Cyano.

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oceandeep85

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I bow before all experienced reefers this evening in utter embarrassement.. I noticed that my reddish coralline algae that I was all excited about was emitting small bubbles. I thought.. that's odd.. I don't run a venturi, no skimmer, been all day since a water change this AM.. So, I looked it up. Coralline algae emlitting bubbles?

A few google images later, I realized.. my beloved, exciting, comforting, beautiful coralline algae.. is not.. in fact.. coralline algae at all but dreaded CYANO! :shout::yuk::doh:

Anyone got any tips/tricks/advice? will this stuff just disappear like the diatoms did? Is it something to really get worked up over?
 
2 easy ways to deal with. Either siphon it out (repeatedly) while re-evaluating your lighting/feeding schedule or run a course of chemi-clean and hop it's a one-time deal. If going the latter, make sure you're aerating the water as per directions - otherwise there's a good chance of things going from OK but gross to very bad.

It can be a result of tank husbandry issues, or just something that happens in the process of a tank maturing. Some get cyanobacteria blooms if they look at the tank funny... others never do. We have a strange, strange hobby.
 
LSU_fishFan;980242 wrote: Chemiclean worked for me
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I just wonder about ChemiClean in a 10 gallon, however. I love the product, don't get me wrong, and use it about once yearly in my 465 and 90 gallon reefs. I'd be a bit ancy about using it in a nano. Just a feeling, however, with nothing to prove it would be any worse than in any other size reef.
 
thanks so much, fellas. I've pretty much found that it was 90% my lighting schedule ( 8:30a - 11:p) everyday under 24"T5 HO true actinic and 10000K daylight every day.. :(

Not to fear. I've already changed it to 12p - 11:00p on my timer

Feeding's not the issue.. I only have the damsel and it is only fed every other day, sometimes once every two days and only a pinch of Instant Ocean Omnivore or frozen brine shrimp.. but very very small amounts and only a few times a week. Never more than once a day. Still, I did recently have a nitrate spike.. so.. who knows.

my next investment is a good HOB skimmer to help with the nutrient issue.. with school and work, dog and girlfriend, I really only have Saturdays to work on the tank and am looking for something to help keep things cleaner longer and cut back on water changes. so, if anyone has a good HOB skimmer they're looking to get rid of... or know anyone who does... after that I'm upping to a nice big canister full of denitrate and carbon and matrix...

I'm just really embarrassed and bummed.. I mean, I know this is a phase that a lot of new reefers go through but I really thought it was coralline algae... :(
 
That's still to long of a photo period. If cut it down to 7 hours or so max
 
reeferman;980364 wrote: not necessarily,i run mine 11.5 hrs no problem
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I've noticed LEDs to be much more forgiving to a longer photoperiod. I run mine 14 hours a day, 10am to 12am. Halides you can not even come close to touching that length in a day. Max I've ran metal halide was 8 hours in the past. T5 I'm was able to pull off 9-10 but I had heavy actinic on the bulbs. Essentially I'm not so sure one size fits all here
 
DawgFace;980375 wrote: I've noticed LEDs to be much more forgiving to a longer photoperiod. I run mine 14 hours a day, 10am to 12am. Halides you can not even come close to touching that length in a day. Max I've ran metal halide was 8 hours in the past. T5 I'm was able to pull off 9-10 but I had heavy actinic on the bulbs. Essentially I'm not so sure one size fits all here
Click to expand...

Wow, I only run my AI SOLs from 4 to 11 full power
 
well, I've switched it to 2p-11p. I'm going to leave it alone for a week and see how it helps with the algaes. It's definitely the light that needs tweaking because I just simply don't feed enough and I don't have enough livestock. I'm getting a nice 75 gal HOB skimmer this Saturday so that should help, but in the meantime, I"m leaving the green algaes alone for the snail and to suck up some of the excess nitrate.

will any of the chemi-clean products mess with my bio filter? Lord knows I struggled hard enough for this bio-filter and I do NOT want to give it up.
 
Why run them so late? Just curious.

I used chemiclean I'm my 90gallon and it got rid of the stuff in 2 days.
 
JC_k;980407 wrote: Why run them so late? Just curious.

I used chemiclean I'm my 90gallon and it got rid of the stuff in 2 days.
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Hey, bud!

I can only speak for myself here, but I work all day and have class M, W, F until 9:30. I usually don't get home until 6 on the days I don't have class and 10 on the days I do. No one's here to enjoy the tank most of the day so it makes sense to have the real lighting, T5's running when people can enjoy the tank. The rest of the time it's sitting 'dark'.. just enough sunlight in the living room to barely light it up. but not really.
 
JC_k;980407 wrote: Why run them so late? Just curious.

I used chemiclean I'm my 90gallon and it got rid of the stuff in 2 days.
Click to expand...

..but did the chemiclean mess with your biofilter at all??
 
You don't need chemiclean. Suspect nitrates. Grab some airline tubing for a couple bucks at Walmart or wherever if you don't have any. That was you can work slow siphoning it out without removing too much water too fast. Get as much as you can. Do a water change at the same time. Get your nitrates down below 10 ppm. Bring your photoperiod down to 8 hrs. If it remains, suspect phosphates.
 
maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I'm reasonably certain my turbo snail is eating it... he's all over the stuff..
 
Are Vortechs (2 mp40,1 mp10) going nuts with some nice water break going to be enough oxygenating? My skimmer doesn't want to cooperate even with the pipe pulled so I shut it off... should I just take the cup off? I've been fighting the good fight lowering my feeding, adding an mp10 in a dead corner, syphoning some cyano in my DT... really cut it back but there have been a few patches I cant get rid of and finally gave in and opened my box of chemiclean. Seems to be thinning it out within an hour.

Syphon trick: put a filter sock in your sump and syphon from the tank into the sock/sump so you dont have to wait for water changes to remove the cyano. I did this daily for two weeks and it made a huge difference.
 
OceanDeep85;980424 wrote: maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I'm reasonably certain my turbo snail is eating it... he's all over the stuff..
Click to expand...

You sure it's not red turf algae?
 
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