Cant wrap my head around cyano, my arch enemy

m0jjen

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Hi!

I've had afew threads about my cyano situation / tank not doing well. Since the tank overall is doing alot better but still cant rid the cyano. Had cyano for about 4 years, green and red and between two tanks (same livestock and rock pretty much). Always had low but measurable nutrients so i figured the cyano took away abit of it. Until recently.

Tested alot of thinks with a reasonable space inbetween with various results but nothing seems enough.

System

Red sea reefer 625 xxl with a fragtank at 180L plummed into the same sump. The system is pretty stocked fishwise with 5 medium tangs and 1 small, 1 copperbanded butterfly mediumsized, 2 clowns, 2 wrasses, 1 hawkfisk and 1 dragonette. Coral wise i got quite alot of corals and frags but im currently batteling AEFW aswell (winning tho). Some meaty LPS. Corals are pretty bland in color. While i can understand that the acros are ticked of the LPS isnt to colorfull or happy either. Nothing dying, just not to their full potential, color and lush wise.

Flow

Display has 4 MP40QD, 2 running 100% reefcrest and 2 at 40% pulse. I've configured it so that it helps to drive detritus to the sump which seems pretty successful.
The fragtank has two small tunze 6015 (1800 LPH) and a jebao sw 10 running some random program (8000 LPH) The flow is pretty over the top for the 180L tank from the looks of it.

Filtration

I started out with a skimmer and a clarisea SK5000 along with some ceramic media (maxspect bioblock x2) and have since upped the filtration. Reason behind it was that my phosphate started to creep up (will be more detailed from ICP later in the post). I did a ICP and got the results 02/27/2021 and got all greens besides phosphate. It was at 0.113. Nothing to major in my opinion as a 3 time dino survivor. So i started a fuge which grows chaeto greatly. I figured i should keep my nitrates up aswell since the refugium would consume it so i started dosing KNO3 alongside. I wanted to get the no3 up abit since it was about ~2ish when i started the fuge and i have since dialed it in to a consistent 8 ppm no3.

Over the course of about 5 months i got no results from this and got frustrated and sent another ICP test and got it back 08/27/2021 and once again all good except phosphates. They were at 0.159 mg/l. I got feed up after all these years and ran 1 dose of chemiclean which cleared it right up. Took a couple of weeks then i got some small patches of hairalgae. Mainly in the fragtank.

To get the PO4 down abit since my target is 0.05 - 0.1 i started a reactor with AL99 from triton. first at 3/5 strength, next reactor 4/5 and lastly 5/5. The media is changed every 3 weeks since im guessing it gets depleted quite rapidly.

After about 1.5 months the cyano came back with a vengence. This happened while the reactor with 4/5 strenght was running. I has gotten worse over time since and here i am.


Lighting

Display is running 3x radion xr30w pro gen 3 and the WWC program at 70% giving me 350 - 250 par at the rockwork and 100-200 at the bottom. Fragtank is running a simularprogram on it with the same par numbers averaging par at 200-300 on the eggcrate.

Maintainance

10% weekly waterchange Red sea blue bucket. Mediachanges monthly and detritus/cyano removal at WC weekly. I also blow over rocks with a turkeybaster at WC. I trim the chaeto once every 2 weeks and when i do i remove half.

Feeding is frozen daily. I've reduced it to half of what i previously did which was about 2.5 cubes of mysis daily to abit over 1 cube. I occationally throw in 10-15 pellets (every other day or so).

Suppliments dosed are red sea colors 1 ml / day and 20 ml of KNO3 giving 0.5 ppm / 100L

Water source is my own RODI with 0 TDS and i have filter / silicate media change on 3 months alerted by my apex, carbon filter 6 months and membrain 1 year.

Parameters

Ca: 420 on avarage - (410 - 440) (red sea ca pro)
Mg: 1360 (1280 - 1400) (red sea mg pro)
Kh: 7.9 - 8.3 (alkatronic and salifert) - Daily swing about 0.3 Dkh.
No3: 8 ppm since i started dosing in july, 2-4 ppm before that.
Po4: I dont know really. My red sea po4 pro test kit seems to be way of. When i tested the same time as ICP1 i got 0.04 ppm PO4 and triton gave me 0.113 mg/L. ICP2 0.08 and triton 0.159 mg. Making it consistant and 0.7~ off.

Things i've tried in the past

* Dosing various bacterias
* Increase NO3 by dosing (like 2 years ago or some but stopped at some point)
* Less and more feeding (over the course of months)
* Aggressive detritus removal
* Removed sand about 3 years ago and have been BB since.

I cant really thing about more stuff. I know theres alot of info about the system and what i've done. Most things have been tried over the course of weeks to months before evaluating so there's no point in saying "wooha buddy thats alot of changes" :) I try to be patient and change one thing at a time and give it atleast 4 weeks before doing anything else.

