Losing The Battle With Cyanobacteria

[EnterName]

Just throwing in a theory:
All living things require carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), so if there is excessive growth, this growth has access to excessive C, N, and P.

I know your tests seem to indicate relatively harmless nitrate and phosphate levels, but you have to add all the C/N/P that is bound to cyanos. All these nutrients had to come from somewhere and are simply undetectable by your tests as they are bound to organic matter. I think nutrient levels are still too high and need to drop down further (maybe even to undetectable levels) before the problem can be solved.

Be patient, and don't get discouraged. Keep removing nutrients and especially make sure the import of nutrients is reduced to a minimum.

Do you remember what happened to nitrate and phosphate levels while you were dosing chemiclean?

 

[Uncle99]

Carbon binds some minor elements and UV disables some good stuff as well, so unless you need to target something, I’d stop both those processes.

You need to be absolutely sure you actually have a true 0.05ppm phosphate on the bottom end, I would bump that to 0.1ppm, just to be sure.

If Cyano is persistent check carefully the flux on Alk and Temp, these create instabilities which Cyano loves.

With chemi, use at least what was described, it’s an antibiotic so too less, and it might come back stronger.

It needs light. Where possible, lower that.

You must use a air stone to keep water oxygenated.

Good luck.
You will prevail.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I think every Reefer should have a microscope on hand to eliminate guessing and frustration. Also, sometimes what looks red in blue lights is actually green.

 

[slingfox]

Thorough and comprehensive description of your system and what you have tried to do. You are a model for all the posters starting new threads asking for help!

A 9 month old tank is still pretty new. I assume once you tackle cyano then Dino’s will come visit so you can proceed in the war with uglies. It sounds like you are on top of your reef keeping so keep it up and the tank should eventually stabalize.

I recently had to deal with mats of cyano on the rockwork and sand after a tank reset. I tried periodic siphoning / scrubbing along with water changes for 6 weeks but it kept coming back. People often recommend high flow but cyano would grow even even areas where it was getting directly hit by my powerheads. The cyano was not the result of excess nutrients since I have low phosphates (0.04-0.05ppm at the time) and near undetectable nitrates (need to dose). I eventually caved and did one dose of Chemiclean and that worked for me (at least for now). Four weeks and no issue but I am far from in the clear.

 

[EnterName]

Carbon binds some minor elements and UV disables some good stuff as well, so unless you need to target something, I’d stop both those processes.

You need to be absolutely sure you actually have a true 0.05ppm phosphate on the bottom end, I would bump that to 0.1ppm, just to be sure.

If Cyano is persistent check carefully the flux on Alk and Temp, these create instabilities which Cyano loves.

With chemi, use at least what was described, it’s an antibiotic so too less, and it might come back stronger.

It needs light. Where possible, lower that.

You must use a air stone to keep water oxygenated.

Good luck.
You will prevail.

What's the additional phosphate for?
Once you add antibiotics a lot of bacteria will die, effectively making bound phosphates available again, and removing one of the major phosphate consumers (cyanos) at the same time.

I would have assumed phosphates are higher than the current tests show, as cyanos are eating all nutrients up they can get. Does something in chemiclean remove phosphates?

Edit: I'm not saying you are wrong, I genuinely just want to understand your approach and challenge my own understanding of these issues.

 

[EnterName]

Thorough and comprehensive description of your system and what you have tried to do. You are a model for all the posters starting new threads asking for help!

A 9 month old tank is still pretty new. I assume once you tackle cyano then Dino’s will come visit so you can proceed in the war with uglies. It sounds like you are on top of your reef keeping so keep it up and the tank should eventually stabalize.

I recently had to deal with mats of cyano on the rockwork and sand after a tank reset. I tried periodic siphoning / scrubbing along with water changes for 6 weeks but it kept coming back. People often recommend high flow but cyano would grow even even areas where it was getting directly hit by my powerheads. The cyano was not the result of excess nutrients since I have low phosphates (0.04-0.05ppm at the time) and near undetectable nitrates (need to dose). I eventually caved and did one dose of Chemiclean and that worked for me (at least for now). Four weeks and no issue but I am far from in the clear.

Do you think it's possible that the cyanos ate up all the nutrients and that's why they were low?
Do you remember what happened to your nutrient levels after dosing chemiclean?

