Tried to battle cyano with antibiotics. Partial SPS fail

[fatoldsun]

I have an ongoing cyano issue that I attribute to excess phosphate. I'm thinking food may be the culprit put I'm not sure. I'm also a little behind on my GFO and GAC change schedule. I'm in the process of building an LED rig and I know my bulbs are old but given the LEDs coming I don't want buy new right now.

Here are some before shots:

I used this to try and beat back the cyano

-Chemiclean red slime remover

After 24 hours the cyano is substantially gone but I found this today
My blue tipped Staghorn

This is how it looked yesterday.

Everything else faired fine except the two frags of the Staghorn I had in the tank. I guess they didn't like the chemiclean.

 

[Sunny]

Chemiclean is pretty safe. I doubt that that did it to the frag. However, using chemicals is just a work around. After 72 hours do a 30% WC and then check your parameters.
Another thing to note is that cyano almost has no affect with light. This means light or no light it grows. The two constants are nitrates and phosphates.

 

[absoluteshawn]

Chemiclean is pretty safe. I doubt that that did it to the frag. However, using chemicals is just a work around. After 72 hours do a 30% WC and then check your parameters.
Another thing to note is that cyano almost has no affect with light. This means light or no light it grows. The two constants are nitrates and phosphates.

i agree with monroe..... Though..... I don't truly believe that cyano has no affect with light. I had an issue going through the cycling on my big tank, and sucked out what I could see, went lights out for 2 days, and it all dissolved. Cyano is both an algae and a bacteria. It's a hybrid. Lights out worked for me with no ill effects on my coral. Just my opinion and thoughts. Here's a link if it helps out.
http://www.algone.com/articles/saltwater-aquarium/cyanobacteria

 

[Sunny]

i agree with monroe..... Though..... I don't truly believe that cyano has no affect with light. I had an issue going through the cycling on my big tank, and sucked out what I could see, went lights out for 2 days, and it all dissolved. Cyano is both an algae and a bacteria. It's a hybrid. Lights out worked for me with no ill effects on my coral. Just my opinion and thoughts. Here's a link if it helps out.
http://www.algone.com/articles/saltwater-aquarium/cyanobacteria

I understand your point of view. However, there could have been other factors involved. Now picture this, I do not have cyano at all in my display, sump, frag tank or WC tank.
However I see cyano in my fuge. My fuge has been running without light for 2 months now since I do not have any macro algae in it currently. That said, I do have cyano on and off in fuge and fuge only. Why? I believe because that is where I have deep sand bed. Sand that I never clean. There are millions of pods also in there, worms that I see in daytime but cyano survives.

Now there is also not much flow in fuge. All other areas of my system have much better flow. So yes, cyano does not like too much flow either.

Keep in mind, I do not have fish for 4 months now in this setup so I am not feeding anything. Maybe a mysis cube and some Oyster eggs twice a week. There is cyano on and off, but not constant. Only thing constant in 2 months is - NO lights in fuge

Sunny

 

[fatoldsun]

Lights out sorta can't work for me. I suppose I could cover the tank with some tarps but my tanks in an all glass sunroom do I guess I hope your right. I regret the sand bed but short of moving if I want a tank in the house that's where it has to go.

 

[mfisher2112]

How long has the cyano been an issue?

I get cyano that creeps up every now and again. Only had 1 really significant outbreak, though. My understanding was that cyano fed off of organic carbons in the system (which is why anyone dosing vodka will often see a significant outbreak of cyano).

I would swear there was a Randy Holmes Farley article about it, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

At any rate, cyano IS a hybrid, in that it is bacterial and partially photosynthetic algal. But, depriving it of light will not always solve the problem. It also depends on the amounts of organic carbon food sources that are available.

Whenever I get an outbreak of Cyano, I suspend water changes, run the skimmer a little wetter than normal, and I "harvest" the cyano with a turkey baster or thin airline tube as often as I can. Eventually, the cyano runs through its food source, and will disappear as quickly as it turned up.

I also see it pop up occassionally in my sump downstairs in the 75, but never in the display tank. BUT, I do run a sump light opposite the tank lights, I do have macro algae in the sump refugium, and I do not have a sand bed in either the tank or the sump.

So, there are alot of different scenarios that cyano can crop up in because of its hybrid nature, but it all boils down to removing it's food source as much as possible, and sometimes that is just a means of letting it run its course.

However you do it, finding the cause is always more important than treating the symptoms in any instance.

 

[mfisher2112]

One more old trick that SOMETIMES works, depending on other contributing factors, believe it or not, find someone that has a solid, healthy system with no traces of cyano, and get a cup or two of their healthy sand, and add it to your system.

