Cyano or worse?

[Chad and Jen May]

Hey ARC!

This is in my 180 gallon tank... setup almost 2months ago. I used all my live rock and water from my 90g tank (which was up for 7 months without problems) and used 100lbs new Caribsea Aragonite substrate. Have 3X150w (14,000K Phoenix) MH's, 4X96w 460nm Actinic PC's. Running 55g sump with Skimmer, UV. Total gallons of water 210 gallons.

Today's Params as follows:

Temp - 78 - 80 (currently 80)

Salinity - 1.025

Amm - 0

NitrI - 0

NitrA - 20ppm

Phos - 0 or <0.25

Calc - 480

PH - 7.8

KH - 7

Livestock

2 Tomato Clowns

2 BlueGreen Chromis

2 Bartletts Anthias

2 Yellow Tangs

1 Powder Blue Tang

1 Regal Tang

1 Foxface Rabbitfish

1 Blue Mandarin Goby

1 Gold headed sleeper Goby

2 RBTA

1 Emerald Crab

1 Pink/Green Cucumber

1 Coral banded shrimp

1 Cleaner shrimp

Cleanup crew consists of Longspine Urchin, 1 Conch snail, multiple Turbos and assorted snails and hermits.

Assorted soft corals, mushroom, zoas, GSP.

A few LPS, Blasto, Torch, Candy Cane.

A few SPS frags.

Feeding

1/2 cube plankton mixed with 1/2 cube mysis.. soaked in garlic/Zoe daily.

A pinch of Formula 2 flakes in am and pm, its eaten right away.

Go through 1 sheet of Nori daily between 4 tangs.

Twice a week Cyclopeeze Marine Plankton and Pellets.

The tank looked great for about 4 weeks then noticed a predictable diatom bloom. I waited that out, however... the tank never cleared and I am now dealing with what I believe to be Cyanobacteria, but fear it could be dinos. It looks brownish/red (more brown than red) looks slightly stringy and has attached air bubbles. It is mostly on the sand but it is also on the rocks. There are tons of trapped air bubbles under the sand, anytime my goby digs the bubbles rise to the surface. It cleans off very easily... when I scrub it from the rocks it comes off without ANY effort and looks "powdery" when released to the water.

I had been siphoning this stuff off and refilling with new salt water, cut back on my MH light cycle from 8 hrs to 6, and redirected power heads trying to maximize flow across the sand (where its worse). I believe my flow is adequate with large return pumping to two corner returns, and 4 Koralia power heads. After no improvement I decided to treat the tank with Chemi Clean, as follows:

Did a 30g water change/sand sift after scrubbing algae off rocks, followed by Chemi-clean dose-20 level scoops, accommodating for water volume loss from live rock/sand in tank and sump. I unplugged skimmer, UV and let the chemiclean work for two days. I did not see any reduction of the ?cyano besides initial decrease from siphoning the sand. At the end of the 2 days, I did a 35 water change, got the skimmer back online and waited a day before I decided to treat with an identical dose of chemi-clean again. The reason for the second treatment was that I did not see ANY reduction of this algae, in fact in came back during the first 2 day treatment just as bad as before I dosed. During this second treatment I turned off my MH's and ran Actinic PC's only. With MH's off the algae doesnt grow as quickly, but its still there. With MH on the stuff spreads like crazy. I waited another 2 days, did a 45gallon water change, siphoning out more gunk, got my skimmer and UV back on line and added PhosGuard and Purigen to the sump. That was three days ago and my sand bed is literally covered, and the rocks are covering up quickly now too.

I know my Alk and PH are low, I have Kent Pro Buffer dKH and Seachem Carbonate that I can start dosing, but which one of those should I use? Would those two things being off contribute to this problem?

Fish and corals all appear to be fine, they are eating, swimming, etc...

Also, does this look like Cyano or something else? Advice is much appreciated!

THANKS!!!!

[DerrickH]

Thinking your dkh and ph are low combined with new substrate full of silicates....wouldnt be surprised if a GHA outbreak is in the very near future. What kind of skimmer?

[+C Lo Slice]

Looks like diatoms to me. Perhaps its just the pictures

[Chad and Jen May]

The skimmer is PM Redline 225.

http://www.precisionmarine.com/storefront/productdetail.aspx?idproduct=898

[Juiceman]

Dinoflaggelates! Definitely. I battled those for a long time, and took me a long time to diagnose them.

Here's what I did that worked

reduced lighting period

Carbon

Elevated PH Like 8.5

Feeding every 2nd or 3rd day

Siphoning out all I could in 5 gallons of water daily

and adding a clean 5 gallons

Finally, I just pulled everything out and scrubbed it and and washed and redid my rockwork to add more flow, Continued the same regiment and they slowly dissapeard.

Removal is the key, they grew back almost daily

Good Luck!

Edited October 17, 2011 by Juiceman

[Robb in Austin]

I'd recommend stopping the flake food and cyclopeeze first.

I'm a big believer in water changes when trouble is brewing.

The one thing I wouldn't do is try to raise your alk and ph chemically. Stability is key, not hitting some "perfect" number. If you've been at 7 and 7.8 for a while, leave it alone.

[Juiceman]

I'm in cedar park, let me know if you want a second eye to make sure, but that looks like exactly what I had which were dinos.

After re-reading your post.

I would suggest reducing feeding all around.

example, do the nori every other day opposite of feeding days.

scratch the pellets or flakes totally (lots of phosphates in dried foods)

and raising the ph.

Definitely worked for me.

ur on the right track otherwise.

took about a solid 2 months until it was 100% gone for me.

How are you siphoning it out? I used a tube with a sock tied to the other end, and started the siphon with a return line nozzle to create a strong siphon. they stuff is in the rocks, not just the outside. (when I wasn't replacing it with clean water)

[Chad and Jen May]

Siphoning sand with a hose into a bucket, not reusing the water.. so Im doing frequent water changes, about 10-15 gallons every third day. I added carbon to my sump last night per the advice of LFS... going to keep up water changes and siphoning, and will very slowly raise PH and Alk.. hoping I can beat this soon, its ugly and annoying! I will stop the dried food, but that will be rough, my powder blue LOVES pellets.

[Timfish]

I'd recommend stopping the flake food and cyclopeeze first.

I'm a big believer in water changes when trouble is brewing.

The one thing I wouldn't do is try to raise your alk and ph chemically. Stability is key, not hitting some "perfect" number. If you've been at 7 and 7.8 for a while, leave it alone.

+1 I will always try increased water changes (frequency and/or quantity) for a month or more before using other methods and I will often go over the rocks with a tooth brush immediately before (it sounds tedious but only takes a few minutes).

[Juiceman]

Any change yet?

[Chad and Jen May]

Actually yes. Sorry for the late reply, my life has been a bit upside down lately. I am now leaning towards this just being a heavy diatom bloom. The sand is still a bit brown in places but NOWHERE near what it was. The rocks are clearing up too. I did add carbon, phosban, and Purigen to my system. I also cut my light cycle by 3 hours and added a much larger cleanup crew of hermits, snails, an urchin, and a conch. Its still not perfect, but its getting better. I should have in the mail right now Dr. Tim's Waste Away that Mark Callahan recommended for Cyano and just general cleaning. Going to start that tomorrow and I will report how it works after a few days. I didnt do anything to my KH or PH, but I still think slowly increasing those numbers would be a benefit. Fingers still crossed but Im pretty sure this is nothing serious after all and just my tank doing its natural thing while maturing.

Thanks for all the help and advice!