 

[Boehmtown]

I believe cyano starts going for one reason. And then is just pulling stuff out of whatever it's growing on. I let it mat up thick and suck it out. It eventually burns through whatever is built up. Then it just vanishes. Keep your parameters reasonable and stable. And I'm again vacuuming sand beds. You're just pulling more stuff to the surface. Let it settle and some nature get involved. It's like turning over gardens constantly. It's worse for the soil, because of all the habitat it kills

 

[slingfox]

Do you think it's possible that the cyanos ate up all the nutrients and that's why they were low?
Do you remember what happened to your nutrient levels after dosing chemiclean?

My phosphate in the 0.04-0.05 range for most of the last 4 months. The only exception is a 1.5-2.5 week period where I brought a new automated frozen food feeder online and I was experimenting with dosage (caused phosphate to jump but it is going down again—last test was around 0.07ppm or so). My nitrates have been very low or undetectable so I have to dose those. These nutrients were at this level through two minor bouts with Dino’s (each only lasted 2-3 days) and a prolonged bout with cyano that spanned 6 weeks. My rockscape is entirely ocean live rock and I have a bunch of biomedia in the sump—maybe to much given that my nitrates keep bottoming out.

Note that there was initially a lot of die off from the ocean live rock as it acclimated from the ocean to transport to the home tank so that is a somewhat unique circumstance. The biofilm and growth on the rocks formerly replaced with purple coralline. Cyano heaviest in lower flow areas of the rockscape but also did well even in very high flow areas. I fear the cyano will come back again. Only time will tell.

 

[Uncle99]

What's the additional phosphate for?
Once you add antibiotics a lot of bacteria will die, effectively making bound phosphates available again, and removing one of the major phosphate consumers (cyanos) at the same time.

I would have assumed phosphates are higher than the current tests show, as cyanos are eating all nutrients up they can get. Does something in chemiclean remove phosphates?

Edit: I'm not saying you are wrong, I genuinely just want to understand your approach and challenge my own understanding of these issues.

Not additional, but enough that it can’t be zero with margin of error.

I combat Dino’s and cyanos with pinpoint stability and ensuring, nutrient availability in the waters. Even the Hanna can show .04ppm when it was actually zero when you factor in, margin of error of the device.

By going .1ppm I’m confident in the level of this trace nutrient, one that feeds our micro friends, increasing their populations and diversity, but these guys, unlike Dino’s and Cyano come slow.

But they come and love stable unchanging chemistry and are largely responsible for cleaning rocks and making sand white.

In 200 gallons you have 50 BTA’s and 12 clowns,
That’s a good size bioload and a sizeable waste output.

 

[AgentKooper]

I’m also fighting it in a nine-month-old tank started primarily with dry rock (with a couple pounds of live rock rubble). The cyano started popping up a couple months ago and eventually got pretty bad. I’ve been doing more frequent water changes to siphon it off, as well as dosing lots of bacteria and marine snow. Slowly but surely it’s going away. I last siphoned about 10 days ago, and I’ve only got a few little patches here and there coming back, which I can live with.

 

[Jimbo327]

No amino acids or any other dosing, other than some soda ash + calcium as needed to keep alk/calc in range.

I did forget to mention when I dosed chemiclean, both times I removed carbon and UV for the reasons you mentioned. I also dialed my skimmer back so it was only aerating the water and not actually removing any of the medication.

How long did you treat with chemiclean last time?

I think the instruction says 2 days. But I would treat the tank for at least 5-7 days, especially if you still see cyano. Yes, keep skimmer dialed back but running so oxygen level is good. If you remove the chemiclean too early, cyano will come back easily. That's why you want to syphon out as much as possible and only remove treatment after every bit of cyano is gone from the tank.

Good luck, and let us know which path you take whether you do it naturally or with Chemiclean.

 

[Hot2na]

Run a Polyfilter for a while (excess organics,phosphate) , then full time algae scrubber run RDP

 

[CrazyMonti]

Maybe you could try the products of modern reef. It's a German brand with some hidden champs. The following products are different bacteria to fight Cyanos:

Modern Reef BioClear
Modern Reef BioBac
Modern Reef NitriBac

 

[tulsadad]

Thank you everyone for all of the ideas and suggestions!

Just throwing in a theory:
All living things require carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), so if there is excessive growth, this growth has access to excessive C, N, and P.

