Cyano and nutrient levels

[jarviz]

Does cyano impact my nitrates and phosphate readings? I'm trying to think if my nitrates and phosphates are low bc of cyano... or if the cyano is here bc of low nutrients.

 

[Azedenkae]

Does cyano impact my nitrates and phosphate readings? I'm trying to think if my nitrates and phosphates are low bc of cyano... or if the cyano is here bc of low nutrients.

The first. Cyano takes up nitrates and phosphates, resulting in their low readings.

 

[jarviz]

hmm... i don't think my numbers were ever that high, like 5PPM nitrate and 0.05ppm phosphates before they came. I know that some ppl run their tanks way higher on here. How are they avoiding cyano?

 

[landlubber]

hmm... i don't think my numbers were ever that high, like 5PPM nitrate and 0.05ppm phosphates before they came. I know that some ppl run their tanks way higher on here. How are they avoiding cyano?

The biological balance is in their favor while not being in yours (or mine at the moment).
When you have stable biological conditions and a decent coral load the system is just better at resolving what would be unsightly algae and bacterial issues in an unstable or newer system.
Flow and lighting can also be contributors to cyano taking hold.

 

[nereefpat]

I haven't found cyanobacteria to affected one way or the other with high or low nitrate levels. Cyano can even pull nitrogen in as nitrogen gas, so I really don't think that it cares what your nitrate levels are. I have seen cyano take off when dosing phosphate to a low (nsw level N&P) nutrient systems. I've also seen carbon dosing affect it.

So, it's hard to say, in general, what causes it. An imbalance of some type...maybe...in some cases.

That said, its cell dry weight does have a certain percentage of both nitrogen and phosphorous, although knowing that may or may not be useful.

 

[Azedenkae]

The biological balance is in their favor while not being in yours (or mine at the moment).
When you have stable biological conditions and a decent coral load the system is just better at resolving what would be unsightly algae and bacterial issues in an unstable or newer system.
Flow and lighting can also be contributors to cyano taking hold.

Yep, this.

In short it is about two things: competition and consumption.

Competition because corals, algae, and other organisms compete for the same nutrients - and while algae at least in the beginning is 'better' at doing it than corals, once corals reach a certain amount their consumption of nutrients in total is more than that of algae. That's one aspect.

Another aspect is consumption. In an established tank and cuc are constantly cleaning up algae, it does not give a chance for algae to spread everywhere. They will constantly pop up, but will also constantly be consumed by cuc. Although that will also generate nitrate, phosphate, and other metabolites, which is also why some aquariums have 'elevated' readings for this.

In other cases, like mine, I have a pseudo-algae scrubber that has a large variety of algae (hair, cyano, etc.) which just constantly deplete excess nutrients no matter what amount of nitrate and phosphate are produced in what proportion, no matter how much I feed (I probably feed about 80 to 100 small NLS pellets a day for a 20 gallon tank). At some point I did have various algae grow everywhere and all the time, but now has naturally slowed down despite increased feedings.

 

[t5Nitro]

I thought it popped up in low nutrient systems, so I'd been dosing, still unsuccessfully raising nitrate and phosphate.

Cyano is in my tank now. Takes over all the rock and around corals. How do you guys manage it acutely? Tank has 60-80x turnover flow rate, too.