Persistent Cyano on sandbed

[Pseudodiego]

Hi everyone.

I had a bad cyano case on the sandbed of my 250 gallon tank:

I thought it was dinos or diatoms at first, but I ended up trying Red Cyano RX (erythromycin). By the next day the sand was clean, so I dosed a second round two days later just to be safe since I still saw a few very small patches. Within another couple of days, all visible cyano was gone.

Fast forward three weeks, and I’m right back where I started. The sand is once again covered in cyanobacteria.

I’ve got a sand-sifting goby, a large sea cucumber, conchs, and a couple of sand-sifting starfish, but nothing seems to make any difference.

At this point I’m seriously considering going bare-bottom, corals are not affected but the sandbed looks absolutely awful and I’m running out of ideas.

Any advice on how to deal with it?

Thanks.

 

[jayq16]

Cyano is a pain for sure, I’m dealing with a small amount right now as well. I don’t believe it’s proven, but I’ve heard many say it’s correlated with this time of year (depending where you live) a maybe something to do with pollen in the air or the rising temps affecting the tank temp.

What are your tank parameters and age? What is your flow set up? My cyano became worse as my nitrates bottomed out. I’ve been able to slowly beat it back by getting my nitrates and phosphates in a more balanced ratio.

 

[Pseudodiego]

Cyano is a pain for sure, I’m dealing with a small amount right now as well. I don’t believe it’s proven, but I’ve heard many say it’s correlated with this time of year (depending where you live) a maybe something to do with pollen in the air or the rising temps affecting the tank temp.

What are your tank parameters and age? What is your flow set up? My cyano became worse as my nitrates bottomed out. I’ve been able to slowly beat it back by getting my nitrates and phosphates in a more balanced ratio.

Tank age around a year old.

Flow should be enough, the montiporas near the sand are happy and growing.

Phosphate around 0.08 nitrate around 10.

 

[EricR]

There are a lot of cyano threads on here so I'll just post quickly what seemed to work for me for sandbed cyano issue I had going for a few months:
-- DIY Coral Snow (calcium carbonate)
-- PNS ProBio (((tried MB7 for awhile but didn't seem to be helping)))
-- Manual removal (of course)

Here's a good thread on DIY coral snow dosing, just in case you haven't seen it:
Cyano Eradication

 

[Pseudodiego]

There are a lot of cyano threads on here so I'll just post quickly what seemed to work for me for sandbed cyano issue I had going for a few months:
-- DIY Coral Snow (calcium carbonate)
-- PNS ProBio (((tried MB7 for awhile but didn't seem to be helping)))
-- Manual removal (of course)

Here's a good thread on DIY coral snow dosing, just in case you haven't seen it:
Cyano Eradication

I use coral snow daily for water clarity. No effect on cyano.

 

[EricR]

I use coral snow daily for water clarity. No effect on cyano.

Seemed to help, marginally, for me.

Could be coincidence but my cyano seemed to really start disappearing when I started dosing PNS ProBio.
*not 100% sure of the cause/effect correlation there since I was trying lots of stuff but, timing-wise, happened to feel like it helped quite a bit

Good luck!

 

[Pseudodiego]

Turns out this time it’s not cyano. It looked the same at first, but after checking under the microscope I found it’s about 50% diatoms and 50% dinos.

Kind of happy that is not cyano— dinos are a known enemy by now. I can beat them.