Cyano

[ecam]

Hey guys. Question on cyano. I finally achieved the big zero in phosphates last Tuesday. And now I wake up to cyano on my sand. It was mostly on one return and is now spreading.

Background

Phos and nitrates are zero
running biopellets.
My chaeto that was always growing ( trimming 2x a week)is now dying.
The flow from the pellets was going into the skimmer section. But I just stuck the hose into the pump in-take so all of it is going into the skimmer.

thanks for reading

 

[trivan]

My experience with cyano has been, new tank syndrome and when I used biopellets. For NTS, I just increased my water changes and waited it out. Just needed patience. I really didn't have luck with bio pellets and was the only time I had problems in my tank, so I removed it and went back to simpler methods of water changes and GFO. I've read a lot of success stories with people using them, maybe just wasn't for my tank.

 

[Empire]

i think it's our water. both nick and I are also experiencing a small outbreak of cyano.

 

[Mark...]

Just a guess, chaeto dieing because of 0 phosphates? Maybe we need just a little phosphate...

 

[trivan]

i think it's our water. both nick and I are also experiencing a small outbreak of cyano.

Are you using ro/di?

 

[ecam]

Are you using ro/di?

I know empire and I are using rodi. And my tads is 0

 

[Paul B]

You can increase circulation or decrease circulation, remove phosphates, or add phosphates, it doesn't matter. It is very common in a new tank and very uncommon not to see it in a new tank. It is not a disease or poison and it won't hurt, or help anything. It will go away. If that didn't help, I can't help it.

 

[Empire]

I know empire and I are using rodi. And my tads is 0

speak for yourself. i use toilet water.

 

[dppitone]

From my experience, when you drop the phosphates in the water that low it takes the water-bound phosphates and the rock/sand bound phosphates out of equilibrium. The phosphates in the sand are likely greater than 0, so to reach equilibrium the sand phosphates are being released into the water from the places you see cyano. This will take a while to account for. That's why you'll often read that it takes some time after getting phosphates down for total algae issues to fall off.

That said, we keep phosphates at around .1. If your phosphate are truly zero, it will stop the corals from growing and also be detrimental to the other livestock. Everything needs phosphorous. The corals need about .01 at minimum from what I've read. Lower amounts ppm exist in seawater in non-reef areas, but at the reef and around the reef life it is higher. It could be that the test kit variance is reading zero when it's a bit higher, but it's hard to know for certain.

Plus, where levels are below .05 macros start to suffer from what we've seen. We grow a lot of macros and keep pods for food, etc, so .1 works well for us - it doesn't seem to hamper coral growth and it enables the macros.

 

[ecam]

Thanks for that dppitone. makes sense.

From my experience, when you drop the phosphates in the water that low it takes the water-bound phosphates and the rock/sand bound phosphates out of equilibrium. The phosphates in the sand are likely greater than 0, so to reach equilibrium the sand phosphates are being released into the water from the places you see cyano. This will take a while to account for. That's why you'll often read that it takes some time after getting phosphates down for total algae issues to fall off.

That said, we keep phosphates at around .1. If your phosphate are truly zero, it will stop the corals from growing and also be detrimental to the other livestock. Everything needs phosphorous. The corals need about .01 at minimum from what I've read. Lower amounts ppm exist in seawater in non-reef areas, but at the reef and around the reef life it is higher. It could be that the test kit variance is reading zero when it's a bit higher, but it's hard to know for certain.

Plus, where levels are below .05 macros start to suffer from what we've seen. We grow a lot of macros and keep pods for food, etc, so .1 works well for us - it doesn't seem to hamper coral growth and it enables the macros.