Cyano Bacteria outbreak

[fafetrat]

Hi Everybody,

I'm new to the forum and the hobby as well, My problem at the moment is Cyano bacteria taking over and growing so fast and even getting into my refugium.

A little bit about my tank:

I started my 125g tank 6 weeks ago which was basically buying two running tanks off craigslist and combining the rock, corals and fish, I didn't get any ammonia or nitrite but my nitrate and specially phosphate has been high Phosphate around 2 based on API test, One reason I think helped the problem is the not using rodi water to fill the tank, I got the rodi system two weeks ago and has been trying to do to %10-15 every week.

Actions taken:
I tried dosing vodka in the tank I has algae problem and seemed o worsen cyano problem. ( I also have a lot of algae but they are being taken care of with the cleaning crew) I gave up.
I'm doing water changes at least every week with rodi water with %10-15 water changes.
I was recommended the bio clean product by Prodibio and used it for the fist time couple of days ago.

I have a big reef octopus protein skimmer with a tinny refugium with chato and macro algea on top of DSB. I also started seeing black spots in the sand bed but they seem to be disappearing.

 

[MadReefer]

Your setup is new and not unusual or algae outbreaks. The use of tap water did contribute and you may need to perform more larger RODI water changes. If you look on Reef Central or Reef Keeping you will find many people have had bad Cyano outbreak dosing vodka. I would switch to vinegar as it seems the cyano is less. The dosage for vinegar is 1ml per 10g. I would run a reactor with GFO to help with phosphate and nitrate. Good luck.

 

[redfishbluefish]

You have diagnosed and identified the problem yourself. Now it is a matter of time to get your numbers back in line. I’m also hoping that your recording of a phosphate level of two is wrong….that is out-of-this-world high. Even 0.2 would be considered very high and definitely effect coral growth. I would consider doing a large water change….say 50%, followed by weekly changes of 10-15%. This will most likely take months to resolve.

I would also stop looking at quick fixes….i.e.. vodka dosing. You want to use carbon dosing once you have gotten your nitrates/phosphates to the lowest levels by doing water changes….then you start carbon dosing..

 

[fafetrat]

I'm going to do a bigger water change today and use the weekend for more maintenance, Any reliable phosphate kit you would recommend?

 

[AJ1080]

Salifert is typically the go to brand for phosphate test kits.

If you have the extra cash go for a hannah photometer phosphate kit. Around 50 but well worth it.

 

[looneytunes]

Hello,
I have been having the same problem.
I run a gfo reactor but that did not seem to help much in avoiding the problem for me. I use an rodi but it seems i have phosphates in my water, which if you have the same problem a large water change might not help. I noticed every water change i would have an algae spike and the last one seemed to kill me with cyano.

I am using mexican turbos and trochus snails (got them from ultimate reefs) which seem to eat it up. I have been just taking my time and letting the snails do the work. Occasionally i will brush it off some of the rock and let it go into a filter sock but i don't do that often because it will float around and populate somewhere else. Regular turbos seem to be eating it as well but they are not as big so not as much surface area gets cleaned compared to the other guys.

I switched my carbon reactor to gfo as well (2 reactors running gfo at the moment)and every week i change one so it is not in their for more than 2 weeks at a time. I will be changing it back to carbon soon.

For the sand bed i have to say my queen conch seems to gravitate to it. Could be i have a weird one don't know if this is normal.

Trust me i know how ugly it looks. I had my brother and sister-in-law comment profusely in how bad it looked. I now still have some but compared to every inch of rock it is a lot better.

 

[grink]

Tony (shipwrecked) told me to increase mag above 1500 to 1800 or 1900 slowly. For some reason after 8 to 10 days it seems to put a good dent in the problem and soon after eradicates it.
I also did two 10% water changes during this period as well.
Maybe yes, maybe no. It worked for me.