Often, there are different forms of fauna in the sand that feed on the root causing bacteria of cyano, and those could be depleted in your system, or possibly never properly seeded in the first place. I know it sounds strange, but it has been known to work in the past.

The other difference I've found in my system now vs other systems I've had in the past that have had continuous issues with cyano is the 30 gallon tank has a couple of sand burrowing nasarius snails as well as a bunch of dwarf cerith snails that also stay buried in the sand for the most part. They keep the sand bed slowly churned, and keep it nice and clean.

 

[fatoldsun]

I guess I didn't expect the chemiclean to solve the underlying issue. I've been trying many of the remedies suggested here for months. I actually had a HA outbreak that got pretty bad. There was a trace of cyano before that but as the HA got worse so did the cyano. Many of the suggested remedies cross over and more aggressive water changes, reducing feedings etc, after about 3 weeks took care of the HA. I sourced part of the problem to my new saltwater - I was making 15-20 g at a time and usually had about 5g leftover so my drum was never totally empty or cleaned. There were phosphates going in w/ each PWC. Even with the DT reading zero I assume it was being consumed by the various nuisance stuff I was dealing with. Anyway as the HA disappeared the cyano got worse gradually. I continued trying to clean the sandbed and kept a reduced feeding schedule. Kept an eye on phosphates in both the DT and the NSW station. Nitrates remained zero in both tested w/ a red sea kit -not API) I finally got frustrated enough to just to try and reset things and figured if I could clean it out I could test the DT to see if there were phosphates there (w/o cyano consuming them) - I just didn't count on it killing the Staghorn. Maybe the chemiclean is perfectly safe but that seems to be 1 hell of a coincidence. All other SPS were fine and most were relative newcomers in my system. This was my most established "frag". Even large enough that a rockslide left me with some frags which had encrusted on their plugs. They were all in different parts of the tank and all bleached (RTN) at the same time and simultaneous with the cyano starting to die off. So either the massive cyano die off contributed or I have to assume the chemiclean contributed.
Oh, I also had it in my fuge (where I have a DSB - ~4") but not other parts of the sump and there's chaeto in there (it was growing on the chaeto) which is on an opposite photo schedule. I'm running GFO, carbon and bio pellet all in seperate reactors) All this in an effort to offset the tanks location in a 4 seasons sunroom where I get a lot of natural light in the summer.

 

[mfisher2112]

Both Hair Algae and Cyano feed on multiple excess "nutrients". Often, we cross the word "nitrates" with "nutrients", and they aren't always the same thing.

If you were able to defeat the hair algae, that means whatever nutrients it was feeding on were depleted enough for it to give up its hold VISIBLY. (I personally don't believe we ever defeat HA completely. We may be able to stop it from taking a visible hold on our systems, but if we slip long enough, it will come back with a vengeance, but that's my opinion).

As the hair algae began to die off, the cyano took up feeding on the excess nutrients that the hair algae was no longer consuming, or, was releasing in its death throws.

I think if you were able to beat back the HA, then the same regiments you took to defeat that should be continued with the cyano.

I know it is unsightly, and it is frustrating, but I still firmly believe in good old fashioned techniques to defeat nuisance outbreaks.

Eventually, you will deplete the organic and inorganic compounds that the cyano is feeding on. Just remember to continue harvesting it just like you did with the Hair Algae. As the cyano grows, you harvest it before it has a chance to complete its life cycle and release the nutrients back into the water for the continued growth of new cyano.

Continue normal, regular water changes, check your time frame on your GFO and GAC and see if that needs to be switched out.

This is just purely my opinion, but if cyano is bacterial (primarily), and chemi-clean is designed to defeat it via anti-biotic style attack, then wouldn't it stand to reason that it could in fact take out other beneficial bacteria as well? That's one of the reasons I stay away from chemical additives.

I also don't believe in coincidences. If a particular variety of coral went south quickly directly following the addition of a chemical, it is very reasonable to believe that that chemical had some kind of reactive affect on that coral. Just because it didn't happen to someone else, doesn't mean it didn't happen to you. There are ALOT of scenarios that could have played out. That particular coral could have gotten a high direct blast of the chemiclean that it reacted to, etc, etc.

