Tips for reducing cyano algae?

Sharkbait19

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Hi,
For the past few months, my tank has been plagued by both red and green Cyanobacteria algae, a situation that has only gotten worse as of late. So far, I have significantly bulked up my cleanup crew and have been manually removing as much as I could with each water change, but it feels like each week the algae gets more and more abundant. At this point, the green cyano is the biggest problem, as it is both preventing my SPS from growing and is choking out and killing my zoanthid colonies.
I’m reluctant to try any chemical methods, as I know that can sometimes harm more than just the algae. Are there any methods of removal that I’ve yet to try, that have worked out well for others? Thanks!
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slingfox

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Cyano usually siphons out pretty easily but if you aren't getting 100% off the rock then scrub it with a Rubbermaid electric grout brush from Amazon or you local hardware store. Other common things to try are reduce light schedule, change lighting to more blue than white, and reduce feeding. Last time I dealt with cyano followed a one month battle with dinos so at the time I was also doing daily dosing of bottled bacteria and silicate. My cyano issue went away in 6 days or so after siphoning out and rinsing thick mats of cyano from the top layer of sand which had the most aggressive growth.
 

strich

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I would recommend adding some macroalgae to help out compete the cyano for nutrients, which may be currently abundant in your tank. There are some great looking species under caulerpa.

Cyano doesn't really enjoy high flow either, so consider increasing that asking with reducing lighting of that's possible.
 

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