Cyano Algea Outbreak

[ShawnM]

Ok So I have added my sump and increased my lights 2 hours to have a longer viewing time. I had one area on my sand that the cyano was at. after adding the sump alot is in my sump now. I did a water change and sucked it out and now it was started to spread across all my sand bed except where I sucked the original portion out. when it first showed up I dialed down my feeding.

It was my understanding this would come from poor circulation or over feeding.

My circulation is up there everywhere except my sump. and I cut my feeding in half. Any advice would help me out.

I think it may be the water that I use for top off and water changes. I have used it for many years and not really had a problem like this one. I use the glacier RO and Carbon filter water you can get at gas stations and grocery stores. It my be time to invest in a RODI unit.

[Timfish]

How old is your system? Cyano is very common at first during the fisrt part af the maturing process and just one of the cycles that occures the 8 months or so it takes.

[SourDatx]

I've had my first cyno and brown slime outbreak this week. Long brown snot like strands with a bunch of small bubbles everywhere. I'm stressing about my corals hard, so I'll be following this topic as well.

[ShawnM]

5 months old I know it is comon to get some in the tank. It just has got me pretty nervouse when I did the water change and sucked out the area that was about 3 in diameter of a cirle and now has spread with in 3 days to covering half my and all the way across the front of my tank. I figured with the water change it would move to the sump that wasnt to nerve racking until the display started showing all of it.

I guess I will just have to clean it up and wait it out.

what if anything will graze on cyano and eat it.

[+etannert]

Shawn, this is a common time in the tank cycle for you to get a cyano oubrak; however, the fact that it got worse and not better after a water change indicates that something in the water may be feeding it. Cutting back on your lighting cycle in your main display will help too. What kind of lighting do II have and how old are your bulbs? I have yet to meet a critter that will eat the stuff.

Sour, slimy bron snot-like strings sounds more like dino than cyano. You may want to read up on hydrogen peroxide dosing.

[ShawnM]

in my tank what I have seen: cyano red in color and matts across the top of my sand bed. unlike the dino that is brown in color and covers each sand grain.

I am running a a 4x54 bulb t5 2 whites one blue and a puple I know that 2 of the bulbs are 4 months old the other 2 I was told when I bought the fixture they were 4 month old now putting them at 6 months old.

[SourDatx]

Shawn, this is a common time in the tank cycle for you to get a cyano oubrak; however, the fact that it got worse and not better after a water change indicates that something in the water may be feeding it. Cutting back on your lighting cycle in your main display will help too. What kind of lighting do II have and how old are your bulbs? I have yet to meet a critter that will eat the stuff.

Sour, slimy bron snot-like strings sounds more like dino than cyano. You may want to read up on hydrogen peroxide dosing.

Thanks, I'll check into it. I do also have a few small red spots also which I believe is cyno.

[jestep]

Do you know what your NO3 and PO4 are at and do you run biopellets? I get it like clockwork when I have a disproportional PO4 to NO3 level which is common running biopellets or dosing vodka.

[ShawnM]

I do neither pellets or dosing. Not sure where my po4 and no3 r at

[Timfish]

I would encourage you to get Sprungs "Algae - A problem Solving Guide". One thing to point out is cyano comes in a wide variety of colors, can easily be confused with dino and there are genus that prefer nutrient POOR conditions not nutrient rich.

Neilsen and Fossa cover the cycles of a maturing tank pretty good in the first volume of their series "The Modern COral Reef Aquarium" and have dramatic photo's of live rock getting completley covered by nuisanse algae then disappearing without any intervention. The following two photos are of a system I set up for someone who was very familiar with Nilsen and Fossa's work and was quite patient about waiting it out. The first photo is about 3 months after water and live rock was added to the system, the 2nd photo 15 months later. About half the corals in the 2nd photo are in the first photo. The others like the green slimmers were added about 5 months after the first photo was taken. The only control besides herbavores (no snails were added just 50 blue leg, one Tuxedo,2 pink and 3 atlantic green urchins) used was syphoning off algae during the weekly 5% water change. No attempt was made to scrub off the rock. One event is striking in how fast something can change: for about 10 months the teeth on the overflow needed weekly cleaning to remove the algae that would grow and literally clog the overflow so the watter was running over the top. In one week about 10 months after the tank was set up it stopped growing to the extent it even cleaning on a quarterly basis was just a propholactic excersize. The only other significant event was about month 8 when I was able to talk the owner into removing the skimmer he initially insisted on installing.

Month 3:

Month 17:

It's interesting that one of Sprung's reccomendations for dealing with cyano is "Higher food inputs to encourage stronger coral growth". One step I think is important for you is to go around and see as many different aquarists tanks as you can so you can get an idea of what healthy corals look like and if convienent test the water and discuss lighting to get an idea of the parameters corals will grow well under. Some corals are very flexible and others are not. It is important for you to get a feel or develop some understanding or intuition so as not to chase the wrong problem. An example is restricing nutrients, an often touted solution to dealing with cyano problems (I don't neccessarily think this is or is not the case here in this thread). It may very well be a system has excess nutrients but if in fact the problem is the some corals selected are not getting enough light for the species/variant chosen I would expect a cyano problem to develop on the corals in question. If the one of steps taken in this example is to reduce the food input not only is it not helping the corals in question recover but there is the possibility the corals in question may actually have a higher need for being feed since they are getting less nutrients from their symbiotic dinoflagellates because of the reduced light. So to reitterate: as much as you can get ahold of other aquarists, go see thier tanks and talk to them about how they maintain them.

Considering the age of your system personally if it was my tank I would just be syphoning the stuff off during small weekly water changes. I may or may not also periodicly syphon off the top layer of sand quickly rinse it out in fresh water and put it back in for aesthetics.