Cyano/ lyngbya

[etork]

After purchasing a microscope, was able to almost certainly say we have a case of lyngbya. Manually scrubbed rocks, next steps seem to be all over the place. I cannot remove rocks to apply H2O2, so try dosing to tank? How much? How often?

Tank is 3.5 months old. 75gal (80 gal total water volume probably). 2 clowns, yellow tang, pintail wrasse and some snails. 3 zoas, 2 acans and a mushroom.

Sal: 1.026
PH: 8.2
Alk: 8.7
Phos: 0 (working on raising)
Nitrates: 1-2 (also working on raising)

Any help is appreciated. Actively trying to raise nutrients but need some more help to kick this.
TY!

(In case anyone asks, yes this is cross posted on AskBRStv on Facebook. Trying to gather as much info as possible to gather an action plan)

 

[brandon429]

drain down the water level and catch the water for reuse, exposing the rocks to air.

mister bottle some 3% right on the target and let sit. what bleeds off into 75 gallons wont harm anything but cleaner shrimp, it can zap those.

after a few mins cooking, use a paper towel and dry and roughly twist some off/take up with the towel as much as you can.

fill back up slowly dont kick up a bunch of sandbed waste, then remaining stuff on rocks will bleach out over a few days and you added hardly any to the actual water.

if you must dose to water, not advised, then that mix above is still pretty responsive to peroxide.

use a maximum of 1 to 2 mls of 3% per ten gallons of volume, that's your max daily injection.

turn off pumps

slowly inject the peroxide along the target using something so that its burning better as it comes out of your injector


the in-air way will work 10x better with a tenth of the peroxide going into the tank, but in tank dosing will still lighten it out. for in-tank dosing you have to factor lysmata shrimp, and fireworms are likely to die out if any. just about everything else we keep is tolerant to that dose.

There is no case in which I'd sacrifice the work for a drain and treat for just dosing the water, but that's what most people want is the lowest work option.

 

[etork]

Ok, if I am being realistic, I will not be able to drain the tank and apply directly to the rock. It will need to be dosed.

How long do I dose for? 10 days? WC after a week? Sounds like skimmer will go crazy for a few days, I am working from home so should be able to empty frequently. I removed the carbon from my sump too.

 

[brandon429]

Mainly just once a day in concentrated sections at a time, in about 48 hrs a given treated spot should bleach out and then be attractive to clean up crew members where they’ll eat it, or it falls off.

aiming right at the surfaces underwater using syringes from Gebos or farm supply stores with pumps off is ideal. Those places are hidden gems for locating unreasonably large syringes...farm use lol

what we stab in a live beef flank to deliver antibiotics is not a flimsy device at all. I owned a massive syringe with a needle as big as a football inflator so liquid fertilizer could be injected into my planted tank substrate.


we still want to track your application for sure in our huge peroxide thread. Sometimes direct external application isn’t reasonable in large tanks, this secondary option has about 80% chance you’ll like it. If some corals react harshly we can scale back, but at 1-2 mils per ten gallons applied slowly on target submerged i wouldn’t expect anything but lysmata shrimp to be harmed. For some reason they’re the weakest animal in reefing to any degree of peroxide.

* a few mils of direct 3% gets injected fast, hard to bleed it slow across a target. I’d draw the known safe dose into a bovine syringe and then draw the rest up as saltwater, so there’s lots to pump out slowly across target. Little boosters like this take the typical broadcast dose, which does get fair positive feedback, and really amplifies the benefits


we had one fella at reefcentral.com pest algae challenge thread actually submerge a large square of Saran Wrap, pumps off, over a large target rock to envelop it.

he then used his diabetic syringe and needle to inject peroxide into the plastic, and it held the known safe dose right up against target. After ten mins removed the Saran Wrap, restore flow. Just tossing out neat ideas for amplifying I’d seen.

 

[etork]

Thank you. So we picked up supplies to do the first application tonight.

You said turn off pumps, I want to clarify if you meant only return or powerheads too? And for WC, do I just stick with my normal weekly change or after X amount of doses change water?

How long until I see die off? I will attempt to net and manually remove and my debris from water column. And start with one application per area and go from there?

*you mentioned tracking in the peroxide forum, would you mind linking it here? The mobile site isn't super friendly on my phone and I have a heck of a hard time navigating. Sorry!

 

[taricha]

After purchasing a microscope, was able to almost certainly say we have a case of lyngbya.

I saw the second picture posted floating around and it piqued my interest. And now with the microscope pic showing the empty sheath this really does look like a good match for lyngbya or similar.

This is interesting because lyngbya is a type of cyano that is mentioned frequently in studies of benthic cyano, but is rarely confirmed in a tank. It's also a known Nitrogen fixer.
Can you get a more white-light picture? does it really look purple-ish? or is it more gray?
(tagging cyano enthusiast @Dan_P )

 

[etork]

I can try getting a better/diff microphone shot later today.

I applied 12ml of h2o2 to the rock this morning (1.5 mil per 10 gal). I know, better to remove rocks or drain and apply directly but again, not realistically going to happen right now.

Turned off return pump and powerheads for 10mins. Turned off skimmer and ATO as well. Put in a fresh filter sock, and I am anticipating needing to change frequently?

 

[brandon429]

all our work is external where possible, fragmentation is the risk from internal work.

**but we can test rock which is so nice, doenst have to be all at once run.

take one rock out of the tank, manually scrape with a knife or brush the offender clean off a test rock, rinsing in saltwater until its seemingly all gone by force. when the rock appears clean, then spray peroxide on it or pour it, doesnt matter, it wont kill the rock as in resetting the cycle. no degree of in-tank peroxide use and even overdoses has killed cycles, these bac are well-insulated in a reef system.

after 3 mins of air cooking in the clean condition, rinse that rock off one last time in saltwater and set back in the tank. chart it among other rocks getting other options, see which fares better in a week.

here's our large example collection, there are a few lyngbya's in here among the works.

Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

Thank you for the quick reply and guidance. it Is a Waterbox 100.3 so a take down is fairly easy. Went through it to get all the fish out a month ago and is no problem. All corals on plugs aside from the nem so that is also a non issue. Conchs, snails, hermits, fire and cleaner shrimp is all...

www.reef2reef.com

that last page is ulva getting a classic bully beatdown.