Hope someone on here can spare the time and help me come to a reasonable solution and find the fundemental problem causing the cyano.

While the phosphates were/are high i know they contribute but i dont wanto slam them in the bottom since I have a great feqr of dino. It has wiped out my tank 3 times the last 10 years and i dont wanto go down that road again.

Both ICP are attatched :)
 

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Reef.

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Well first it’s not a good idea to not know what your po4 lvl is, I would highly recommend the Hanna 774 PO4 checker.

If an ICP test came back with .04, then I would first test with the hanna to check, as the icp test for PO4 is not great, you could be zero on the Hanna checker.

Might not be practical with the size of your tank but you need to remove the cyano before it has a chance to layer up, the best method is removing the rock and scrubbing and cleaning the tank as best you can.

Turn your flow up as you blast rocks etc to get the cyano in the water column and out of the tank, keep changing the socks or floss to,remove the cyano.

you can add live phytoplankton which should help and up your nitrates and PO4 to get the tank producing algae to replace the cyano.

It will be a lot of work for the first few days but the harder you work the more cyano you will be removing, this will,give the tank time to produce other algae etc to replace the cyano.

Basically scrubbing, removing and replacing is the key.

Maybe best waiting until you have a week off work so you can hit the tank a few times a day.
 
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m0jjen

m0jjen

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Well first it’s not a good idea to not know what your po4 lvl is, I would highly recommend the Hanna 774 PO4 checker.

If an ICP test came back with .04, then I would first test with the hanna to check, as the icp test for PO4 is not great, you could be zero on the Hanna checker.

Might not be practical with the size of your tank but you need to remove the cyano before it has a chance to layer up, the best method is removing the rock and scrubbing and cleaning the tank as best you can.

Turn your flow up as you blast rocks etc to get the cyano in the water column and out of the tank, keep changing the socks or floss to,remove the cyano.

you can add live phytoplankton which should help and up your nitrates and PO4 to get the tank producing algae to replace the cyano.

It will be a lot of work for the first few days but the harder you work the more cyano you will be removing, this will,give the tank time to produce other algae etc to replace the cyano.

Basically scrubbing, removing and replacing is the key.

Maybe best waiting until you have a week off work so you can hit the tank a few times a day.

I've had the HI774 and HI736 - I had a hard time getting consistant results with them. Probably user error even if i in my world were meticulous with the process, wearing gloves, making sure every grain of the reagent got into the vial, having the vial spot free and pristine and what not. Guess i could give it another go but i really dislike them.

I forgot to mention that i do mecanical removal either by turkeybaster so it goes down the overflow and into the filterroller or by a small hose into a sock.

Regarding flow i really cant do more. It my LPS already get flipped over from time to time. Think my gonioporas would start to loose flesh aswell :eek:
I’m typically against almost any treatment, however I had the same issue for long enough I got fed up and used chemi-clean. It did not harm my system in anyway and I have not had cyano back in 9 months. Worth mentioning at least

As stated i did chemiclean and it took about 1.5 months for it to come back :(
 

HeyLookItsCaps

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I've had the HI774 and HI736 - I had a hard time getting consistant results with them. Probably user error even if i in my world were meticulous with the process, wearing gloves, making sure every grain of the reagent got into the vial, having the vial spot free and pristine and what not. Guess i could give it another go but i really dislike them.

I forgot to mention that i do mecanical removal either by turkeybaster so it goes down the overflow and into the filterroller or by a small hose into a sock.

Regarding flow i really cant do more. It my LPS already get flipped over from time to time. Think my gonioporas would start to loose flesh aswell :eek:


As stated i did chemiclean and it took about 1.5 months for it to come back :(
Oh darn I missed you trying it. Sorry! Best of luck. Maybe another pass or two?
 
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m0jjen

m0jjen

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Went and ordered the hanna hi774 for the sake of it. Another test to mix and match to try and get an accurate po4 reading
 

kzenoni

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I have a 350 gallon reef and I like to feed heavy. When I start to have a breakout I change the carbon in my sump. It happens about once a month and it clears up.
 
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m0jjen

m0jjen

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I have a 350 gallon reef and I like to feed heavy. When I start to have a breakout I change the carbon in my sump. It happens about once a month and it clears up.
Run red sea carbon and change it every 4 weeks :) Its due for a change tho but i doubt it would be the reason for years of cyano :(
 

DeniableArc

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No worries. I really dislike chemicals and what not so we'll see i guess
I recovered from Dino’s and battled cyano for a couple months. I did try different bacteria additives and just couldn’t rid the cyano. I also thought my phosphate was high at 0.1-0.13 n04 at 10 and every time I lowered it the cyano just got worse. I really felt like giving up between the Dino’s cyano and evil evil bryopsis. Maybe 7-10 days ago I added aquaforest life source and I can honestly say it is amazing! The next day after the first dose the cyano patches receded and my zoas and gonis were inflated and plump and I haven’t seen my clam so far open in months! I have been adding 1/4 dose every day since and things look really happy. I’m not sure what exactly is in it, I have seen small rocks,roots and shells. It doesn’t smell but it will make the tank murky for a couple hours. P04 is .12 no4 is 4-8I use no gfo or carbon dose anymore or any aminos. I also run 4 maxspect bio blocks and siporax in sump and a good skimmer. As of today as the cyano has faded my coralline is coming back due to not being smothered and have not cleaned the glass in a week. Could not be happier with AF live source.
 
