Cyano problem, need help

[EnterName]

also, i dont know if this is a clue, but in the morning before the lights are up, there is only a little coloration on the sand bed.. the sand looks mostly clean with some red/purple spots. As the aquarium lights intensify during the day, then the brown mat starts to intensify




I think I have amphidinium dino? All this time I thoguth it was cyano.


View attachment 4543605

Other mat forming organisms are also increasing with the photoperiod so it's not a 100% certain ID but Amphidinium is certainly a possibility as some of them apparently create less mucus and like to go a bit deeper into the substrate.

 

[Dan_P]

This is like a mat of brown/red.. The previous battle I had with dinos was very obvious, gooe everywhere and strings up.

Unless you're saying I have a different dinos that isn't like the previous one I had. Cant wait for the scope to come...

I was tempted to think dinoflagellates because the only time that I observed cyanobacteria that were not green or red/purple was under sever nitrogen depletion which you don’t have.

Good luck with your microscopy investigation.

 

[EnterName]

@125mph finally found an image. I knew I had seen this stuff before:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/microscopy-thread.1138845/post-14467504

[...]

Amphidinium (or Testudodinium which is hard to differentiate somemtimes) can create this slime-less substrate coverage

 

[CHSUB]

I have a bad GHA problem as well, been battling that for a while too..

Do you think I could stop dosing nitrate and be okay? I had dinos last year because my phosphate and nitrates crashed to zero and took about a month to get rid of the dinos. Thats why I'm very afraid of nitrates dropping to zero... If i dont dose, my nitrate last time went to 0 and I quickly dosed it back (phosphate was still at 0.03 ) so I think thats why I didnt get dinos again this time,.

I would stop and not be concerned with low no3. Clean aquariums never suffer algae problems. Manual removal and vigorous maintenance is all that is needed…

 

[W31Olds]

I have Cyano in my DT right now that is Rust Colored. Not sure why but it's definitely Cyano. I just checked some under my Microscope and it matches the image. I would think your problem is the same. I have been dosing Microbacter-7 and it's seems to be slowing down

 

[RobertK]

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

I'm guessing dinos. Your microscope will help you ID what this is, then you'll know what your options are for how to proceed! Looks like you picked a nice scope!

 

[Fritz05]

I had cyano several times, including the kind tht disappears over night. I always had low nitrates and phosphates, and tried all kinds of things to raise them, including. dosing nitrates, phosphates, and vinegar. Nothing worked, until I stopped all my efforts and returned to my regular maintenance interval and nothing else. The cyano eventually disappeared, but it took several months.