Tips to speed up maturing process to combat cyano and other types of algae/bacteria

[jonny4ever]

I moved a few months ago and brought my 20g tank over with its sand and rock, but i started a 60breeder with new sand and just some old rock from another tank I had up before the move. My 20g is a 3 year old system now its super mature and gets no algae, at most a speck of gha. The sand is always white, the 60 breeder is going on 3-4 months. My ugly phase just started about 2 weeks ago and I have cyano. Was wondering how much would bio bricks from my 20g aid in maturing my 60g?

I've had dinos an cyano before Im not worried about them as I know with time they'll be gone I just wanna accelerate the process. I know pods will assist in that as well, A problem im having is low nutrients. 0.01 phosphate, it was 0.04 like a week ago. Since its dropped i noticed an over growth of cyano and 1 or 2 of my frogspawn frags seem upset cause of the low nutrients. I already feed heavy, jsut removed the cup off my skimmer to see if they go back up. I have 6 fish in the tank, I would like to refrain from dosing phos/nitrate but if I have to I will.

 

[Spare time]

It might help aid the 60g. Have you added any copepods ?

 

[jonny4ever]

Nah I haven’t. Only bio bricks from the 20g today, which that tank does have a lot of them. I see them at night in the filter floss, was thinking of going to lfs and getting whatever pods they have

 

[Neuratox]

Following. I'm in the same boat so I'd love to see what people recommend. Personally, I use a turkey baster to blow off the cyano once or twice a day depending on how far its gotten. In the meantime I've tried to drop my phos (GFO) and up my nitrates (dosing). Added Chemi clean 24 hours ago. Hoping that a serious hit to the cyano and rebalance of nutrients will let the algae take over. To my understanding the pods (added 3 days ago) will have an easier time tackling this.

 

[Spare time]

Nah I haven’t. Only bio bricks from the 20g today, which that tank does have a lot of them. I see them at night in the filter floss, was thinking of going to lfs and getting whatever pods they have

Just avoid tigrio pods, they don't last long in the display. Other than that, the main thing is having an abundance of organisms that predate on algae (copepods are included).

 

[Spare time]

As for cyano, keep nitrate above single digits (5ppm is a safer number) and phoshate relatively low (aim for 0.03-0.05ppm). Cyano does not care about nitrate. They can get their nitrogen via the atmosphere, hence why it may be that they appear to thrive in 0ppm nitrate/nitrogen environments. I'd also run the skimmer on a timer (off during the hours your light is on). I am not a fan of skimmers on new tanks as they strip the water column of microbial life and possible competition for other organisms such as cyano, hair algae, etc, but a timer may help limit this.

 

[jonny4ever]

As for cyano, keep nitrate above single digits (5ppm is a safer number) and phoshate relatively low (aim for 0.03-0.05ppm). Cyano does not care about nitrate. They can get their nitrogen via the atmosphere, hence why it may be that they appear to thrive in 0ppm nitrate/nitrogen environments. I'd also run the skimmer on a timer (off during the hours your light is on). I am not a fan of skimmers on new tanks as they strip the water column of microbial life and possible competition for other organisms such as cyano, hair algae, etc, but a timer may help limit this.

its a super undersized skimmer, tunze 9001. Still want it for extra oxygen so Ill just remove the cup honestly and test in a few days. I do have a bunch of frags that are growing maybe they've sucked the phosphates out the tank as well