at least 2 weeks and CYANO IS STILL THERE!!!!

[DFW]

What about ultra red slime remover? That will work the same right

I only have experience with ChemiClean by Boyd Enterprises, and only the powdered version. I would not use the liquid, and have not used it. I have used it about a dozen times in the last 4 years, and it works great.

 

[Gwitness]

Okay cool I order it the... Thanks!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, while antibiotics like Chemiclean can work, they should be a last resort.

 

[Gwitness]

Haha right before I am about to order off the internet Randy you had to post with that! Well now I am wondering if I should just keep battling with my bacteria doses and stuff like that! Randy.....what would your plan be to defeat it IF YOU WERE ME??!! I agree 100% about chemicals being the last option and I never really wanted to resort to that, but after the stories on this thread it had me leaning towards that just to be done with it already, BUT I do want to fix the issue permanently.....

 

[Mikesmith34]

Red slime remover as I understand it is not a chemical. It is an antibiotic that I have used with great success on 3 differant occasions. Chemclean is pretty much the same thing I think. I have to believe some of the horror stories you hear are from people not following instructions. As a matter of fact some folks use it every 6-12 months as a maintainence program. I personally remove the cup from my in sump skimmer so the foam goes back into the water to help with O2. It's one scoop per 15 gallons of water mixed in a glass and poured in the tank before you go to bed by day 2 it's gone. Forget about. Do your scheduled water change, put the cup on the skimmer and enjoy your tank. I was scared to death like you the first time I used it. Now I keep it in stock and when I need it I use it, as in last week. Changed from MH to LEDA and begin to get some on the tops of my rocks. Now they are nice and clean. I have acros, SPS,LPS, ZOES, inverts,feather dusters, crabs, snails all of it. They are alive and doing well. Don't beat your head on the wall just read the instructions and use the stuff. Done

 

[Gwitness]

Well that's good to know that you have used it with success with all of those corals and inverts.... I agree with you, the horror stories are usually those who don't follow the directions at all!

 

[DFW]

With ChemiClean it's 1 level scoop per each 10 gallons. The first time that I used it I was real worried also. I thought that my tank was lost to cyano. After using it, doing a double treatment back to back, I was very, very happy with Mr. Boyd, to put it mildly. Cyano was gone for over a year. I had introduced a rock with cyano to my tank, and it spread.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Red slime remover as I understand it is not a chemical. It is an antibiotic that I have used with great success on 3 differant occasions. e

How is an antiobiotic not a chemical?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Haha right before I am about to order off the internet Randy you had to post with that! Well now I am wondering if I should just keep battling with my bacteria doses and stuff like that! Randy.....what would your plan be to defeat it IF YOU WERE ME??!! I agree 100% about chemicals being the last option and I never really wanted to resort to that, but after the stories on this thread it had me leaning towards that just to be done with it already, BUT I do want to fix the issue permanently.....

I would try the other things I recommended in an earlier post in this thread first. Some of them may be beneficial anyway (such as reducing nutrients or organics)

One concern, aside from "horror" stories, is that unless you address the underlying source of nutrients somehow, the cyano often eventually comes back.

I'd also be careful about extrapolating anyone's success to anyone elses. One of the concerns may be the release of toxins from all the dead cyano. Since there are many different species of cyano, some may be more or less of a toxin concern than others. Also, some aquaria may be more or less susceptible to those toxins, and, of course, having more cyano can be more problematic than having less, everything else being similar.

But as I stated earlier, it can often work and I might do it if I'd tried other approaches.

 

[Gwitness]

I was wondering how an antibiotic wasn't a chemical either but I agree with you Randy on all the died off cyano can kill other things in the meantime and just because it worked for others doesn't mean I will have the same outcome... I've decided to keep dosing bacteria... Not do a water change for about 2 weeks or so.... Keep skimming like crazy and I will go buy some carbon and phosguard and put it in a bag in my sump and I will go a couple more weeks like that.... Thanks for the response

 

[Gwitness]

As for reducing nutrients I just don't know how else to do that because I literally don't feed anything but once a day and I barely feed at that.... Only other nutrients are coming from fish waste... I could keep blowing off rocks and suck up some more cyano and detritus but I feel like whenever I do a water change it just comes right back everytime... Would you say to keep doing my 15 gallons a week or put a stop to it for now?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'd stop water changes for a bit, and increase phosphate export, as with GFO.

 

[ptreef]

So I recently dealt with this and will give you the run down of what I did... I first did the 3 day lights out trick and it went away, only to come right back. I then tried 5 days which didn't have a different effect. Then someone said to try 3 days off, 2 on then another 3 days off. Same thing, it came right back again...

