cyano attack :(

xiholdtruex · May 23, 2018

Will let you know if it comes down to it for sure, I appreciate all the information. I would have to plan it out so my kids would be asleep lol

With the anemones I would just brush around them I'm guessing on the rocks?

Is there any technique you have for cleaning the rear changers or just a long brush?

brandon429 said:
If you run the method we’d love to link you there even if your invader persisted after the work, those aren’t cherry picked examples we had a few enduring challenges for sure. No losses though, none, when order of ops was set.

Yes B.B. is ok but I like the sand for its extra filtration surface area, it’s not hard to keep clean occasionally

brandon429 · May 23, 2018

Yes agreed on the Nems just work around, maybe not so much water gun blasting lol and also since your tank is smaller, is ok to redo again if needed it's not all required to be perfect rock cleaning first go, just the sand part has to be done right since it's got the most waste, where the locus of the cycling risk resides until it's flushed clean or just plum replaced either way.

This shows my bed right now, and it's cloudy it won't pass a drop test but it will soon. No invasion due to being tuned for this type of occasional work

It guides the system back to clean state/no invasion in short time.

When I take apart this 13 yr vase, the exact steps above will be ran minus the rock part these don't need cleaning only the sand. Once you instate takedown cleanings maybe every six mos or as needed, that's as invaded as it'll ever get, perhaps some light dusting of algae but nothing tank wide. It's a high work system, ideal for smaller tanks due to repeatability. Several tanks are running that right now in my private messages here and at nano reef. Com

xiholdtruex · May 24, 2018

Hypothetically if it is a bacteria and this procedure does not work , what would be your guess for this? A different strain?

brandon429 · May 24, 2018

If the tank is cleaned to the point the bed is cloudless and the rocks don’t show detritus after sitting in a swished sw container for a while, if you have lighting that can be demonstrably blued with much less white, if your topoff water is either distilled or true ro di, and you’ve done at least two weeks of handguiding it out after that cleaning, if it still comes back equally it will be the first we’ve seen in twelve pages. At that point a uv sterilizer is my next bet, I’d never medicate a nano for any reason because it medicates corals and anems, and they aren’t doing anything wrong.

As small as that tank is, any cheap uv would work as an adjunct control system. There are meds too like Boyd’s chemi clean etc, and margarita snails have been seen to eat red slime.

xiholdtruex · May 24, 2018

Do you believe that H2o2 would cause issues in any tank ? Have used it in the past in my fw tanks without any issues.Or is it due to the oxidation causing stress to the inhabitants? Or would you consider it the same as dosing meds? I'm sorry if I'm asking alot of questions just trying to wrap my head around the whole scenario.

brandon429 said:
If the tank is cleaned to the point the bed is cloudless and the rocks don’t show detritus after sitting in a swished sw container for a while, if you have lighting that can be demonstrably blued with much less white, if your topoff water is either distilled or true ro di, and you’ve done at least two weeks of handguiding it out after that cleaning, if it still comes back equally it will be the first we’ve seen in twelve pages. At that point a uv sterilizer is my next bet, I’d never medicate a nano for any reason because it medicates corals and anems, and they aren’t doing anything wrong.

As small as that tank is, any cheap uv would work as an adjunct control system. There are meds too like Boyd’s chemi clean etc, and margarita snails have been seen to eat red slime.

Retro Reefer · May 24, 2018

Time will most likely solve your cyano problems.. I currently have two small reefs set up and running now for about 2.5 years, both had cyano really bad during the first year.. one tank I did nothing to rid the problem but the other I tried everything that has probably ever been prescribed.. repeated deep cleaning, brushing rock, vacuuming sand, hydrogen peroxide, increased flow etc.. nothing worked long term. Fast forward to today and the one tank that I did nothing to is completely free of cyano and has been for over a year, the second tank that I put all my efforts into still will get a small patch pop up time to time but only on the sand bed in very low flow areas. I did make a couple interesting observations during my journey.. on the one tank that I was actively trying to rid cyano of I pulled a large bag of carbon I had been running because of the high bio load and basically overnight all the cyano disappeared however after a few days it started to come back but never as bad as it was at first.. the other thing that seemed to have an unexpected effect was increased feedings, I had been running ULN system with minimal feedings and as I progressively increased feedings the cyano seemed to continue to clear itself up.. not sure if either of these actually had any effect but going just off my observations it seems they did

brandon429 · May 24, 2018

Largest peroxide thread for nanos:

https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/268706-peroxide-saves-my-tank-with-pics-to-prove-it/?page=65

We've moved totally away from dosing water, and instead killing targets.

