Cyano

[ZapataInc]

I'm getting what looks like the start of Cyano and I'm freaking out. I haven't been able to test my water yet. I won't be able to do that until tomorrow. I have some chemiclean. But I want that to be a last resort.

 

[Shawn]

Flow. That should make it go away. Increase flow in that area. If it stays, then you’ve got a nutrient issue most likely.

 

[hzheng33]

in my tank, it happens when there's 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate ---> aka no nutrient.

 

[lmm1967]

Low alk will cause it to pop up in my tanks.

 

[ZapataInc]

in my tank, it happens when there's 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate ---> aka no nutrient.

Yeah the last time that i checked they were reading zero. Ill check my numbers again tonight. Maybe I have to trim down my refugium lighting schedule. Right now its running for 7 hours.

Low alk will cause it to pop up in my tanks.

I recently just started dosing BRS 2 part. Ill check my numbers tonight. But I doubt it has gone to low. I raised it up to 7.5 on Sunday and I only have small frags in my tank.

 

[lmm1967]

I recently just started dosing BRS 2 part. Ill check my numbers tonight. But I doubt it has gone to low. I raised it up to 7.5 on Sunday and I only have small frags in my tank.

What was it at before you raised it?

 

[ZapataInc]

What was it at before you raised it?

6.0. I raised it to 7.5 over a two day period.

 

[lmm1967]

I've battled cyano a couple times. Everytime we go out of town and I set up auto feeders to feed pellets - usually a week after we get home I'll have spots of cyano pop up. The first couple times it turned into a major pain. I used chemi clean once in 1 tank - it got rid of the cyano but it seemed to throw the tank out of whack and I fought a while to get the tank stable again.

The next time it happened and started getting out of hand I did no chemical treatment. I did 30 - 40 gallon water changes (in a system with about 150 gallons total volume) every 2 - 3 days - I did this 4 times. I blew the cyano off rocks and sand at least once a day and I kept the lights off for 1 full day. This fixed it, slowly over the course of a few weeks - but with no skimmer going crazy & not dealing with whatever else chemi-clean kills or causes.

Since then any outbreaks I have (again - when we switch to feeding pellets from an auto feeder while out of town) stay small and self correct after about a week - 10 days.

In my pea brain mind - I believe fixing it slowly without using chemicals is a better long term solution and makes it easier to keep the system balanced moving forward. As long as you keep it off your corals and you maintain healthy O2 levels - your tank doesn't really care. It's just ugly.

 

[ZapataInc]

I've battled cyano a couple times. Everytime we go out of town and I set up auto feeders to feed pellets - usually a week after we get home I'll have spots of cyano pop up. The first couple times it turned into a major pain. I used chemi clean once in 1 tank - it got rid of the cyano but it seemed to throw the tank out of whack and I fought a while to get the tank stable again.

The next time it happened and started getting out of hand I did no chemical treatment. I did 30 - 40 gallon water changes (in a system with about 150 gallons total volume) every 2 - 3 days - I did this 4 times. I blew the cyano off rocks and sand at least once a day and I kept the lights off for 1 full day. This fixed it, slowly over the course of a few weeks - but with no skimmer going crazy & not dealing with whatever else chemi-clean kills or causes.

Since then any outbreaks I have (again - when we switch to feeding pellets from an auto feeder while out of town) stay small and self correct after about a week - 10 days.

In my pea brain mind - I believe fixing it slowly without using chemicals is a better long term solution and makes it easier to keep the system balanced moving forward. As long as you keep it off your corals and you maintain healthy O2 levels - your tank doesn't really care. It's just ugly.

Yeah i blew it off my rocks and the few corals that I saw it was creeping on. Its not alot but it is showing up. I really dont want to go down the chemical route. Like you said I would rather try and fix it naturally. Ill investigate more into my parameters tonight.

 

[bzb]

Every time I go into a Petco, their tanks are covered in cyano. Clearly, you got something from Petco. Stop getting things from Petco.

I thought cyano feeds off NO3/PO4 excess? I'd bet that your nutrient numbers are pretty low, because everything in the tank is consuming them down to zero. If it were me, I'd simply reduce the nutrient input slightly, raise the time on the fuge lighting, and keep doing what you're doing blowing off the crud as it appears.

I've lucked out with no issues with cyano yet, but I think between my oversized skimmer and the chaeto, I'm probably stripping too much from the water. It's a helluva balancing act y'all are putting on nowadays. If I'm understanding the current meta for SPS keeping, it seems like cyano appearing would be a good sign in achieving that balance.

