Help confirm cyano or something else?

[Rivic]

hi all,

I recently moved my 108 gallon DT (125 total water volume) reef tank from my business to my home and after a little over a month I am battling some kind of bacteria that I believe is cyano but not 100% sure.

A little history, the tank was neglected for a small stint and had a definite bloom prior to the move. During this bloom I lost several coral and fish and only the hardiest survived including a yellow tang, two gobies, a potters angel, a toadstool coral and some various mushroom coral. After the move I cleaned and scrubbed the rocks and did a lot of husbandry work. Phosphates were high at 55ppb so I added some Gfo and was doing weekly 25% water changes. Water params came in line and the tank water was cleaner than I had ever seen it for about a week. That’s when the new bloom started. I included some pictures below. The cloudy water was due to coral snow I had added shortly before. Thanks for any help!

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

It looks like it might be. The easiest way to tell is if it blows off your sand very easily in chunks/sheets, is slimy and is red/maroon in color it probably is (I’ve also had green Cyano before. Really pretty color but really annoying). If it’s brown, it’s probably a different type of algae. Some pics with more white in them could help us ID it better.

 

[ahiggins]

Classic Cyano outbreak always starts with “well, my nitrates are at zero and my tank is super clean”. ~usually~ Cyano happens when the tank bottoms out on nutrients. That’s what this looks like to me. If it comes off in chunks and is kinda stringy/slimey-that’s a good bet. I’ve had luck getting rid of it with chemiclean. Follow directions to a T though as it also strips oxygen from the water. Good luck
Ps. It will irritate corals a little but they will recover.

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

Did you take the GFO offline when your nutrients came back in line? If not, it would be a good idea to. Chemiclean works, but you'll need to fix the nutrient issue or it will just return.

 

[ArizonaAquatics]

Looks like it could be Dinoflagellates. Looks similar to cyano but lacks the overall density and can also be somewhat stringy.

 

[Bryson.bobby]

Classic Cyano outbreak always starts with “well, my nitrates are at zero and my tank is super clean”. ~usually~ Cyano happens when the tank bottoms out on nutrients. That’s what this looks like to me. If it comes off in chunks and is kinda stringy/slimey-that’s a good bet. I’ve had luck getting rid of it with chemiclean. Follow directions to a T though as it also strips oxygen from the water. Good luck
Ps. It will irritate corals a little but they will recover.

+1.

I’m almost 100% sure that’s cyano. Try raising your nitrates and add more flow to the affected areas.

Edit: The cyano likely occurred because of the loss in bioload (livestock) causing the nitrates to drop. The problem should resolve itself once you start adding to your bioload again.

 

[Hemmdog]

Your using 0 tds RODI right?

 

[Rivic]

Hi all,

Thank you for the responses. Yes I am using my own rodi for all wc and top offs. Filters get replaced whenever it starts detecting tds. My phosphates at last check were 23 ppb (0.07 ppm) and I have since removed my Gfo. It always seems to get worse during peak lighting and seems to almost disappear at night and come back with the little light I get in the house before my lights come on. I am running the hydra 26 hd’s at pretty low intensity with no red/green and in acclimation mode currently and for about 8 hours a day with a 2 hour ramp. My nitrates appear very low, hard to tell with my test kit but like 0.25ppm maybe.

I have attached some more pics. The first two are lights off and with the whites higher and the second two is the best I could get from my microscope. Looks like a mix of diatoms, dinos and cyano to me but I am nowhere near an expert haha. I should also note that I am dosing some of the zeovit line to include zeostart 3, cyanoclean, Coral snow. Should I continue doing weekly water changes or let bio load and nitrates increase as one poster said?

Thanks again guys, this is driving me crazy but it’s nice to know I have a resource here to assist in managing my insanity.

 

[ahiggins]

Looking at it in the whites, it looks more like Dino’s to me

 

[ahiggins]

If it’s slimey and “sticky” like it brings sand off with it when you pick it up it’s cyano. If it doesn’t come off in sheets then it’s dinos

 

[Rivic]

It definitely sticks to the sand and seems slimy

 

[ahiggins]

I’m gonna say it’s more Dino/diatoms than anything else. It doesn’t look the right consistency for cyano and cyano doesn’t disappear/lesson without light.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

[emoji115]agreed. Dino/diatoms. Your tank appears fairly new. I have the same problem with my tank right now (5 months old). Don’t stress too much about it. It’ll go away eventually when your tank settles out (like 9 months - 1 year of being set up). Just keep monitoring your NO3 and PO4, vacuum your sand during water changes and it’ll subside eventually. Here is the plan I’m going off for NO3 and PO4...

