Cyano going to cause me to shut down my tank

[Sallstrom]

Would you like to post some pictures?
It's really hard to say. It sounds to me like you're on the right track, keeping good control over N and P, adjusting when needed. Good call on lowering the phosphate. Not sure it make any difference, but I should have done the same

If it's not cyano it might be diatoms or dinoflagellates. Diatoms are fine, many animals graze on them. The dinos are harder, often takes some time and patience.

 

[Potatohead]

Pretty sure it’s still cyano. My phosphate/vinegar dose mix was 50/50, it was down about 20%, I added straight up vinegar and will continue dosing the same amount just to see what happens. So I have increased carbon dose a bit and decreased phosphate a bit.

 

[Potatohead]

So those acans in the pic you see fairly puffy, they’re all closed up today. No idea why. I did a small water change and changed carbon yesterday, just normal maintenance. 80% of my zoanthids haven’t opened more than halfway in about six weeks. There’s also some hints of green cyano coming back. I’m really close to the end of my rope on this thing.

 

[Potatohead]

Alright so having a step back for a day or so, thinking rationally over this and checking my notes, I have a plan going forward. I don't know it will work, but I don't want to give up yet. I post this stuff because it's just another way of documenting things for me if I ever need to go back, and maybe someone takes interest in it too.

Back when the tank was phosphate limited, nitrate 50+, my chaeto ball was huge. I cut the ball in half, reduced the lighting period by about 25%, started dosing phosphate and nopox. It worked, the (mainly green) cyano all went away, phosphate came up, nitrate went down. I continued along that path for a couple months and some red cyano started appearing. I switched to vinegar instead of nopox about maybe five weeks ago. Since then it has very slowly gotten worse.

So, I can surmise the likely cause of the red cyano is carbon dosing, and switching to vinegar alone hasn't really helped. So, I am going to discontinue vinegar and go back to a small, maintenance dose (1.5 ml into 70 gallons) of nopox. I am also going to extend my lighting schedule on my chaeto ball again in the hopes the chaeto ball will start to reduce nitrate more and not have to rely on carbon. I have also been thinking about adding more biomedia, I have two litres of Matrix in my sump but thinking of maybe trying one of those Brightwell bricks. If I can essentially stop carbon dosing or at least have a very small dose, I think that will help a lot. I will most likely have to continue dosing phosphate but obviously I will monitor that. The tank seems to be coming around in that regard, I have been able to reduce my phosphate dose by about 30% and the levels are still just fine. If I have to continue carbon dosing long term, depending on what happens cyano wise I may try switching to straight up vodka just to see what happens there too. I know most people have better luck with vinegar in that regard but as of right now I can't say I have had the same experience.

Of course this is all just theory, but we'll see what happens in a few weeks I guess.

 

[Art2249]

Just curious here. What does carbon dosing do? Seems like it can cause a lot of problems.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/some-corals-closed-up-after-cyano-die-off.497679/


These two threads need to be simult tracked because they’re being advised very similarly, water only actions allowed, keeping detritus where it stands. And one heck of a long wait.

Potato it’s good science that you haven’t started over, staying up with details and pics. You are helping us learn about cyano battles as most wont stay with it this long. Well done resolve/ respects.

im a tad disappointed in the resolve and delivery of the prior advisors here, though.


Page 12 onward is good for recent cyano slayings across different tanks:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/page-12


The preferred method for your tank Potato will still be water actions since it’s large volume. I personally think you should look into new release cyano bottle additives they are really good, saw on the blogs. There are pro biotic formulas now made solely at cyano killing via the water, those could do it, I read of a brightwell version lately I think it was.

 

[Potatohead]

So, kind of some interesting test results from the latest ICP test. Mainly, my phosphate is definitely higher, and my nitrate is definitely lower. My phosphate is about double what my Hanna ULR seems to show, so that's somewhat interesting. I thought I was in the .05 - .07 range. So, I am going to stop dosing that and let the chaeto grow a bit. Acropora is still doing fine, actually growing well. Zoas and acans are there, but not real happy, still not certain why. My aluminum is coming down since I am not using aluminum oxide anymore, barium continues to be high I can only assume from the salt mix. The actual cyano I have is still pretty much the same but now that I see my phosphate is a bit high I can work on slowly bringing that down along with carbon. If things continue down this road after another month or two I am going to seriously consider taking the sand out.

