Please, Please, help ID what I'm fighting!

[hoffmeyerz]

I just follow the directions, but take the cup off the skimmer and let it overflow. They say to use an air pump and stone because oxygen depletes some while in use. I do a 50% water change afterwards too, but I know that isn’t feasible for some tanks. It usually takes about 2-3 days. Some Reefers have experienced a dino outbreak afterwards, but I haven’t.

Ok, that's pretty much how I understand it. The dino outbreak afterward is what I'm concerned about especially with my Nitrate so low right now. If I do such a large water change it could bottom out.

 

[Lavey29]

Virtually no white light, running Radion lps/softie profile. It's a 75gal tank with two xr15 pros with diffusers at 70% and on a ten hour Schedule, I can go down to eight though. Tank gets decent flow now but it covers EVERYWHERE regardless of flow. I've experimented with repositioning pumps and higher power but all that happened was the fish stayed in the corners and wouldn't swim out in the open space.

Put something down there to stir your sand up, large nacarius snails, conch, sand sifting goby. I run my XR 15 lights at 100% intensity. They are very weak par lights. Siphon that sand weekly with water changes too.

 

[Lavey29]

Ok, that's pretty much how I understand it. The dino outbreak afterward is what I'm concerned about especially with my Nitrate so low right now. If I do such a large water change it could bottom out.

Don't use chemiclean. You will kill off your biome and open the door for bigger problems.

 

[George03]

good read.

 

[Tamberav]

I would not feed powdered foods as a way to increase po4 as we are generally doing so in excess. While they contain lots of po4, they also provide great food for annoying pests :) I would also dose bottled po4 if trying to raise it.

I personally have never had to do chemiclean, usually regular water changes and cleaning do debris eventually wins but slowly. My only worry with chemi clean is Dino following because that happens more than I like seeing.

While cyano is annoying it’s possible to keep corals looking nice with it. Some form of Dino’s will kill the corals and snails.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

Put something down there to stir your sand up, large nacarius snails, conch, sand sifting goby. I run my XR 15 lights at 100% intensity. They are very weak par lights. Siphon that sand weekly with water changes too.

I have a conch in there now and was considering some nasarious snails also. My coral were doing well with that light intensity so I was leaving it there in the hope of not inviting the cyano....too late!
I paused my water changes when phos bottomed out and nitrates lowering, couldn't risk them dropping totally out.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

I would not feed powdered foods as a way to increase po4 as we are generally doing so in excess. While they contain lots of po4, they also provide great food for annoying pests :) I would also dose bottled po4 if trying to raise it.

I personally have never had to do chemiclean, usually regular water changes and cleaning do debris eventually wins but slowly. My only worry with chemi clean is Dino following because that happens more than I like seeing.

While cyano is annoying it’s possible to keep corals looking nice with it. Some form of Dino’s will kill the corals and snails.

I now have some diy phos I mixed up to dose instead of Reefeoids, it was all I had at the time. I will say the coral liked it though!
I would be ok if there was just a little cyano but this keeps growing and in a couple days begins to cover everything, I even blow it off some zoas.
I worry about dinos after treatment too but I've been blowing and stirring this stuff off and cleaning it out for weeks. I tried a water change a couple weeks ago and it came back worse!

 

[Lavey29]

I have a conch in there now and was considering some nasarious snails also. My coral were doing well with that light intensity so I was leaving it there in the hope of not inviting the cyano....too late!
I paused my water changes when phos bottomed out and nitrates lowering, couldn't risk them dropping totally out.

So just dose neophos and neonitro. I had to dose it for multiple months before I got measurable numbers. If you don't have adequate nutrients in the water your corals will die. Weekly water changes are essential when the environment is out of balance.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

So just dose neophos and neonitro. I had to dose it for multiple months before I got measurable numbers. If you don't have adequate nutrients in the water your corals will die. Weekly water changes are essential when the environment is out of balance.