 

[ahiggins]

That chart is all well and good if you dont want coral for the first 2 years lol You *might* be able to get away with sps with nutrients that low?
In my experience, the softies like higher than 2-3 ppm nitrates. Not sure about phosphates because ive never monitored them. Diatoms/dinos will go away on their own unless your nutrients either get too high or too low.

 

[Rivic]

Well, tank was set up for about 1 year prior to move and had a massive bloom of wavy red algae I just assumed was cyano. After the move I did use red slime remover and it worked for about a week then came back.

If it’s Dino’s isn’t that really really bad and hard to get rid of? Or do you think it’s a temporary case while my biological filtration reestablishes itself? Do I slow down on water changes or not disturb it for a bit?

Thanks!

 

[ahiggins]

dinos/diatoms arent hard at all to get rid of. its just normal maintenance such as vacuming sand, blowing off rocks, etc. You want them to go through your tanks filter. Ive seen soooo many people add chemical after chemical to their tanks just to create more problems than they had originally. keep up with normally water changes (~10% weekly) right after you blow off the rocks. during the water change, use a very small siphon (i like the python small ones) to siphon the sand. If you have fine sand like I do, youll have to pinch the hose a little so you dont take the sand out with the detritus.
Number 1 rule in reefing-> dont freak out and do something rash. research and find what could work for you best. Dont just take my word or anyone elses word. look it up for yourself and figure out which approach you want to take

 

[Rivic]

dinos/diatoms arent hard at all to get rid of. its just normal maintenance such as vacuming sand, blowing off rocks, etc. You want them to go through your tanks filter. Ive seen soooo many people add chemical after chemical to their tanks just to create more problems than they had originally. keep up with normally water changes (~10% weekly) right after you blow off the rocks. during the water change, use a very small siphon (i like the python small ones) to siphon the sand. If you have fine sand like I do, youll have to pinch the hose a little so you dont take the sand out with the detritus.
Number 1 rule in reefing-> dont freak out and do something rash. research and find what could work for you best. Dont just take my word or anyone elses word. look it up for yourself and figure out which approach you want to take

Thank you! That is pretty much in like with my plan. I have a python and have been siphoning the sand at wc’s And trying to brush off rocks with a toothbrush. There’s also a lot on the back wall of the tank I can scrape off with my flipper. Any point in trying to do a black out period to see if that helps or no need? I think my few small corals would be fine as they are hardy softs.

On another note, I feed a small amount of frozen once a day and a half sheet of nori for my tang and angel. Should I decrease or increase this do you think ?

 

[ahiggins]

Ive never had tangs so i cant speak to their eating habits but I baby my fish and my nassarius snails haha. once a day, i thaw out some food and put in about enough for them to completely eat in 2 minutes. (it was trial and error till i found the right amount). Then i toss in a couple more pieces to see if they eat. If they dont, i turn off the flow and let the nassarius eat.
As for the dark period/black out. Youre already doing a black out-each night. It goes away for the most part then comes back during the day. While you might get significant die off if you do 3-5 day blackout, youll still have to break that down to ammonia-nitrite-nitrate. IMO its not worth it to stress your corals. Id just continue to do water changes with siphoning/blowing. Another good thing to have is a TON of filter pads/floss. I use the blue and white poly filters and you wouldnt believe the amount of green/brown that they catch after i blow off a rock. Then i toss it. I also stir up my sand really good about 5 days or so after each water change. that helps break up the dino/diatom blooms in the sand (because i have new sand) and put them in the water column to be filtered out by the floss. **important note that deep sand beds shouldnt be stirred-i dont know how deep yours is. Also, stirring/agitating will make the water a tad cloudy if you didnt rinse well enough to begin with or if you have lots of fish poo. Good news is that will also be caught by the filter pads.
Stay vigilant and it will decrease and go away. As long as you keep doing the 1x week water changes and blowing stuff off, your tank will stabilize and you wont lose anything due to a shock to the system (chemical/die off/etc).
Seriously though, theres tons of different ways people run their tanks and address problems and they all work for their own specific tanks. I would be super wary of anyone who says that a single cure works for every single tank. Just like every tank has their own sweet spot with nutrients.