All in all I feel better because at some point in the last couple months the tank looked good. I just went a bit too far mainly because my ULR tester seemed to be lying a bit.

 

[brandon429]

Really detailed and duration included measures it's helpful for sure to watch for patterns

How nice to have param testing accurate and not API guessed just once

 

[Potatohead]

I’m kind of starting to second guess my skimmer, but it may be in my head. It was acting weird yesterday so I pulled it apart and there was some chaeto bits in the pump inlet. So I cleaned it out, did not clean the inside of the body. Now I can’t get the water level very high at all and it will only skim extremely dry. It did this the last time I took it apart too for a day or two so I don’t think it’s assembled wrong. Maybe my water is low in organics again since I stopped carbon dosing, I don’t know. It does work a lot better when I was dosing.

 

[Potatohead]

So, the last three weeks or so have been bad. Since I stopped carbon and phosphate dosing I have lost about half my coral. The tank is basically red. The sand, back wall, rocks. I can clean it up and it lasts one day, if that. Its not really getting any worse anymore and my skimmer is pulling out a ton of funk, so I think some at least is partially dying away at a slow rate, but I don’t know really.

At this point I am 95% committed to pulling out the coral, leaving the lights off for a week or two, maybe pulling out the sand, maybe modifying the rock work a bit and just letting it run with my fish only for a few months. I don’t particularly want to, but I don’t know how to beat this stuff otherwise.

 

[ZaneTer]

Why haven’t you used chemiclean yet? The stuff works. Admittedly it doesn’t solve the underlying issue but it definitely buys you quite a lot of time to find and fix the problem.

I would cease all forms of carbon dosing. You are fuelling the cyano.

 

[Potatohead]

Why haven’t you used chemiclean yet? The stuff works. Admittedly it doesn’t solve the underlying issue but it definitely buys you quite a lot of time to find and fix the problem.

I have, twice. It comes back a few weeks later, and the second time it only got rid of about 50% of it in the first place. That was also a 25% overdose, dosed twice.

I could try it again I suppose because I don’t have much to lose at this point.

 

[ZaneTer]

I have, twice. It comes back a few weeks later, and the second time it only got rid of about 50% of it in the first place. That was also a 25% overdose, dosed twice.

I could try it again I suppose because I don’t have much to lose at this point.

If you are losing corals then at this point you don’t have much to lose in my opinion.
How is it going with removing your sandbed?
I personally run bare bottom and will never go back to sand in a tank.

 

[Big E]

Very sorry to hear about your latest problems. I haven't read the whole thread just the beginning and the last few pages, but it looks like a lot of changes from a balance standpoint and no Sps system is going to be happy this way.

A couple of comments for anyone interested--

Don't run an algae filter when carbon dosing and visa-versa These are two different export systems competing with each other, rendering both less effective. All the commercial carbon dosing systems will tell you to ditch the algae filter.

Chasing the ratio may not be a factor in the red cyano taking hold. If you see it on your internal pumps or other inert areas then it may be worth tracking. Otherwise, it's best to attack the source areas it feeds on which is mainly detritus on the rocks or a sand bed sinking nutrients. You can baste the rocks and vacuum or stir the sand so it doesn't get a foot hold.

When you carbon dose you're making it available to all bacteria which cyano is one of many. I doubt it matters what you use. You need to find a way for the other bacteria to out compete it. Back when vinegar/vodka dosing first started a lot of people would also dose a bacteria daily or a few days per week........MB7 was the most common. I don't know why people have gotten away from this, but it's an option that can help. Again most of the commercial systems have a bacterial component that is dosed in concert.

 

[truepercs]

I have had issues myself... Daily vacuum, water changes(Made sure RO unit was fresh and working fine), more flow, etc... several weeks if not months of frustration. After reading about bacteria and natural methods, I ended up ordering products from Microbe-lift to give it a try. Specifically the Gravel and substrate cleaner and their "Special blend". It has been about two weeks now and I can report that I am heading in the right direction. I no longer have anything forming on rocks or gravel. One of the worst things I have went through. Not pushing their product only mentioning that it might be something to read up on.

