Cyano - Can’t beat it!!

[Boxofpurplerocks]

Hello,

Hoping somebody can help me with my cyano problem, I’m at my wits end with this stuff! I’ve spent countless hours reading thread after thread of suggestions, but I still can’t get rid of the stuff. Most of my sand bed and large portions of rocks are continuously covered with nice red mats. I’ve long since given up on manual removal. I use to spend a few hours every week removing every single visible piece of cyano, yet a week later the sand bed and rocks would be covered in cyano. Here’s some system parameters:

75gallon tank, 25g sump.
T5 lighting with reefbrite supplement
700gph return pump, 2x gyre 350
Reef Octopus skimmer INT250

Alk ~8.5
PO4 (Hanna ULR ~0.02-0.03ppm)
NO3 (Hanna high range 0 ppm)

Tank age ~1.5 years.

Corals look great and I’ve had amazing growth over the last year- tank just looks awful because of all of the cyano growth.

I dose two part and saturated kalk to my evaporation limit. I skim pretty heavy, and can’t skim anymore or I will bleach my corals, 0.02ppm PO4 is about as low as I’m comfortable going. Nitrates undetectable. I feed pellets in the morning and a small chunk of frozen in the evenings. Ph ranges daily between 8.2 and 8.6. My flow is as high as it can go without blowing around the sand bed or hitting the corals too hard.

I’ve tried stirring my sandbed (1-2.5” deep, varies) in multiple places multiple times a week, but that didn’t make a large difference.

Any suggestion on what to do here? The classic solutions are to no avail- can’t increase flow any more (would be sandstorm), can’t reduce nutrients anymore (SPS would bleach), and manual removal just results in cyano covering the tank again a week later.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated- I’m at my wits end here!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello,

Hoping somebody can help me with my cyano problem, I’m at my wits end with this stuff! I’ve spent countless hours reading thread after thread of suggestions, but I still can’t get rid of the stuff. Most of my sand bed and large portions of rocks are continuously covered with nice red mats. I’ve long since given up on manual removal. I use to spend a few hours every week removing every single visible piece of cyano, yet a week later the sand bed and rocks would be covered in cyano. Here’s some system parameters:

75gallon tank, 25g sump.
T5 lighting with reefbrite supplement
700gph return pump, 2x gyre 350
Reef Octopus skimmer INT250

Alk ~8.5
PO4 (Hanna ULR ~0.02-0.03ppm)
NO3 (Hanna high range 0 ppm)

Tank age ~1.5 years.

Corals look great and I’ve had amazing growth over the last year- tank just looks awful because of all of the cyano growth.

I dose two part and saturated kalk to my evaporation limit. I skim pretty heavy, and can’t skim anymore or I will bleach my corals, 0.02ppm PO4 is about as low as I’m comfortable going. Nitrates undetectable. I feed pellets in the morning and a small chunk of frozen in the evenings. Ph ranges daily between 8.2 and 8.6. My flow is as high as it can go without blowing around the sand bed or hitting the corals too hard.

I’ve tried stirring my sandbed (1-2.5” deep, varies) in multiple places multiple times a week, but that didn’t make a large difference.

Any suggestion on what to do here? The classic solutions are to no avail- can’t increase flow any more (would be sandstorm), can’t reduce nutrients anymore (SPS would bleach), and manual removal just results in cyano covering the tank again a week later.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated- I’m at my wits end here!

Siphon up and blow loose with a turkey baster
Reduce white light intensity or turn off lights for 4-5 days
During the day, add 1.5ml of liquid bacteria per 10 gallons. Cease feeding coral foods
At night, add 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons to the sump
After 5 days add snails such as:
Margarita
Cerith
Nerite
Trochus

to assist with control

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

Siphon up and blow loose with a turkey baster
Reduce white light intensity or turn off lights for 4-5 days
During the day, add 1.5ml of liquid bacteria per 10 gallons. Cease feeding coral foods
At night, add 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons to the sump
After 5 days add snails such as:
Margarita
Cerith
Nerite
Trochus

to assist with control

I will give this method a shot. I’ve never done a blackout before, let alone for 4-5 days… what effect does this have on SPS? Are they fine going that long without light? Do I need to wrap garbage bags around to block all light?

