125 Gallon Office Tank

[bluecheese]

Oh screw him. We hate that guy.

Yeah! Whatta jerk!

 

[_chiefxr33f]

Cyano is getting really bad. I'm blowing off the rocks and the sand daily, but it's always coming back. Its getting to the point where its starting to smother some corals. I really don't want to go the ChemiClean route if I can avoid it.

So I'll be using the method in this thread that was suggested to me earlier of using Coral Snow mixed with Microbacter7.

Reef2Reef

I picked up some Microbacter7 from my LFS yesterday evening. I ordered Coral Snow from BRS last week, but its taking its sweet time getting here. Should arrive today.

The plan is to blow off all the cyano I can, turn off the main pump, dose the Coral Snow/Microbacter solution, and let it flow around the tank with the powerheads for an hour or so. After an hour the main pump is turned back on to allow the filter socks and protein skimmer to do its work.

I really hope this works. If I don't see a significant reduction in the cyano after the first week, I may have to pull the trigger on the Chemi Clean. Its worked well for me in the past, but that was before I had any corals in the tank.

I had cyano bad... was doing a ton of manual removal. ChemiClean didn't kill a single one of my corals. Most stayed fine, the rest recovered within 48 hours. The cyano has not come back.

+1000 for chemiclean.

 

[bluecheese]

I had cyano bad... was doing a ton of manual removal. ChemiClean didn't kill a single one of my corals. Most stayed fine, the rest recovered within 48 hours. The cyano has not come back.

+1000 for chemiclean.

I may have to go that route. I’m giving coral snow and Microbacter a week or so for some significant reduction before I pull the trigger.

 

[_chiefxr33f]

I may have to go that route. I’m giving coral snow and Microbacter a week or so for some significant reduction before I pull the trigger.

Make sure you remove as much as possible before you dose, like the sand covered fields of it. i agitated my substrate a ton before and during, and sucked a bunch more out during the water change.

Follow the directions to a tee, esp dosing. But iirc, slightly over dosing isn't extremely harmful to the fish or coral. It seemed to be the safest "miracle" cure for it.

 

[bluecheese]

Cleaning the poweheads today. I've been neglecting them for a while, and I know some of my issues may stem from decreased flow.

I was thinking about adding another powerhead or two to specifically blow closer to the surface of the sand to help kill dead spots.

But I wanted to clean the pumps first to see if maybe my issue is dirty pumps not blowing as efficient as they should.

A thirty minute citric acid bath, scrub the powerheads, then a 30 minute bath in RODI water.

 

[bluecheese]

RODI bath

 

[bluecheese]

Just put the cleaned pumps back in the tank, and wow. Its amazing how much a little algae buildup can impact a pump's performance. I need to be more diligent about cleaning these things.

 

[bluecheese]

Still seeing less cyano on the rocks. Cyano is somewhat diminished on the sand. Hopefully I'm coming close to a turning point with this battle

Coral Snow Day 4

 

[bluecheese]

The amount of cyano on the rocks and sand is still going down. This may be the cure I've been looking for.

Coral Snow Day 5

 

[lubeck]

Keep it up. Even when you think it’s gone I would continue with the bacteria and snow for another week. Then go to weekly when you do your water change

Stay the course

 

[bluecheese]

Keep it up. Even when you think it’s gone I would continue with the bacteria and snow for another week. Then go to weekly when you do your water change

Stay the course

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of doing. Another week dosing the Snow daily.

I ordered a bag of calcium carbonate powder from Amazon, because I’m already running low on KZ Coral Snow, and that stuff’s expensive.

 

[Reefer911]

Make your own coral snow! Look up SunnyX in here. He has videos on it and a thread here on R2R

 

[bluecheese]

Make your own coral snow! Look up SunnyX in here. He has videos on it and a thread here on R2R

That’s what I’ll be doing once I run out of KZ Coral Snow. I’ll be using the recipe SunnyX posted.

 

[bluecheese]

Day 6 of the coral snow. Much, much less cyano overall.

I received the bag of calcium carbonate I ordered. So once I run out of the KZ Coral Snow, I'll start making my own.

I'll have to find time tomorrow to come to the office and dose the snow. Same for Sunday.

 

[lubeck]

I noticed if I went over the Sonny recipe with the calcium carbonate there were no ill effects. When you marinate with the Pns I find it really helps coat all surfaces.

 

[bluecheese]

Coral Snow Day 7

Swung by the office, and once again blew off the rocks and sand.

Added the Snow/Microbacter mix.

Definitely less cyano on both the rocks and sand.

At this rate, I'm hoping the cyano will be wiped out by the end of next week.

 

[bluecheese]

Coral Snow Day 9

Weekly maintenance day. Water change, syphon out the sand, change filters, fill up auto top off bucket, clean protein skimmer, scrape the glass, blow off the rocks, add Coral Snow and Microbacter7.

Still a lot on the sand. Not as dense looking as before I started all this, but daily I remove it, and daily it comes back albeit in a lesser amount.

I'm looking forward to getting past all of this so I can get more fish and corals in the tank.

 

[bluecheese]

Coral Snow Day 10

Much , much less cyano on the sand.

The area pictured below was completely covered in cyano last week. Now its almost a light dusting of cyano.

If all goes well, I'll be putting more fish in the tank next week. And I'll place an order for more coral - unless my LFS has the coral I'm looking for.

 

[bluecheese]

Coral Snow Day 11

Once again seeing less cyano on the sand. There are small patches here and there on the rocks.

I'm running low on the KZ coral snow. So I made my own this morning with Calcium Carbonate and RODI Water

 

[lubeck]

Coral Snow Day 11

Once again seeing less cyano on the sand. There are small patches here and there on the rocks.

I'm running low on the KZ coral snow. So I made my own this morning with Calcium Carbonate and RODI Water

I used the same container to make my snow.