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m0jjen

m0jjen

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I recovered from Dino’s and battled cyano for a couple months. I did try different bacteria additives and just couldn’t rid the cyano. I also thought my phosphate was high at 0.1-0.13 n04 at 10 and every time I lowered it the cyano just got worse. I really felt like giving up between the Dino’s cyano and evil evil bryopsis. Maybe 7-10 days ago I added aquaforest life source and I can honestly say it is amazing! The next day after the first dose the cyano patches receded and my zoas and gonis were inflated and plump and I haven’t seen my clam so far open in months! I have been adding 1/4 dose every day since and things look really happy. I’m not sure what exactly is in it, I have seen small rocks,roots and shells. It doesn’t smell but it will make the tank murky for a couple hours. P04 is .12 no4 is 4-8I use no gfo or carbon dose anymore or any aminos. I also run 4 maxspect bio blocks and siporax in sump and a good skimmer. As of today as the cyano has faded my coralline is coming back due to not being smothered and have not cleaned the glass in a week. Could not be happier with AF live source.
I literally had it in my basket while ordering and though "nah ill skit it for now" :|
 

Reef.

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Went and ordered the hanna hi774 for the sake of it. Another test to mix and match to try and get an accurate po4 reading

Keep the vial in rodi water, never use tap water on the vial, fill it and store in a container full of rodi.

My Hanna is extremely consistent but I am ocd with the procedures I follow doing the test.
 

homer1475

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Out compete it, dose live phyto.

I had cyano for years, never could rid myself of it. Tried chemiclean(cleared it up for a while, only to return), blackout periods, chemicals, raising nutrients, lowering nutrients, keeping the redfeild ratio, etc, etc. Started dosing live phyto a couple years back, and have not had any cyano since.

Seriously, it's that easy.
 

Reef.

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Out compete it, dose live phyto.

I had cyano for years, never could rid myself of it. Tried chemiclean(cleared it up for a while, only to return), blackout periods, chemicals, raising nutrients, lowering nutrients, keeping the redfeild ratio, etc, etc. Started dosing live phyto a couple years back, and have not had any cyano since.

Seriously, it's that easy.

I would read posts on cyano and dinos and see simple replies like this, such as clean the tank or add phyto etc and discount them thinking there was really more to it but it can really be this simple.
 

MONTANTK

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Knock on wood I haven’t ever had cyano that bad. Most cases I ran GFO or Phosguard and it went away pretty quickly. Chemiclean works great but it doesn’t really solve the phosphate issue and cyano seems to build up a tolerance to it.

I would definitely try dosing phyto. It seems to be the miracle that solves many problems and I have no complaints after dosing it regularly for almost a year.
 
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m0jjen

m0jjen

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Keep the vial in rodi water, never use tap water on the vial, fill it and store in a container full of rodi.

My Hanna is extremely consistent but I am ocd with the procedures I follow doing the test.
Always did so, guess we'll see tomorrow how it goes :)
Out compete it, dose live phyto.

I had cyano for years, never could rid myself of it. Tried chemiclean(cleared it up for a while, only to return), blackout periods, chemicals, raising nutrients, lowering nutrients, keeping the redfeild ratio, etc, etc. Started dosing live phyto a couple years back, and have not had any cyano since.

Seriously, it's that easy.
Phyto is hard to come by in Sweden :/ Wanted to try that anti cyano phyto and try to culture it before.
Knock on wood I haven’t ever had cyano that bad. Most cases I ran GFO or Phosguard and it went away pretty quickly. Chemiclean works great but it doesn’t really solve the phosphate issue and cyano seems to build up a tolerance to it.

I would definitely try dosing phyto. It seems to be the miracle that solves many problems and I have no complaints after dosing it regularly for almost a year.
Ill check around to see if i can find it in stock somewhere.
 

MONTANTK

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Always did so, guess we'll see tomorrow how it goes :)

Phyto is hard to come by in Sweden :/ Wanted to try that anti cyano phyto and try to culture it before.

Ill check around to see if i can find it in stock somewhere.
I highly recommend Algaebarn. Not sure if they’re still having delays because I haven’t ordered in about a month
 

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