Then I was told to try doing the lights out then a significant water change immediately before turning lights back on. I did this and it went away for a little longer but not much at all. I tried both a 25% and 50% water change with no help.

I tried the bacteria additives to get rid of it naturally and all it did was cause it to stop spreading as fast. But then after awhile it just came back.

I was told my sandbed could be releasing nutrients and I should vacuum it out. Well I tried that but section by section as to not cause any major spike when the sand was stirred up. I think I lost a quarter of the sand from my tank while vacuuming it out.

My lights are LED and new so no spectrum shifting issues there. My skimmer is always working well. I do semi-regular water changes and do run small amounts of carbon and GFO.

Everyone who commented had the same recommendations and to be honest they didn't work to PERMANENTLY end the issue....

Come to see the tank today and you will see there is no cyano in the tank. What did I do you may ask. Well I caved and did the one thing I said I would never do. I added Chemiclean to the tank at the recommended dose on the box. I followed the directions as they had them written. I did the water change and crossed my fingers. The Cyano is still gone months after the treatment. I can say after removing the cyano, the corals are looking better, have better polyp extension, and I had no losses during the treatment.

This is just my opinion, but I truly believe there are some forms of Cyano that are extremely persistent and will never be removed without a chemical treatment. I despise adding medications to my tank and only do it in a hospital tank. However this was a display that had the issue and no choice but to add it there. I believe some people have removed cyano with water changes and no-light treatments. They are not bandaids. But with any issue, there can be many solutions or no solution at all.

Exact same here. I have a low nutrient system and tons of large beautiful SPS. All growing like crazy. Cyano pops up often. Tried everthing.

I will siphon and manually remove as much as possible. Then dose chemi clean as prescribed. tank looks good. If/when it pops back up, 6mos-yr later. same thing. Never a casualty or fatality or color issues!

 

[Alabamareef]

Dont use your skimmer for O2. It's goning to go crazy and you'll wind up with a smelly mess. Remember cyanobacteria is jut as the name states, a Bacteria. If all other means want rid your tank, husbandary, Use the antibiotiac, EES, I think thats what chem clean and other products use for a main indgreadent. Get you an air stone if your worried about O2. Even after you do your 20% water change if you turn your skimmer on it going to go crazy. When I've used chemclean before I'd leave the skimmer off a couple of days after the water change.

 

[ptreef]

skimmer does go bonkers. I try to get more surface agitation from PH's. I turn off skimmer first 24hrs.
Then turn back on and plug the suction line as much as possible so it makes just a tiny bit of bubble to air tank. Use papertowel rolled and jamed in or tape and poke tiny hole or pinch to allow a little air to sneak in.
Usually will turn off at night to be safe from overflows. althought its on a switch if it does.

Usually after 2-3 days skimmer is back to normal or atleast works turned down with out line plugged mostly
Also take carbon offline for 3 days then add day 4.

 

[Gwitness]

What about a type of salt contributing to cyano?? I used to use reef crystals then switched over to aqua vitro for awhile now, but maybe it was slowly adding to the breakout over time... Or is that not a possibility? I use aqua vitro salinity

 

[ptreef]

Doubtful its the salt. WC's seem to feed cyano tho in general.

IO here and cyano ocasionally

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What about a type of salt contributing to cyano?? I used to use reef crystals then switched over to aqua vitro for awhile now, but maybe it was slowly adding to the breakout over time... Or is that not a possibility? I use aqua vitro salinity

The thought is that sometimes iron or other trace elements may be limiting to cyano, and a water change will supply more of those each time. Most salts will have this potential.

 

[Mikesmith34]

How is an antiobiotic not a chemical?

I said as I know it. You would have a much better understanding of this by far. My line of thinking with the red slime remover was as a antibiotic it was a bacterium used to consume // destroy another. Please elaborate so I may understand a little better

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I said as I know it. You would have a much better understanding of this by far. My line of thinking with the red slime remover was as a antibiotic it was a bacterium used to consume // destroy another. Please elaborate so I may understand a little better

Sure.

You may have been thinking of a probiotic. Often those are benign bacteria that are intended to outcompete less desirable bacteria. For example, humans taking sources of normal bacteria to outcompete pathogenic bacteria in their GI tract. I don't know how well such methods treat cyanobacteria in reef aquaria, but the idea is to add less problematic bacteria that outcompete the cyano somehow.

Antibiotics are usually organic molecules that mess with something in bacteria and kill them. Usually, medicinal antibiotics do not adversely impact people at the same dose because humans lack the molecular target that the antibiotic interacts with to kill them.

In the case of antibiotics to kill cyanobacteria, the most common one is erythromycin. It is likely in chemiclean (although they try to hide that fact) and is in other similar products.

This is what it looks like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythromycin