Hammers Super Closed After Chemiclean

[Addicted2Acro]

Have a bad cyano breakout. Tank is pretty new. Around 6 months. Have a bunch of acros, hammers, and torches. Did a chemiclean treatment and everything looked worse. (and the cyano is still just as bad). This was a few days ago. Did 2 or 3 large water changes along with syphoning out cyano and replacing the water. Torches look fine. Acros are getting better, but hammers are still very closed up. Alk, Ca, Mg are all where they are supposed to be. Dose All for reef daily so elements should be fine. Nitrates are 4 and phosphates are .02. Also dosing Tropic Marin NP to raise those a little. Dosing bacteria and cyano clean daily with Coral Snow.

Anything I can do to help the hammers out?

 

[Kooma]

Big bag of carbon would be my first step.

I’d also blow off the hammers gently with a turkey baster.

 

[Uncle99]

Have a bad cyano breakout. Tank is pretty new. Around 6 months. Have a bunch of acros, hammers, and torches. Did a chemiclean treatment and everything looked worse. (and the f*ing cyano is still just as bad). This was a few days ago. Did 2 or 3 large water changes along with syphoning out cyano and replacing the water. Torches look fine. Acros are getting better, but hammers are still very closed up. Alk, Ca, Mg are all where they are supposed to be. Dose All for reef daily so elements should be fine. Nitrates are 4 and phosphates are .02. Also dosing Tropic Marin NP to raise those a little. Dosing bacteria and cyano clean daily with Coral Snow.

Anything I can do to help the hammers out?

0.02ppm phosphate is too low. Factoring in margin of error in test, it could be zero which can trigger or sustain pest type algae and bacteria, in your case, Cyano.

If your sure of your test result, I’d bump that up to .1ppm and hold firm making no further changes other than carbon and bacteria adds.

Chemi-clean is indiscriminate in killing both the bad, and some good bacteria, so a bacteria dose daily and a splash of live phyto will speed recovery.

 

[NancyFish]

How did this all work out for you, what did you do? Worried about losing my torches and not sure which method is best for their health

 

[Addicted2Acro]

How did this all work out for you, what did you do? Worried about losing my torches and not sure which method is best for their health

Chemiclean never ended up working. I did multiple rounds. The thing that ended up working was I simply just leaving the lights off for three days. Didn’t do a complete blackout or anything. Just left the lights off and 3 days later the cyano was gone and has not come back. Crazy.

 

[Addicted2Acro]

Also…just an fyi…chemiclean will mess your acros up. I would never use it again in a tank that has any high end acros.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I expect the problem was toxins from the dead cyanobacteria, not direct impact of the antibiotic on the corals. Most people do not have such an issue.

Manual removal of as much cyano as possible before treatment limits that issue.