Cyano problem, need help

[125mph]

I have been battling cyano for about 9 months and not sure what to do.

- Ran chemi-clean 4 times, and it keeps coming back
- Ran coral snow + cyanoclean and it did nothing

My nitrates are around 5ppm and phosphate around .04ppm, but phosphate stays stable and nitrate drops by 1ppm per day and i dose another 3-4ppm every few days to keep it from crashing. AI thinks its an imbalance of nitrates dropping too fast and has me dosing 1ppm per day to keep it stable. Trying that now.

Running a skimmer, turb scrubber, and fleece roller (reefmat).

Tried lots of water changes, cleaning sand bed. Nothing works

 

[EnterName]

It might be the light but the substrate looks "rust"-colored or brown rather than the typical dark purple slime mat that can be siphoned off easily.

To me it looks more like a severe diatom issue. The actual Cyanos I can see are down in your substrate where you can see a red/purple discoloration, but that's not necessarily an issue:

This for example is (a far less severe) Diatom issue:

​

If you have access to a microscope or know someone that has one, I can suggest taking a sample and looking at it at 200x or 400x magnification. I can help with the identification if you don't know what to look for.
You can also check out my microscopy thread's posts on diatoms (page 1, post #16) and cyanobacteria (page 3, post #52).

Another possibility are certain benthic dinoflagellates, but those tend to produce slimy mats rather than rusty "dust" on the substrate.

 

[KrisReef]

I also think that these mats may be something else?
But for Cyanobacteria-

This is supposed to work, but it takes a while and a few consistent treatments to get to where you want to be. Since you have tried Chemotherapy many times, this may be the way?

The only other thing people recommend is increasing the amount of flow in the tank.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...no-eradication-made-easy.916381/post-10283431

 

[125mph]

Heres a video if it helps.

I had dinos 2 years ago and dosed silicates to try to stop it. I had some diatoms afterwards but not much. I just had a ati icp test and game back normal on “silicon”z

 

[slingfox]

Agreed with the posters above that this does not look like cyano on the sand bed.

 

[125mph]

I would say the color is a mix of brown mixed with burgundy. I have a lens filter on to remove the blue light.

If its not cyano, what is it? It is a color similar to diatoms but this is real heavy. My ICP showed normal silicon, so puzzled.

Lets say it is diatoms, what do I do? I have Phosguard and have used it before thinking it might by diatoms but it didnt help.

 

[EnterName]

If its not cyano, what is it?

An appropriate identification will probably require a microscope
Maybe you know someone with a scope? Cheap ones are usually already enough and depending on whether you can reach 200x or 400x magnification we might be able to find out what you are dealing with.

Lets say it is diatoms, what do I do? I have Phosguard and have used it before thinking it might by diatoms but it didnt help.

If it's diatoms you would use a silicate adsorbing material and ensure your RO/DI comes out at 0ppm TDS as insufficiently filtered RO/DI is one of the main silicate sources. If your ICP came back with normal silica levels it's odd that the problem looks so severe.

I think there is a dinoflagellate species that doesn't produce much slime and instead stains the substrate this way, but I'm not sure and would still require microscope images. I have not seen Chrysophytes that look like that so I doubt it's golden algae.

We had Euglenids before here on R2R (those are green though) which is already odd, so maybe this time it's Cryptophytes like Rhodomonas sp. that would be a new one.

 

[125mph]

I just ordered a microscope.. I will post pictures once I get it next week.

So what do I do? Just grab some of that brown stuff and put it on the glass?

 

[EnterName]

I just ordered a microscope.. I will post pictures once I get it next week.

So what do I do? Just grab some of that brown stuff and put it on the glass?

What kind of microscope did you order is the first question, because if you are already investing a few bucks I don't want the money to go to waste. A compound microscope is what you are looking for. The digital scopes won't work as digital zoom doesn't yield the required resolution/quality.

You will need:

• Microscope slide - Basically a glass where the sample is put on. The light will shine from below through the glass, through the sample
• Cover glass - Thin glass (often somewhere around 0.17mm) that is put on the sample to flatten it out. Otherwise the drop on the microscope slide would distort the image as a water droplet bends light.
• Small pipette - This is just a utility to transfer small amounts of water on the microscope slide. You don't want to add too much or the cover glass will "swim" on the sample making it difficult to observe.

As your sample will be taken from the sand there is a bit of a challenge. You don't really want sand grains on the microscope slide because they will keep the cover glass too elevated and the higher magnification objectives (e.g. 400x) won't be able to get the specimens into focus. You could use a very small container, put some sand in, and then repeatedly suck in and squeeze out a bit of tank water to loosen whatever the stuff is from the substrate. Shaking the container might work as well. Once a few cells are in suspension you can transfer a droplet on the microscope slide and cover it with the cover glass.

 

[125mph]

I got the "

PalliPartners Compound Microscope for Adults & Students, White"​

https://a.co/d/06ouQaFX



Will this get the job done? The Swift SW200DL looks nicer but doesnt come with a phone adaptor. Do I need a phone adaptor to get pictures.

 

[EnterName]

I got the "

PalliPartners Compound Microscope for Adults & Students, White"​

https://a.co/d/06ouQaFX



Will this get the job done? The Swift SW200DL looks nicer but doesnt come with a phone adaptor. Do I need a phone adaptor to get pictures.

You don't need a phone adapter it will just be more finicky to get pictures.

The Palli uses a 25x eye piece which will reduce the quality. It's better to have a 10x eye piece and then use a 20x and 40x objective to reach 200x and 400x magnification than using a 25x eye piece and then have to use their weird setup to reach 200x and 400x.

It also doesn't seem to have a diaphragm which will make focusing difficult. And don't listen to the maximum magnification description. You won't get past 1000x. Everything beyond will be too dark and won't resolve more detail. Visible light simply can't resolve more detail. My setup is not at like 10k value and I wouldn't be able to get useful images past 1000x it's physically impossible to go much further.

What's the Swift one you are talking about?

 

[125mph]

You don't need a phone adapter it will just be more finicky to get pictures.

The Palli uses a 25x eye piece which will reduce the quality. It's better to have a 10x eye piece and then use a 20x and 40x objective to reach 200x and 400x magnification than using a 25x eye piece and an then have to use their weird setup to reach 200x and 400x.

It doesn't seem to have a diaphragm which will make focusing difficult.
What's the Swift one you are talking about?

Ended up switching to the swift sw200dl. That was recommended on some threads.

I see its got a 25x eye piece. Not the 10x

 

[EnterName]

You don't need a phone adapter it will just be more finicky to get pictures.

The Palli uses a 25x eye piece which will reduce the quality. It's better to have a 10x eye piece and then use a 20x and 40x objective to reach 200x and 400x magnification than using a 25x eye piece and an then have to use their weird setup to reach 200x and 400x.

It doesn't seem to have a diaphragm which will make focusing difficult.
What's the Swift one you are talking about?

Ended up switching to the swift sw200dl. That was recommended on some threads.

I see its got a 25x eye piece. Not the 10x

It will have to do. Sorry for my late response it was VERY late in Germany