Over feeding and cyano

[bubbaque]

How can over feeding cause cyano if you have undetectable phosphates and nitrates before the cyano starts? I always thought a sign of over feeding would be seeing nitrates and phosphates rise.

 

[brandon429]

Because cyano is a ubiquitous hitchhiker unlike 99% of all other reef tank invaders that must ride in and get in mainly on reefing or marine-only transfers. cyano you can input from garden dirt under a fingernail you didn't clean off well enough, then it capitalizes on what overfeeding was there

cup test:

if you set a cup of water on the windowsill whether freshwater or sw, and keep it hydrated and open topped for a year, and add fertilizers to it occasionally it'll be a mix of red and green cyano depending on conditions, molds, fungi, all cycling in the cup and all you ever did was add clean water and some powdered ferts, no actual monerans. they get in, they travel worldwide...some on aerosols or suspended flocs on the air, its all quite masterful of them. that gnat that landed and drowned, he was in the garden yesterday and from that he brought many hitchhikers...cyano included among the offenders of clean water.

in that cup, we could never ever get valonia or invasive bryopsis or macroalgae or dinos, the obligate hitchhikers. At least in the Texas panhandle we could not get them by air

 

[CoralCollectors805]

if it is a new tank it could just be because its cycling. sometimes tho I've heard that the algae is consuming all the phosphates and nitrates so your tests with show 0. how much/often do you feed? tank size? how many fish? how often do you do water changes?

 

[bubbaque]

My cyano is not to bad, just a little in the fuge. I was just curious how over feeding could cause cyano if you didn't have high nutrients to start with.

 

[ncaldwell]

If it's just a little turn the lights off for a couple days. I get it in my sump every couple months so I turn off the lights for 3 days and it's gone till the next time

 

[skim]

From what I understand Cyano will show itself when there is a Bacterial imbalance.

 

[bubbaque]

Thanks. I am not worried about cyano or actively trying to get rid of it. I was curious how over feeding led to cyano and not just taking up by other bacteria. A bacteria imbalance sounds right.