 

[Potatohead]

Very sorry to hear about your latest problems. I haven't read the whole thread just the beginning and the last few pages, but it looks like a lot of changes from a balance standpoint and no Sps system is going to be happy this way.

A couple of comments for anyone interested--

Don't run an algae filter when carbon dosing and visa-versa These are two different export systems competing with each other, rendering both less effective. All the commercial carbon dosing systems will tell you to ditch the algae filter.

Chasing the ratio may not be a factor in the red cyano taking hold. If you see it on your internal pumps or other inert areas then it may be worth tracking. Otherwise, it's best to attack the source areas it feeds on which is mainly detritus on the rocks or a sand bed sinking nutrients. You can baste the rocks and vacuum or stir the sand so it doesn't get a foot hold.

When you carbon dose you're making it available to all bacteria which cyano is one of many. I doubt it matters what you use. You need to find a way for the other bacteria to out compete it. Back when vinegar/vodka dosing first started a lot of people would also dose a bacteria daily or a few days per week........MB7 was the most common. I don't know why people have gotten away from this, but it's an option that can help. Again most of the commercial systems have a bacterial component that is dosed in concert.

The weird thing about the whole thing over the last six months or so is my acropora have always been fine. It is my zoas and acans that have been having problems for months. Even now I have pretty much lost all my acans over the last few weeks but most of my acros are still "fine" with no tissue loss, and some even still growing slowly. I have never had a problem growing them in the last year or so, I just seem to have this huge cyano problem along with that.

I know you haven't read the whole thread probably because it is pretty long, but I have done the latter two points you make more than once. I have been dosing MB7 for a long time and I have even been trying Microbacter Clean recently, which actually seems really hard on the corals for some reason. Also when it comes to detritus, the tank is as clean as I can reasonably keep it. I do typical maintenance every 7-10 days which includes stirring the sand, and I have a lot of flow as well.

I think this latest round of cyano may have been kickstarted from dosing inorganic phosphate, but that's 100% a guess. Dosing it really helped my tank in the beginning but I read later on that when doing so sometimes some of it will precipitate out and then you have phosphate all over the sand and rock. Who knows at this point. My current nutrient levels are nitrate in the 6-8 range and phosphate is at .02, unsure how much the cyano is consuming, but I am certainly feeding less than I was a couple months ago.

My last theory is that I simply have too much light over the tank (an eight bulb Sunpower) for the amount of coral that I have, I haven't been loading it up with frags because I was hoping for decent sized colonies, but then I've had times for a couple months at a time where everything is really nice, so I don't think it's that.

I think it just need a reset with the whole thing. I hate to condemn my remaining corals but I don't know any other way to go about it. I think I will probably try another round of removing as much as I can, followed by chemiclean treatment, followed by heavy MB7 and then if that doesn't work, the lights are going off for a week, the sand is potentially coming out, and I'm hitting the reset button entirely with fish only for a few months.

 

[TexasReefer82]

Potatohead, Apologize for not reading this entire thread...

Stop dosing all those concoctions that you've been trying. Stop adding any kind of carbon to your tank. Phosphate and Nitrate aren't your problem

I think that the solution to your problem might be as simple as removing your substrate. In the photo you posted above your substrate is absolutely covered. It's surely packed with detritus. Either remove it entirely, or by means of the "sand rinse thread" posted by brandon429, siphon out portions of your substrate (20% - 30% at a time) and rinse it with the garden hose or in the bathtub until all detritus is washed out and the water runs clean. Do a final rinse or two with RO water to flush out the chlorine form the tap water, drain it, and add it back to your tank. It will be immediately cyano-free and will stay that way for some months until it accumulates detritus again.

I have the same cyano problem in my sps dominant tank - for me it's the green stuff. My nutrients are so low that if don't dose both nitrate and phosphates they go to zero over the course of a week and my acros bleach and stn. So... the root cause here isn't excess nutrients - it's excess carbon. You've been not only dosing carbon to decrease nitrates and phosphates but you're substrate is very likely holding TONS of carbon in the form of detritus - so the cyano has TONS of food. I love the look of substrate so I keep it... but the price of substrate is that i have to periodically (at least once per year) remove all of it and completely rinse it clean. I do this in portions obviously along with what amounts to ~100% water change to complete the entire sand bed.