 

[jcook54]

Every time I've had it, I just upped my water changes and sucked up whatever I could when removing the water. Oddly enough I've got one quarter sized patch of it that forms right around my rock flower nem and I suck it up every time I do a water change. It's never spread and has been like that for about a year. I would consider chemiclean a last resort but a viable one if it comes to that. Since it's not too bad right now, I'd try to keep everything stable and increase water changes.

Regarding getting it from Petco - I've always assumed that whatever caused cyano is pretty much always in our systems and it just pops up when things get out of whack. Is that incorrect? I've introduced it to my tank on a frag plug before and it went away on it's own when things are "Balanced." I put balanced in quotes because I don't have a really good explanation for what exactly that means other than stable.

 

[bzb]

I was joking about Petco.


Unless Zap actually did get something from Petco and put it straight in his tank. Then I'm totally not joking.

 

[ZapataInc]

I was joking about Petco.


Unless Zap actually did get something from Petco and put it straight in his tank. Then I'm totally not joking.

Yeah i didnt get anything from PetCo.

 

[Adam]

I think everyone in the hobby deals with cyano at some point. Doesn't matter where you get stuff from. It a natural bacteria that has been around since the beginning of time, literally. It's the reason we have oxygen in the atmosphere.

I've dealt with it several times. It usually pops up when NO3 is zero and PO4 is present to slightly or majorly elevated. Raising NO3 to 2-10 and lowering PO4 to .02-.03 will help. Once its present it won't completely go away, even when those parameters get in line. That's where blowing it off and sucking it up get rid of the mat. That in conjunction with increasing flow gets rid of the mats.

Blowing detritus off the rocks weekly is good practice too.

 

[jbartell123]

I had a bunch of cyano on everything, probably 40% coverage of surfaces. I was using a broad spectrum light (50W LED) on 75 gallon tank, and then I added 50W of actinic blue LED light. The cyano was gone in a couple of weeks--completely. Also increased bio pellet volume at the same time. But I believe it was the light. Nitrates always below 20 ppm. Phosphates low as well. Anyway, that was my experience. And now no cyano bacteria. Maybe the bio pellets had something to do with it since I am running a medium and added a second large reactor. I also dose liquid carbon. Nitrates last tested 5 ppm. So I am battling to keep Nitrates down in multiple ways. I was hoping that adding the large bio pellet reactor would relieve me from adding liquid carbon every day. When I run out, I will try just the reactors.

 

[ActiveAngel]

Ditto on all that @anit77

Cyano is exacerbated by increased nutrients. Chemiclean and Erythromycin both work; but will seriously mess up your tank chemistry! Additionally, they will kill any sponges in your tank.

And cyano is a pain to eradicate. The trick, if possible, is to hit it with full force. Don’t give it a break. Water changes must include siphoning any cyano to get it out of your tank as well. Check cracks, it likes to grow in hidden places. Unfortunately, I don’t know if it’s possible to remove without any chemicals eventually. But I can say that chemicals alone aren’t good enough.

lastly, and most importantly, good luck brother!

 

[ZapataInc]

For the past few days ive been leaving to go to work at 5 am and getting home about 10pm. Today has been the first day that I have been able to do anything tank related.
So my parameters are
Salinity 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Alk 6.1
Cal 439
Temp 77

What should i do to get my nitrates and phosphates up. Should I just not run my fuge light for a couple of days.
And what are some steps that I can do moving forward?

 

[lmm1967]

Low ALK is contributing as well - but don't raise any of them too fast.

reduce fuge lighting (stop? dunno - don't want a bunch of algae die off either), start working on alk increase. Whats Mg?

Over feed frozen foods will help as well.

 

[ZapataInc]

Low ALK is contributing as well - but don't raise any of them too fast.

reduce fuge lighting (stop? dunno - don't want a bunch of algae die off either), start working on alk increase. Whats Mg?

Over feed frozen foods will help as well.

I dont have a Mg Test kit yet.

I currently run the fuge from midnight to 7. Any suggestion on time frame?

And I feel like I over feed. I do like 1 whole cube of frozen every other day for 2 clowns, pistol shrimp, yellow tang, flame angel, and yellow watchman. The other days I feed a good bit of flakes. Also everyday i do about a tsp of pellets.

 

[lmm1967]

cut lighting in half?

And - I don't think that is over feeding.

In our 120 with 1 3" lighting maroon clown, a 4" kole tank, a 4" foxface, a 4" tile fish, a pistol shrimp and some random clean up crew - we feed at least an overflowing tablespoon worth of frozen every day. Probably the same as at least 2 full cubes. (we buy LRS or rods and I cut them up myself so hard to compare directly to the pre-cubed foods).

FYI - these days - the ONLY time I have cyano pop up - is within a few days of feeding pellets when we are out of town. As long as I stay away from feeding pellets (I've never fed flakes for SW tanks) - I won't have any cyano pop up.