummet or if they'd hit zero and I'd start to see problems with nuisance algae. As it is now I get a little haze of green glass algae that the snails gobble up.

Hmmmm.. I think you're right, I think its time to go back to tinkering. Oh, and I'll try not to overly feminize words in the future.. lol..

>Non-Techie Sarah

[Harmsway]

Nice work. I'll keep an eye on your progress.

Also let me know what you find out from the LFS experiment.

Gene

[Harmsway]

One more question, Sarah. What lights do you have going on that tank?

Gene

[Samala]

Lots of light.. 32 watts over the 5.5gallon dwarf quarantine tank.. its 6700K PC type. I use the same type over all the macro/grass tanks.. just at different wpg levels. Used 96watts over a 10g and 130watts over my current 20g long.

>Sarah

[Harmsway]

I just changed my main display ( 120 gallon ) to T-5 lights. I was thinking of using my old PCs on the refuge, that's why I was asking about your lights.

Anyway I live near the Indian River Lagoon and can get all the sea grasses and ponies I want. Well sometimes it's hard to find the sea horses but there are plenty of pipe fish. Looking at your pictures I'm encouraged to start up my 10 gallon tank again with a few dwarf horses. I had a tank like this in the past for my kids. What are you feeding the horses?

Gene

[Harmsway]

Never mind I decided to read your page instead of being a pest.

"They are doing wonderfully on copepods, enriched BBS, 48 hour old enriched BBS and teenage BBS grown up on Nanno phyto and enriched on Selco."

Thanks

[Harmsway]

Further reading of your site and I have discovered your IRL page. Neat you've been to Titusville, that's where I live.

I've spent a lot of time in the lagoon here. A year or so ago I discovered Caulerpa Prolifera in Titusville. This species could endanger the sea grasses. At the time I thought it only invaded as far north as Fort Pierce. Then I found it here, I was shocked.

Anyway I went looking for it again last week and hadn't found it yet. The weather has been poor so I didn't get a good look that day.

Gene

[Samala]

Hehehe.. you're not a pest! Questions are good for everyone. If you want more help on the SH and such feel free to PM/email or see me on the SH/pipefish forum. My grandfather routinely sets large H. erectus in beautiful patterns free from his crab traps. I thought I would let you know that there is a breeder in Ft. Peirce who has captive bred seahorses.. these would be less of a gamble than the wild caughts. http://www.seahorsesource.com. Just in case you want to buy instead of catch.

And I agree on the pipefish abundance report.. they are literally everywhere in the shoal grass on the IRL. Its so lucky for you to be living on the IRL! If you're south of sebastian inlet you'll get all seven species of seagrass including H. decipiens, H. johnsonii and the turtlegrass. In a ten gallon, see if you can find ripped up segments of the Halophilas, they are doing so well for me. All I did was pick them up out of the surf. In fact, with Ophelia so close, I imagine you've had decent winds kicking up the lagoon.. I'd stroll the banks on the windward sides and see what you can find.

Have fun! Nothing like the lagoon.
>Sarah

[Fredfish]

Bah! Killing cyano by turning out the lights is for wimps. I wanna kill my cyano like a real man, with the lights on!!

So here is a wierd thing that happened in my tank that got me thinking about alleopathy (sp?) algaes.

I happen to have a nice segrigation between cyano and macros. One tank has all the cyano, the other slowly growing macros. I have been puzzling over why this is for the last month or so.

The other day I decided to feed my seahorses (cyano tank) by moving a wad of macro from the refugium to the main tank. A strange thing happened the next day. The cyano in the main tank died back quite a bit, particularly in areas near the new wad of macro.

I know that it is well documented that some freshwater plants release anti-bacterial agents. Does the same hold true for marine algaes?

I wonder if this explains why cyano dosn't grow back as long as your macros are growing reaonably well.

Anyway, I want to experiment by adding a big bunch of macro to my main tank to see what happens.

Fred

[Plantbrain]

I should add to this , aeration has really helped on going Red cyano issues. Lots of it, micro bubbles floating all over and good current.

This was a controlled test also. We tried temp(cold warmer, 50-86F range) Micro filtration, chemical removers such as Purigen, DI resins, Activated carbon, etc, poly filter, PO4 remover etc, manually harassing the cyano daily, blackout worked also.

No antibiotics, eg Red slime remover + 3 other types of antibiotics worked.

They beat it back and little but never killed it.
Later it appeared to gain resistance.

All sorts of current routines, 3x a week water changes of 50%, aeration solved all the issues, both on the macro algae as well as the open white aragonite.

Then we shut the aeration off in tank.
It came back in about 1 week.
Repeated it 2x more.

Same thing.

I did not try running the microbubble mist aeration at night only, then turning it off/on during the day for viewing.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[SherryCobySam]

so mist and water changes ultimately was the answer? I am fighting cyano in a new tank now and I am at a loss.