For reducing white lights, as I run t5, should I just swap out some of the coral+ bulbs maybe?

Any recommended liquid bacteria brands in particular?

Have you had success with this stratagey as a long term solution rather than a bandaid?

Sorry for all of the questions but thank you for the input?

 

[cdw79]

My magic solution recommended by my LFS was to use Microbacter7- that stuff works miracles. Took me from carpets of cyano to absolutely no cyano in a matter of days. I love the stuff, dose it almost daily now as it also helps with controlling nutrients naturally. Definitely not an expert, I'd definitely take @vetteguy53081 's approach, but maybe still the product a try! Worst comes to worst it doesn't help and you can use the rest to help with nutrients more broadly. I currently have 2 gallons of it, tons of folks out here do a bulk buy of the stuff because it's so good at its job. Good luck!

 

[vetteguy53081]

My magic solution recommended by my LFS was to use Microbacter7- that stuff works miracles. Took me from carpets of cyano to absolutely no cyano in a matter of days. I love the stuff, dose it almost daily now as it also helps with controlling nutrients naturally. Definitely not an expert, I'd definitely take @vetteguy53081 's approach, but maybe still the product a try! Worst comes to worst it doesn't help and you can use the rest to help with nutrients more broadly. I currently have 2 gallons of it, tons of folks out here do a bulk buy of the stuff because it's so good at its job. Good luck!

Bacter 7 yes- the liquid bacteria mentioned

 

[vetteguy53081]

G

I will give this method a shot. I’ve never done a blackout before, let alone for 4-5 days… what effect does this have on SPS? Are they fine going that long without light? Do I need to wrap garbage bags around to block all light?

For reducing white lights, as I run t5, should I just swap out some of the coral+ bulbs maybe?

Any recommended liquid bacteria brands in particular?

Have you had success with this stratagey as a long term solution rather than a bandaid?

Sorry for all of the questions but thank you for the input?

Glad you mentioned SPS
While it would be fine, give them 10-15% blue
I’ve had full success as well as Many who took the advice and very happy

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

My magic solution recommended by my LFS was to use Microbacter7- that stuff works miracles. Took me from carpets of cyano to absolutely no cyano in a matter of days. I love the stuff, dose it almost daily now as it also helps with controlling nutrients naturally. Definitely not an expert, I'd definitely take @vetteguy53081 's approach, but maybe still the product a try! Worst comes to worst it doesn't help and you can use the rest to help with nutrients more broadly. I currently have 2 gallons of it, tons of folks out here do a bulk buy of the stuff because it's so good at its job. Good luck!

Good to know, I will give that a shot! What was your dosage, ml/gallon of tank volume? Once a day?

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

G

Glad you mentioned SPS
While it would be fine, give them 10-15% blue
I’ve had full success as well as Many who took the advice and very happy

Will do, definitely going to give this a try. So 10-15% blue, maybe leave on two blue bulbs of the t5 unit (it’s a 6 bulb), during the blackout period?

 

[cdw79]

I do roughly once a day, and roughly 1ml per 10 gallons since my situation is more stable. I believe you can increase it depending on the severity of your situation as @vetteguy53081 said, which would make sense in your situation. Since it's just bacteria no amount will be an overdose, per se, but obviously you want to make your bottle last if you can.

And don't necessarily expect my results, they definitely seem exceptional, but stick with it and it'll come around. You CAN beat this!

 

[djf91]

I was dealing with a bunch of cyano but it seems to have gone away in the past week after I started blowing all of the detritus off my rocks and out of the the rock pores with a very high powered pump. Might be something to add to your maintenance routine..

 

[Miami Reef]

I actually believe that removing the sandbed and basting the rocks with high flow while skimming is the most optimal solution. It will remove all that trapped detritus and organics that the cyano is feeding on.

If you want to add the sand back, go for a super shallow bed with high flow.