Red slime Cyanobacteria

greenhorn reefer · Mar 31, 2017

I wouldn't celebrate too soon. The lights just came back on. As stated in another post, the red is a byproduct from the bacteria. Now that they have a food source again (light), I don't think it will be long before the red is visible.

Brandonsegula · Mar 31, 2017

ahiggins said:
interesting. Glad its worked out. Let us know if it reappears and how long after?
I just had this show up in my nem breeder, kept it at bay until the weekend.

Will do

FrankiePuffer · Apr 1, 2017

Branespikin said:
I just dosed my tank with chemiclean few days ago. I used the liquid one. Dosed as per instructions. Left skimmer cup off. Skimmer went nuts. Added an airstone too. Next day honestly i felt all my zoas and shrooms looked better. No ill effect on my snails or crabs. All zoas healthy and open. Bounces and jawbreakers all good. Euphyllia and some SPS perfectly fine. Fish are acting the same.
48hrs later any cyano i had is gone. 20% water change and water is crystal clear. Carbon and gfo back online. Skimmer back to normal today.

Just did the same to my 4 month old tank. Caught it early and kept the gravel clear by pushing it under. Dosed twice with Chemi ( it was old) did the water change and gone. My corals were 2 months in the tank so still acclimating and no ill affects. Have used the in the past as well
Question tho I also used a toothbrush on all affected surfaces I could reach as well as burying in the gravel before treating. Would like some opinions on that. Didn't notice that it spreads doing this now or previously and based it on the principle of brushing your teeth. You disturb the bacteria so it doesn't get a foothold on your teeth. I personally find this keeps it manageable until you can treat it( time for water changes).

ahiggins said:
I know a few people who are so anti-chemical in their reefs buuuut chemiclean is a very safe product as long as you follow the directions to a T. air stone, duration, water change amount. I had cyano in 2 of my tanks (one of them was 3 months old when I ran it) and I also treated my brothers reef. Its safe for all fish/inverts/corals (as long as the directions are followed).
I believe cyano thrives in low/no nutrient tanks; why most people report that after using nopox or vibrant, they get cyano.
Good luck :)
if you do the few days without light, it may be advantageous to dim the lights down the first few days theyre back on. Im not sure what corals you have but if you want to be on the safe side, its a good practice :)

sk8elenex92 said:
It seems like Cyano pops up when Nitrates and Phos are almost zero., but I have use ChemiClean in two different tanks. Mixed reef with sps,lps,zoas,Clams and I swear the next day everything has better polyp extension and the tank is sparkling clean. I think the lights out is more of a bandaid fix.
Just make sure to run the skimmer with the cup off it will oxygenate the water for you. Good luck

ahiggins · Apr 1, 2017

FrankiePuffer said:
Question tho I also used a toothbrush on all affected surfaces I could reach as well as burying in the gravel before treating. Would like some opinions on that. Didn't notice that it spreads doing this now or previously and based it on the principle of brushing your teeth. You disturb the bacteria so it doesn't get a foothold on your teeth. I personally find this keeps it manageable until you can treat it( time for water changes).

I use a turkey baster to blow it of and it gets sucked into the filter. That's how I keep it at bay until treatment.
It's by no means a way to get rid of it. My experience is that it comes back the next day.

greenhorn reefer · May 10, 2017

Brandonsegula said:
Will do

Still gone?

Brandonsegula · May 10, 2017

greenhorn reefer said:
Still gone?

Yep

Gweeds1980 · May 11, 2017

Just wanted to chime in... had been battling cyano for ages... in the past few months I've been reading loads and experimenting with various things.

All the lights out / chemiclean etc etc are band aids... none get to the root cause of it, they're great at managing it, but you can't continue with any of them long term.

Cyano can and will get into your tank from anywhere... aerosol effect, dirty hands, anything you put in or near the tank could easily have one or two bacterium on it.

So, we can never eradicate cyano completely, like we can bryopsis or even gha to a certain extent. What we have to do is make life really difficult for it.

First up... UV. If you haven't got one, get one. The bigger the better. You've noticed that the red mats disappear or shrink during lights out? Ever wondered where it goes? The bacteria goes off into the water column to find new areas to colonise. UV will zap cyano bacteria that is in the water column, meaning less bacteria and a slower spread.

Next up... carbon. Cyano, in my experiments, requires 3 key things - light, slow enough flow to settle and food. Now, for those of us with 'perfect' water, that food is usually carbon. Anyone who doses nopox, vodka, vinegar, sugar, nyos zero etc etc is adding carbon to the water... cyano is very very good at outcompeting the beneficial bacteria you are trying to feed. That's why people run ULN type systems and still get cyano. In a nutrient rich tank, there's enough organic carbon floating about to feed on anyway.

So, if you're carbon dosing, stop!! Nitrates and phosphates will not feed cyano... shock horror... you can still grow sps with elevated nitrates. Replace the carbon with chaeto or caulerpa to reduce nitrates and phosphates.

Lastly... H202. I don't propose you dose the whole tank. Just take out rocks and sand which is affected and give it an hours bath in 50/50 6% h202 and tank water. The cyano will be killed and the beneficial bacteria in the rock will (mostly) survive as they are deeper within it.

For any hard to reach areas, spot treat using 6% h202 in a syringe.

If you have corals affected, dip them for 10 mins in 10/90 6% h202 / tank water. IME sps and lps fare better than softies when it comes to h202.

Rinse the whole lot in tank water before returning.

Once you're cyano free, by using the UV and not feeding carbon into the system you're preventing cyano returning (preventing... in a temporary sense probably)

If you must carbon dose, then also use a product like microbacter7 or cyanoclean as well... they contain strains of bacteria that will out compete cyano for the carbon and reduce nitrates as per your intention.

Also... increase flow and try to identify and remove any dead spots, thus any returning cyano will be kept in the water column for longer and give the UV a better chance of killing them.

Good luck!