I know your tests seem to indicate relatively harmless nitrate and phosphate levels, but you have to add all the C/N/P that is bound to cyanos. All these nutrients had to come from somewhere and are simply undetectable by your tests as they are bound to organic matter. I think nutrient levels are still too high and need to drop down further (maybe even to undetectable levels) before the problem can be solved.

Be patient, and don't get discouraged. Keep removing nutrients and especially make sure the import of nutrients is reduced to a minimum.

Do you remember what happened to nitrate and phosphate levels while you were dosing chemiclean?

And I think you're on to something here.

One detail I forgot to add in my original post. Before my cyano issue my phosphates started becoming difficult to keep up and would drop to almost zero every day. So I dosed phosphates to keep them in the .05-.08 range (using Hanna ULR Phosphate).

I wonder if perhaps I was actually just feeding cyano by doing this, as it showed up shortly after. After the Chemiclean dosing, phosphates went from .05 to about 0.1, so I've been working on bringing them back a bit with water changes, reducing feeding, etc. Somehow my nitrates are fairly unchanging.

And when facing issues like cyano, I am never sure if I should keep nutrients in range as given by Hanna checkers, or if this is just fueling the cyano.

 

[tulsadad]

I’m also fighting it in a nine-month-old tank started primarily with dry rock (with a couple pounds of live rock rubble). The cyano started popping up a couple months ago and eventually got pretty bad. I’ve been doing more frequent water changes to siphon it off, as well as dosing lots of bacteria and marine snow. Slowly but surely it’s going away. I last siphoned about 10 days ago, and I’ve only got a few little patches here and there coming back, which I can live with.

I've recently become curious about coral snow for managing cyanobacteria, but for now adding new variables scares me too much and I might test that out once this issue is done.

I think my plan is to keep on my maintenance schedule, seed some biodiversity with live rock, and probably keep my nutrients on the lower end at about .05 phosphate and 5 nitrates, as I am also dealing with some GHA which indicates to me @EnterName theory about excess nutrients might have merit.

And then be patient. And if this fails after several weeks try Chemiclean again.

 

[AgentKooper]

I've recently become curious about coral snow for managing cyanobacteria, but for now adding new variables scares me too much and I might test that out once this issue is done.

I think my plan is to keep on my maintenance schedule, seed some biodiversity with live rock, and probably keep my nutrients on the lower end at about .05 phosphate and 5 nitrates, as I am also dealing with some GHA which indicates to me @EnterName theory about excess nutrients might have merit.

And then be patient. And if this fails after several weeks try Chemiclean again.

Good luck! I think we are just dealing with new tank issues, tbh, so time and good husbandry will ultimately cure it no matter what approach you take. I'm inclined to not worry too much about nutrients these days, as I see so many beautiful tanks with very high N and P. Throughout the whole cyano battle my N has been consistently around 15, and P has been 0.3 - 0.4, with or without cyano present, and no nuisance algae anywhere in the tank.

 

[Ziggy17]

You can try seeding the tank with pods. Lots of folks say it works. Chemi Clean paves the way for Dinos, which are way worse that cyano.

 

[tulsadad]

You can try seeding the tank with pods. Lots of folks say it works. Chemi Clean paves the way for Dinos, which are way worse that cyano.

I forgot to add, I also increased my pod population by adding four jars of AlgaeBarn's galaxy pods! Trying everything I can think of. And yeah, I've suffered through dinos in the past, I think with my UV + nutrients I should be okay.

 

[Ziggy17]

You can try seeding the tank with pods. Lots of folks say it works. Chemi Clean paves the way for Dinos, which are way worse that cyano.

I forgot to add, I also increased my pod population by adding four jars of AlgaeBarn's galaxy pods! Trying everything I can think of. And yeah, I've suffered through dinos in the past, I think with my UV + nutrients I should be okay.

It’s definitely a tight rope between getting rid of Cyano and not getting Dinos with chemi clean. I just got rid of mine, showed up a couple months after my tank switchover. Even with all the rock from the old tank and partially seeded new rock, it showed up pretty aggressively. I just blew it off the rocks and skim vacuumed the mats every other day until it finally stopped growing back. I see my CUC grazing on it now that it’s in check. Every tank is different so hopefully you find your cure.