Need help with cyanobacteria

[40B Knasty]

Here some pictures of my sand bed, the cyanobacteria in a bowl getting tested with H²O² to see what kind it is, and the product I picked up.
I have an air stone and a 5g pump that I plan on running to increase the O² for a day. Then add the powder to some tank water. (Think it is 1 scoop per 15 gallons. I have not looked inside the treatment yet.) Just taking the basic measures first and looking for people who had experience with cyanobacteria or what could be spirulina bacteria. I will find out by tomorrow if it is one or the other if the bacteria in the bowl turns green and colors the water red or if it just stays the same.
Any advice and experience is welcome. I will not be offended in any way if the product or procedure I am taking needs to be changed.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Good luck with your treatment. If it is Cyano it is probably the easiest "problem" to deal with.

 

[40B Knasty]

Good luck with your treatment. If it is Cyano it is probably the easiest "problem" to deal with.

I hope! I have been actively cleaning it out everyday for the past week or 2. Changing out filter floss and rinsing the sponge filter media 2-3x a day. Just did a water change yesterday. This stuff will not go away from manual removal. So I am resorting to the Red Slime Remover. Have you used this product and had success?

 

[JaimeAdams]

I have indeed used that product. Just remember to remove carbon or other absorbing media, I would suggest removing your skimmer cup and allowing the skimmer to just over flow to increase oxygen in your tank. Also turn off UV if you run one.

 

[40B Knasty]

Here is how things are looking. Going to do a follow up video tomorrow.

 

[Brew12]

Hey @40B Knasty I saw you were still having problems with this. Let's see if we can get it fixed.

What do you do for filtration? Do you have a fuge, run GAC or GFO, or anything else along those lines?

What are your
Salinity:
Alk:
Mg:
NO3:
PO4:

 

[40B Knasty]

Hey @40B Knasty I saw you were still having problems with this. Let's see if we can get it fixed.

What do you do for filtration? Do you have a fuge, run GAC or GFO, or anything else along those lines?

What are your
Salinity:
Alk:
Mg:
NO3:
PO4:

Filtration is FLUVAL C4 w/ 2 in one filtration sponge, plate of Marine Pure, wet dry on to Cnodes.
Tetra whisper filter with a bag of Carbon ROX.08 and a little bit of Phosguard.
Seaclone protein skimmer modified in to a chaeto reactor.
Reef Octopus BH1000 protein skimmer.
1.024.5-1.025ppm
10-9.5DKH - API
??-mag
0-1ppm-nitrates - ELOS
0 - PO⁴ - ELOS Pro Phosphate
8.3-pH
I love this ELOS pH test kit! Look how clearly it identifies. Highly recommend this kit.

 

[Brew12]

Filtration is FLUVAL C4 w/ 2 in one filtration sponge, plate of Marine Pure, wet dry on to Cnodes.
Tetra whisper filer with a bag of Carbon ROX.08 and a little bit of Phosguard.
Seaclone protein skimmer modified in to a chaeto reactor.
Reef Octopus BH1000 protein skimmer.
1.024.5-1.025ppm
10-9.5DKH - API
??-mag
0-1ppm-nitrates - ELOS
0 - PO⁴ - ELOS Pro Phosphate
8.3-pH
I love this ELOS pH test kit! Look how clearly it identifies. Highly recommend this kit.

Not exactly what I was expecting. Are you intentionally running a ULNS to support the high Alkalinity?

If that is the case you likely don't have phosphates low enough which is allowing the cyano to thrive. Personally, I'm not brave enough to run a ULNS. Feeding the corals becomes a must to keep them from starving from a lack of phosphates.

 

[40B Knasty]

Not exactly what I was expecting. Are you intentionally running a ULNS to support the high Alkalinity?

If that is the case you likely don't have phosphates low enough which is allowing the cyano to thrive. Personally, I'm not brave enough to run a ULNS. Feeding the corals becomes a must to keep them from starving from a lack of phosphates.

I never tested for alkalinity till a few months ago. So that was never the intention.
Problem that started all this is a bryopsis issue. I was lucky enough to get the 6 week treatment kind VS. the 14 day kind. So I have treated the tank 2 times now. The die off from the first mass take over seeded the cyanobacteria. The 2nd treatment was about a month later and a little bit of a take over. About half the amount of the first one.
I did use Reefroids. Stopped because of the cyanobacteria and bryopsis.

 

[bcarl77]

Following, almost the exact same issues and parameters. I used the Ultra Life Red Slime remover and had no success. Have 0 Nitrates and Phosphates as well.

 

[40B Knasty]

Following, almost the exact same issues and parameters. I used the Ultra Life Red Slime remover and had no success. Have 0 Nitrates and Phosphates as well.

Killed my orange satosa on the bottom left corner, peppermint shrimp, and almost my dwarf flame angel. With all the precautions I took and not making a dent in the cyanobacteria. The product I would consider is garbage if you have a true cyanobacteria issue and not a spirulina bacteria issue.