I will for sure be dosing as needed to keep nutrients up. I can't dose phos right now as the cyano will just take off on it, as soon as it's beaten back I'll make sure it's up. I may add a fish or two to help bring up nitrates.
I'm not anti-water change and under normal circumstances I follow a weekly change schedule. Right now, however, I need to watch it because nutrient levels are so low, a function of water change is nutrient export and nitrates being 6.5 could easily crash.
I dose AFR so my alk, ca, mg, and trace elements stay pretty solid so I'm not worried about that.
Right now I'm kind of in a rock and a hard place with things. I think my plan for now is to try and get ahead of the cyano by stirring it up and filtering it out like every other day. Then maybe using the coral snow recipe with MB7 to hopefully get other bacteria to out compete the cyano. I've increased my WAV pumps and shortened lighting schedule a bit as well. If that doesn't seem to go anywhere maybe I'll consider H2O2 treatment.
@vetteguy53081 does this approach make sense to you for getting a hold on this? I appreciate your feedback!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I will for sure be dosing as needed to keep nutrients up. I can't dose phos right now as the cyano will just take off on it, as soon as it's beaten back I'll make sure it's up. I may add a fish or two to help bring up nitrates.
I'm not anti-water change and under normal circumstances I follow a weekly change schedule. Right now, however, I need to watch it because nutrient levels are so low, a function of water change is nutrient export and nitrates being 6.5 could easily crash.
I dose AFR so my alk, ca, mg, and trace elements stay pretty solid so I'm not worried about that.
Right now I'm kind of in a rock and a hard place with things. I think my plan for now is to try and get ahead of the cyano by stirring it up and filtering it out like every other day. Then maybe using the coral snow recipe with MB7 to hopefully get other bacteria to out compete the cyano. I've increased my WAV pumps and shortened lighting schedule a bit as well. If that doesn't seem to go anywhere maybe I'll consider H2O2 treatment.
@vetteguy53081 does this approach make sense to you for getting a hold on this? I appreciate your feedback!

Looks good but blackout is essential. Seldom from what ive seen does coral snow work on this

 

[hoffmeyerz]

Looks good but blackout is essential. Seldom from what ive seen does coral snow work on this

Coral did not handle the last blackout I did very well but I will for sure consider it again. Want this to resolve but trying to not to over react and be knee-jerk about it either.

 

[Lavey29]

I will for sure be dosing as needed to keep nutrients up. I can't dose phos right now as the cyano will just take off on it, as soon as it's beaten back I'll make sure it's up. I may add a fish or two to help bring up nitrates.
I'm not anti-water change and under normal circumstances I follow a weekly change schedule. Right now, however, I need to watch it because nutrient levels are so low, a function of water change is nutrient export and nitrates being 6.5 could easily crash.
I dose AFR so my alk, ca, mg, and trace elements stay pretty solid so I'm not worried about that.
Right now I'm kind of in a rock and a hard place with things. I think my plan for now is to try and get ahead of the cyano by stirring it up and filtering it out like every other day. Then maybe using the coral snow recipe with MB7 to hopefully get other bacteria to out compete the cyano. I've increased my WAV pumps and shortened lighting schedule a bit as well. If that doesn't seem to go anywhere maybe I'll consider H2O2 treatment.
@vetteguy53081 does this approach make sense to you for getting a hold on this? I appreciate your feedback!

This is the wrong approach. Cut lights to 6 hours with blue and uv only no whites. Weekly water change with sand siphon and also stir sand during the week. Take a look at @SunnyX thread on water clarity and cyano removal. I use his technique and it is very effective. Dose a couple jars of pods. I also highly recommend PNS probio which is a natural heterotrophic bacteria that eliminates organic waste which is feeding the cyano on the sand. 0 phosphate will lead to problems.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

This is the wrong approach. Cut lights to 6 hours with blue and uv only no whites. Weekly water change with sand siphon and also stir sand during the week. Take a look at @SunnyX thread on water clarity and cyano removal. I use his technique and it is very effective. Dose a couple jars of pods. I also highly recommend PNS probio which is a natural heterotrophic bacteria that eliminates organic waste which is feeding the cyano on the sand. 0 phosphate will lead to problems.

I'm not running any whites, using the Radion lps/softie profile. Already lowered their power and shortened schedule from 10hrs to 8, I'll reduce more if needed.
I'm not sure what you mean by wrong approach, what I'm talking about doing is the coral snow technique for cyano from @SunnyX
Blow off rocks and stir up substrate then add the snow mixed with MB7 to bind to organic matter and layout the MB7 to take up real estate from the cyano. That's the whole idea.
When I blow things off it gets captured by the skimmer and filters in my sump so I will do that in-between snow treatments and hope to reduce cyano population so other organisms can take hold. If I dose phos right now the cyano will just consume it and make matters worse. My feeling is if it truly was 0 I would be dealing with dinos not cyano.
I think you have a good idea to dose pods, thanks for that. I'm not familiar with PNS probio but I'll look into it!