Lessons learned with Cyanobacteria.

[GoReefin]

I hope this post can help others that are going through something similar.

I have a 375g 96x30x30 tank set up for approximately 6 months. two weeks ago i started noticing cyanobacteria on my sand bed. A week ago my rocks, sand bed were covered with cyanobacteria. My corals, anemones started looking terrible. I bought microbacter 7 and used for a week as instructed which did not help. I cleaned my powerheads and pumps which increased flow 1 week ago which helped some.

Yesterday I decided to vaccum the sand bed to try and remove as much as I can and perform a 10% water change. I heard some cyano can starve tanks of oxygen so i had a air stone going and kept my powerheads going during the water change and vacuuming.

Within 20 minutes my fish started dying. First to go was my mystery wrasse. Next my hawkfish started dying. I tried placing the hawkfish in high flow Because I thought it was a lack of oxygen. The hawkfish died in my hand. Next my vlamingii Tang followed 20 minutes later by my gem tang. Some of my snails also died but not all of them.

For some reason my clownfish, blue hippo tang and white tail bristletooth tang are fine. All corals were fine.

I'm thinking since I stirred up the cyanobacteria I probably inadvertently released a toxin in the tank. I did change out my carbon and maybe that helped.

Moral of the story is if you have a cyano outbreak don't try and vaccum it up before doing lights out method or chemiclean. Nitrates can be delt with. However, toxins are much more difficult and rapid acting.

Hindsight is always 20-20 if knowing what I know now I'd probably also Remove all fish and as many snails as possible before killing the cyanobacteria.

 

[Tahoe61]

Good advice.

You just never know. Chemiclean has always worked well for me.