cyano

[bluenassarius]

anybody luck fighting cyano? this stuff is getting ugly in my tank... any critters i can get to eat this stuff? i'm in the process of putting more macro into my tank to suck up some of the nutrients.
any response would be appreciated.

[jedininja]

The best remidies for cyano is removing as much by hand as possible, increasing flow, and water changes with RO to decrease nutrients.

Theres no other way around it. Adding macros will help maintain low nutrients, but if you have high phosphates or nitrates in your syste, macros will not be able to keep up with the nutrient load.

[capescuba]

If you are setting up a new system, then it's possible that you have phosphate leaching out of your new Live Rock.

When I set up my new 210 with more than enough water flow/skimming etc. I had an initial Cyano outbreak. I tried Chemi-Clean which rocked big time and since then I have had no problems with it at all, ~ 6 months now.

Of course you have to make sure you are only using RO water for top off/water changes etc.

[Mekong]

I used a turkey baster to suck out all the cyano for each water change, about 20g on a 80g twice a month, useing RO/DI. I also found that a sand sifting goby is a fish that will forever be in my reef, they keep the sand bed so nice, clean and level. I have a 55g fuge and when I clean the glass in it the goby has learned to sit by the overflow from the fuge and eat the pods that spill out. I took about 4 months fighting the cyano and now its gone.


I only add chems at last resort.

[jedininja]

I too advise not using any types of chemicals. Treat the source, not the problem.

[bluenassarius]

true i dont plan on using chems. i wanna fight it the natural way. thats pretty cool that your goby sits there wyatt. hehe u trained him good :)

[sfsuphysics]

Have you gotten any live sand from anyone breaking down a tank? That could be a source too, I know that I had a cyano outbreak shortly after putting some live sand from a fellow reefer (no names please) :) although that doesn't mean the sand was the source, but it is my most likely candidate since the sand probably took up nutrients over the years and the act of removing them caused them to get loose.

I still have a problem in my 50, yet not in my 135 and they're both plumbed together into the same sump (ie its the same water going through both).

Anyways if you're using RO water, check that before sticking it in your tank for phosphates. Are you feeding any sort of unnatural food (ie flakes, or pellets or anything that not just animals that are frozen) might be there.

Otherwise as Jedi said remove as much as possible by hand, the stuff that allowed it to grow will be within the cyano so it'll come out the system when it does, its just a matter of staying on it for a while until its almost all gone. Assuming you aren't continuing to put the phosphates & nutrients into the tank.

[Vincerama2]

I used chemi-clean in my tank as well. I know that using chemicals is frowned upon (which makes me laugh at the irony whenever I mix up a batch of salt water, or put BBQ sauce on a burger).

But sometimes, you need the leg up. Once cyano is established, like any other bacteria, it can thrive and multiply very quickly. Treating the cause, and not the symptom is good in theory, but I've fought this stuff before by adding DI to my RO filter, adding a larger skimmer, adding a sump and fuge, etc. At the time I didn't even feed my tank. If even a tiny part of the tank was friendly to cyano...it would take over again real quickly.

The cyano covered up many corals. I turned to chemi-clean and in 2 days, it was all gone and MY CORALS WERE DOING BETTER. Yeah, it's amazing how well photosynthetic creatures do when they aren't blanketed in cyano.

Actually, I dosed my tank again on the weekend. I did a less than 5% change after and shut off my skimmer. The tank is doing quite well. I'll do another water change and filter with carbon on the weekend...

Bottom line is that using chemicals (if you follow the directions) isn't a bad thing, and chemi clean definitely works.

V

[capescuba]

I agree 100% - Isn't Kalkwasser a chemical? Even water is a chemical right? H20 and all? Oh, and let's see what else I add: Magnesium, Iodine, Strontium & Molybdenum to name a few :D

If you find something that works for you, and in my case the chem-clean did just that, then what is wrong with recommending it to others? I initially got the recommendation to use it from Eddie at Tropical Paradise - Would you say his suggestion was wrong? I would most definitely not. It worked great.

That's the great thing about this place, all ideas can be heard.

[jtong]

I had a bad outbreak and added a sand shifting goby. In a couple of days, all gone. This was a 275 gal tank, that's why it took him/her a while. :-) Now my sand bed is nice and white.

The only bad thing was that the first week or so, my water was cloudy because about half of my sand is southdown. Now everything is pretty settled down.

[JoeMack]

One you get your NO3 and P04 down to very low levels then use chemi-clean. I had it with almost none of each. After a dose of chemi-clean I have been free for over 1 1/2 years. All the left over excess (i think) was tied up in the existing N03 and P04 in the cyano and that got exported before all the checi clean was out of the system or it reestabilashed.

Just my 1 cent.