Peroxide has zero effect on filtration bacteria, even in overdoses we've not seen recycles. There are some animals that dislike it but it doesn't affect our filtration bacteria per that and five other threads just like it. Peroxide in a reef is low risk, but used our way, zero risk.

Not one tank there I can recall in the past five years undergoing cyano issues was treated with peroxide

Cyano calls for rip cleaning

Peroxide is for anchored targets, algae, and for occasional dino battles.

mcarroll · May 24, 2018

xiholdtruex said:
was reading into h202 dosing which is hydrogen peroxide in concentrations of 1ml per 10g every 24 hours to break down the cellure structure and not affect the animals in the tank

Algae are pretty competent at dealing with h2o2 in the water. Most of them seem to be able to create it themselves, possibly for use as a self-cleaning agent vs epiphytes.

What kind of dosage of 3% peroxide would you have to put into a tank to get a concentration of .27-.34 mg/L?? I admit I don't know, but I suspect we're not getting close to that....or if we are, it's not for long. Those are the highest levels found in nature, and I suspect they would be harmful to most photosynthetic life. (No PDF's available for any of the H2o2/algicide articles out there either, so there's probably other significant details we're missing in the treatment too.)

I may be overthinking it, but does anyone know for sure how to compute the final mg/L or ppm of adding 3% concentration peroxide into 10 gallons of water?

Is it as simple as converting the "standard" dose rate:
1 mL of peroxide per 10 gallons
(10 gal = about 38 Liters or 38000 mL)

So 1 mL/10g = 1/38,000 = 0.000026 mg of peroxide per Liter?

If it's the standard US drug-store variety of 3% percent peroxide, then it's only 0.00000078 mg/L?

I'm probably doing it wrong since molar mass didn't come up.....can anyone confirm or correct, pls? :)

brandon429 · May 24, 2018

Edit/not sure of how organics factor

Dosing that into a pitcher vs tank might yield different finals, we think this is why the paradox exists that dosing a clean jar of water with peroxide raised redox but dosing a reef tank with peroxide lowers orp initially per posts from those who measure

Just brainstorming it might have an effect on finals

xiholdtruex · May 24, 2018

Yep I have read people stager doses every 12 hours due to the ld50, one during light cycle and one during night cycle, and I have seen doses from 1ml per 10g up to 5ml per 10g

xiholdtruex · May 26, 2018

brandon429 said:
Edit/not sure of how organics factor

Dosing that into a pitcher vs tank might yield different finals, we think this is why the paradox exists that dosing a clean jar of water with peroxide raised redox but dosing a reef tank with peroxide lowers orp initially per posts from those who measure

Just brainstorming it might have an effect on finals

people who have dosed picos have had negative effects? Like you stated earlier in a small pico or vase if the coral is not encrusted a break down is simple since it is small, I am thinking I might follow this procedure on my 2.5g will make it easier to keep consistent.

My boss who owned this tank and had a reef in it for 8yrs stocked with a torch, some leathers , zoanthids,nassarius snails a clown fish and a urchin. was telling me every 3 months he would pull all the rocks scrub them, siphon all the sand and do a 100% wc. Told me he never had a issue but when it was reaching the 3 month mark he had to do it again because the algae was starting to encroach.

brandon429 · May 26, 2018

Hey that’s neat it’s a little quicker timeframe for takedowns than I use, but he had fish in tow which indeed commands that in smaller tanks really nice detail there, it’s indeed an ideal way to force control onto a reef that’s small yes

xiholdtruex · May 26, 2018

Have not been able to do any sort of total breakdown, been dosing h202 for 3 days now twice a day started at 1ml every 12 hours and increasing a 1ml every 24 hours till I reach 5 ml and then going to try to hold steady. So far at 3ml the tank inhabitants are looking good. Some of the cyano has blackned and some on the glass has gone away. Any sign of stress I'm going to back off the h202.

Water test after three days show

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
10ppm nitrate
0.03 phosphate
7.8-8.0 pH
1.024 SG

Should I be worried about the pH being that low? Should I change something to raise it?