 

[bcarl77]

Killed my orange satosa on the bottom left corner, peppermint shrimp, and almost my dwarf flame angel. With all the precautions I took and not making a dent in the cyanobacteria. The product I would consider is garbage if you have a true cyanobacteria issue and not a spirulina bacteria issue.

Did you run an airstone? I have not had any death with the use of this product, when using the airstone.

 

[40B Knasty]

Did you run an airstone? I have not had any death with the use of this product, when using the airstone.

Yes. Watch the video.

 

[Brew12]

I never tested for alkalinity till a few months ago. So that was never the intention.
Problem that started all this is a bryopsis issue. I was lucky enough to get the 6 week treatment kind VS. the 14 day kind. So I have treated the tank 2 times now. The die off from the first mass take over seeded the cyanobacteria. The 2nd treatment was about a month later and a little bit of a take over. About half the amount of the first one.
I did use Reefroids. Stopped because of the cyanobacteria and bryopsis.

What salt are you using? (sorry about the delay, busy day!)

There are 2 routes I could see you going with this. Your Alk isn't crazy high, but I would be more comfortable if it were around 8dkh.

One option is to up your phosphate removal. Slowly add some phosphate remover each day until the cyano starts receding, then hold there until it goes away. I consider this a little riskier.

The other option is to dose nitrates. Some strains of cyano cannot form mats with NO3 greater then 3ppm. The goal with this method is to try and keep your nitrates above 5ppm but less than 20ppm. You will then want to stir your sandbed every day if you can (not a bad idea with either method). This is much safer on the coral but it won't work for every strain of cyano.

Have you ever taken a small pump and blasted your rock with it? I use a cobalt MJ1200 and put the discharge right up against one of the pores in the rock. The first time I did it I was shocked at how much crud came flying out the other pores in the rock.

 

[40B Knasty]

What salt are you using? (sorry about the delay, busy day!)

There are 2 routes I could see you going with this. Your Alk isn't crazy high, but I would be more comfortable if it were around 8dkh.

One option is to up your phosphate removal. Slowly add some phosphate remover each day until the cyano starts receding, then hold there until it goes away. I consider this a little riskier.

The other option is to dose nitrates. Some strains of cyano cannot form mats with NO3 greater then 3ppm. The goal with this method is to try and keep your nitrates above 5ppm but less than 20ppm. You will then want to stir your sandbed every day if you can (not a bad idea with either method). This is much safer on the coral but it won't work for every strain of cyano.

Have you ever taken a small pump and blasted your rock with it? I use a cobalt MJ1200 and put the discharge right up against one of the pores in the rock. The first time I did it I was shocked at how much crud came flying out the other pores in the rock.

I was using Reef Crystals. Switching over to IO. My dkh used to be 11. Now I am weaning it away from RC. To full IO.
I blow cyanobacteria off the sand bed and live rocks everyday. 2-3x a day. Clean all sponge filters 2-3x a day.

 

[Brew12]

I was using Reef Crystals. Switching over to IO. My dkh used to be 11. Now I am weaning it away from RC. To full IO.
I blow cyanobacteria off the sand bed and live rocks everyday. 2-3x a day. Clean all sponge filters 2-3x a day.

I started with RC but found IO to be much better for my system. Hopefully you will, too.

Sounds like you have the husbandry part down. Its up to you if you want to try and deal with it by lowering PO4 or by raising NO3. Odds are either will work.
And if you have a source for dosing live phytoplankton, that can be useful, too.

 

[bcarl77]

What would you recommend for dosing NO3? Potassium nitrate? On the phosphate note my tank has ran at 0 (tested via Hanna) and still had a similar infestation. Stuff comes back within 12 hours.

 

[bcarl77]

Here’s what I got. Look about the same OP?

 

[brandon429]

our sand rinse thread is up to a good 12 pages. we claim to beat cyano in any nano just by cleaning it the right way, nonstandard of course. clean the sandbed and get the detritus out of the rocks/cyano and cousins go away.

the meds and other indirect approaches work for larger systems as take down cleanings are impractical. I just did several full water changes on a 50 gallon FW guiding it through speed cycling w fish in tow...and that made me realize while doing the work that to work in brute trash cans it wouldn't be hard at all to rip clean a 100 gallon setup, just make two brutes and have some spare hours to clean.


the heart of my 12 pages is visual clouding, not params. we don't ask for params once in the whole thread yet its a series of cyano works with nobody beating the method. lets try before you dose meds further, if your system is small

how big is this tank? Right now if I reached in the sand and dropped some down, a huge cloud would result. we'd reverse that. a cloudy bed is cyano top fuel.

same for rocks, if we take one or two out in test and remove the cyano blanketing and swish them in a white bucket of sw, and bubble them for a few hours then turn it off, detritus w be in the bottom. we'd reverse that, the rocks and porosity fixed.

that's your cyano food, params don't matter when you can simply will a small tank to be cloudless. trick of the year.

 

[bcarl77]

Would you mind a link to that thread?