Give it try - you'll be happy. If nothing else, as an experiment, fully rinse just a portion of the substrate and add it back. Obviously it'll be clean for the moment but see how long it STAYS clean. If that portion stays clean for a few weeks you'll know what the problem is.

extra note: I've found that simply "vacuuming" the substrate when performing a water change isn't effective. I don't know why, but it's not. Fully removing the substrate, completely rinsing it and adding it back is the answer.

 

[rushbattle]

Potatohead, Apologize for not reading this entire thread...

Stop dosing all those concoctions that you've been trying. Stop adding any kind of carbon to your tank. Phosphate and Nitrate aren't your problem

I think that the solution to your problem might be as simple as removing your substrate. In the photo you posted above your substrate is absolutely covered. It's surely packed with detritus. Either remove it entirely, or by means of the "sand rinse thread" posted by brandon429, siphon out portions of your substrate (20% - 30% at a time) and rinse it with the garden hose or in the bathtub until all detritus is washed out and the water runs clean. Do a final rinse or two with RO water to flush out the chlorine form the tap water, drain it, and add it back to your tank. It will be immediately cyano-free and will stay that way for some months until it accumulates detritus again.

I have the same cyano problem in my sps dominant tank - for me it's the green stuff. My nutrients are so low that if don't dose both nitrate and phosphates they go to zero over the course of a week and my acros bleach and stn. So... the root cause here isn't excess nutrients - it's excess carbon. You've been not only dosing carbon to decrease nitrates and phosphates but you're substrate is very likely holding TONS of carbon in the form of detritus - so the cyano has TONS of food. I love the look of substrate so I keep it... but the price of substrate is that i have to periodically (at least once per year) remove all of it and completely rinse it clean. I do this in portions obviously along with what amounts to ~100% water change to complete the entire sand bed.

Give it try - you'll be happy. If nothing else, as an experiment, fully rinse just a portion of the substrate and add it back. Obviously it'll be clean for the moment but see how long it STAYS clean. If that portion stays clean for a few weeks you'll know what the problem is.

extra note: I've found that simply "vacuuming" the substrate when performing a water change isn't effective. I don't know why, but it's not. Fully removing the substrate, completely rinsing it and adding it back is the answer.

It's this idea that vacuuming is the same as rinsing that causes the most confusion. I don't know why either, but I am guessing that vacuuming gets only a small portion of the detritus because water velocity and turbulence is low vs a hard rinse with relatively high pressure stream of water.

What you suggest will likely work, but it's more work than most people want to put into their tank every 6 months to a year. If I was running a lower flow tank that is what I would do for sure though. Sand is so nice looking. But I need more flow and I think it helps with coral health so I run without granular substrate.

 

[Potatohead]

It's this idea that vacuuming is the same as rinsing that causes the most confusion. I don't know why either, but I am guessing that vacuuming gets only a small portion of the detritus because water velocity and turbulence is low vs a hard rinse with relatively high pressure stream of water.

What you suggest will likely work, but it's more work than most people want to put into their tank every 6 months to a year. If I was running a lower flow tank that is what I would do for sure though. Sand is so nice looking. But I need more flow and I think it helps with coral health so I run without granular substrate.

I don't mind doing tank maintenance, sometimes its even therapeutic, but that sounds like a nightmare. I'd rather just go bare bottom.

I just ordered a roller filter because I hate socks and haven't been using them for a while now. I vacuum the sump every 4-6 weeks but there is definitely still some detritus in there.

Starting to lean away from using chemiclean and just doing a long lights out period and removing sand. Probably redo some rockwork as well, and hit the reset button.

 

[truepercs]

Hmmm... my testing indicated low Phosphates, low nitrates... However upon my reading regarding test results were not accurate due to due Cyano consuming nutrients . In my case I think the bacteria to bio load was out of wack therefore the bacteria additions appear to have helped. Although rinsing will help clean, the rinsing seems like you would be killing the beneficial bacteria that is also needed. I can sympathize with you, it sucks... I hope you can resolve. I went through a series of out breaks. Bubble Algae, Bryopsis, and Cyano each seeming to be more difficult to rid than the last. Yes and each time I wanted to scrap and start over. Why did I have to go ahead and screw things up by upgrading to a larger aquarium Hang in there remember it is all a learning curve and we find out it is not free we pay each lesson. Eventually I will have a nice tank.