Thanks for all the input I appreciate it

brandon429 · May 26, 2018

No the pH is not a big deal for short interval testing. Nothing should be dosed to raise it, only water changes in and out and whatever pH that lends will work. I’ve never tested the pH literally in seventeen years on my systems I have no idea what it may be. Large tankers who cannot exchange water as easily do well in maintaining alk, and pH follows given all normal ventilation conditions in the home

I don’t even test for alk either...power of weekly water changes

If the pH kit isn’t digital I wouldn’t even own one due to misreads 98%

brandon429 · May 26, 2018

I’ll link your dosing here as it proceeds, this is handy to show effects/predictable noneffects on dosed systems, if you choose to dose with peroxide it’s still valuable info for sure. We claimed nothing would be harmed, now get to have the claim tested.

The cyano sure might abate using it, might not, can’t wait to see. In my peroxide threads we like to guarantee by calculating doses the safety of the overall system and whether or not the peroxide works on target ranges.

One highly highly helpful changeup using this approach on your light invasion is the hand siphon all the red out, make the target gone even without a rip clean, so that dosed peroxide works only on growback and not the mass kill, better chance there.

Linked to:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/

lapin · May 26, 2018

My .02
My wife likes the red on the rocks and sand. I don't. If it was green I would love it. I guess its not Irish cyano. My tank is 3 months old. 1/4 of my tank has it, the rest does not. I have been syphoning it out and blowing it off. Really just makes it look better (to me) for a few days. It takes about 30 gallons of water to syphon it off. I think it is just natures way of balancing out what is in the tank until something else can take over. Since its a bacteria, and corals have symbiotic cyano bacteria, I would avoid the chem clean. It will pass with time as something else takes over. If you had no corals I would say add more to help compete for nutrients. My new approach is letting it grow where it wants as long as it does not harm my corals or algae that my lawnmower eats. Seems now to be just on the sand and tank sides. Its staying off the rocks letting the hair algae grow, which is good. I figure it will reach a point where it uses up what its feeding on and die from lack of food. Like most tanks as they mature. My parameters are good and I dont over feed. A lot of white worms and some frozen foods. My cleanup crew is just 12 nassarius snails and a mini blue legged hermit plus a sandsifter goby. Im adding some macro algaes to the display next week. Since im not growing sticks I can have algaes with out them starving. I think the algaes will help with the cyano. I have never seen a reef that is spotless so I dont expect my tank to be. I think the algaes will help with the cyano.

brandon429 · May 26, 2018

That is well stated. Just because something grows where it belongs doesn't mean it's bad...all the engineering we do is to attempt/outwit a perceived offender and beauty is in the eye. Since cyano and spirulina are not impossible to stop when the time is required, to let them run their course is def an option. I wouldn't do the same with a confirmed dinoflagellates infection since about 70% of those cannot be stopped no matter what the tanker does. Cyano, I can see a point in watching nature take its course. To be totally algae free is an unnatural condition agreed, I specifically saw cyano mats with my own eyes in the most pristine cayman waters in the nineties. Live conchs were creeping up stage left / cyano feeders

In time the systems regulate themselves if we'll pile corals and coralline all over the place in my opinion. Actual space exclusion by items we want to see, that are biorejecting surfaces, is ideal and a function of good maturation guiding/feeding/sourcing and water quality. Some cyano within the first few years of a tank, and for any tank where white outpaces blue spectrum, cyano is a totally normal presence.

xiholdtruex · May 26, 2018

brandon429 said:
I’ll link your dosing here as it proceeds, this is handy to show effects/predictable noneffects on dosed systems, if you choose to dose with peroxide it’s still valuable info for sure. We claimed nothing would be harmed, now get to have the claim tested.

The cyano sure might abate using it, might not, can’t wait to see. In my peroxide threads we like to guarantee by calculating doses the safety of the overall system and whether or not the peroxide works on target ranges.

One highly highly helpful changeup using this approach on your light invasion is the hand siphon all the red out, make the target gone even without a rip clean, so that dosed peroxide works only on growback and not the mass kill, better chance there.

Linked to:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/

That's what I did .

I removed as all I could see in the sand, rock work and glass with siphon, turkey baster and tooth brush. 50%wc and started the dose. Time will tell.