I feel your pain, tho. I'm personally battling a nasty hair algae outbreak in my 30 gallon display tank, and I'm constantly forcing myself to slow down and analyze the situation and try to attack it as logically and regularly as I can without getting out of control on it. I've kind of taken this as a challenge because I have 3 tanks running, all using the same RO/DI unit, and the same salt mix, and only the 30 gallon display has the hair algae. The other two are devoid of any nuisance algae at all. So it has to be something specific to the 30 gallon. And as much as I hate to admit it, I was feeding Rod's Food to the fish and coral int he 30 gallon, and it is the only tank with the hair algae, so I suspended the rods food feeding, and have weened the fish to small amounts of flak and pellet every 3 days or so. The other tanks do not have fish in them at all.

It's good practice to only mix the amount of new water you are going to use during water changes. I try to make it a habit to only mix what I'm going to use, and to keep the barrel I mix in clean, dry and covered when not in use.

I also do my water changes DIRECTLY following harvesting of nuisance algaes, and I will run everything through a filter sock for a few hours after I turn the system back on following a water change. This helps me "catch" everything that is flying around the water column following the disturbance of the nuisance algae and the fact that I just stirred everything up with the water change.

When I do my water changes, I use a small mini-jet pump with two lengths of hose affixed to it. One short one on the intake, and one long one on the output. I use that to try to "storm" small sections of my rock work during water changes to try to stir up any debris that might be settling.

WARNING! If you haven't done this before, make sure you do it in SMALL SECTIONS at a time, and run some sort of filter sock or mechanical filter media (like foam) to catch the debris at least for a couple of hours after you are done. If not, you could force a mini cycle!

 

[Mike S]

I've been battling it myself for the past two months. My tank is still young (7 months) and although I've always seen a small amounts of cyano over the past several months I haven't had to deal with any other nuisance algae. Over the past two months I've had it start to cover more and more of my rocks. I hadn't changed my feeding patterns but did had increased the amount of biopelets in my reactor. I thought that may have been the cause but never thought about my makeup water since I was running it through my ro/di filter. Initially I had been mixing up water and using all of when I did my water changes. A few months ago I switched to larger container and always had 5 or 10 gallons left after each water change.

Three weeks ago I did lights out for a few days and there was no sign of it for about a week. Since then it is showing back up again. I've been blasting it with a baster, turning up my power heads, and changing my filter socks daily. I also just gave my fuge a good cleaning. I wonder if my makeup water has been the issue. I did just happen to give my makeup water container a good cleaning last weekend. It will be interesting to see if that helps.

 

[mfisher2112]

Hey Mike:

Just my opinion, but rather than blasting the cyano with the turkey baster, what you want to do is "harvest" it. Meaning, suck it up with the turkey baster, or start a syphon with an air line tube and suck it out.

This removes the more "mature" algae, and younger algae will grow again to take its place, thus using up more nutrients to grow without reaching a point that it releases the nutrients back to the water column.

It will be a vicious cycle for a while, but eventually, it will run its course, depleting its food source.

Blasting it will just spread it more.

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[Mike S]

I've thought about that but I'm not seeing large patches of it that would make it easy to vacuum up. I have small patches scattered across my rock.

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[mfisher2112]

That being the case, I'd let it alone and see if it spreads. It may be reaching the end of its food source.

You may find just leaving it be for a bit, it will just leave on its own.

I've thought about that but I'm not seeing large patches of it that would make it easy to vacuum up. I have small patches scattered across my rock.

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[fatoldsun]

traded: cyano problem for high phosphates

an update of sorts...

I used the chemiclean last Tuesday or Wednesday (I think 8/7-8) so it's been about 11 days. The cyano is completely eviscerated. It's actually quite nice seeing the sand this clean.
As many might have expected, when I was testing for NO3 and PO4 I was getting readings of zero – likely because the cyano was consuming anything that was in the tank. My plan was to test the PO4 and NO3 after I was sure that there was no more cyano to consume it. On a separate note, as I reported earlier, several pieces of a particular SPS (blue tipped staghorn) bleached out after the treatment. My first thought was to question the safety of the chemiclean but upon further consideration, I think the problem was more that the cyano was consuming excess PO4 and NO3 and when the chemiclean wiped that out I was left with a somewhat inhospitable environment for that particular coral. I have since seen the demise of my favorite new frag – a small piece of montipora undata (brown with bright green polyps) and I was starting to see signs of excess phosphate so I started my testing. I’m using a hanna for PO4 and a RedSea kit for NO3. Last night PO4 was 0.07. (I also tested my new salt water to be used for my next PWC - that was 0.0 and last test was the output of my GFO reactor – also read 0.0) I then tested NO3 – much to my dismay, it had climbed from less than 0.25 (before treatment) to 0.50. That begged the question – what’s causing it to go up? Water change water is “clean” and the GFO is working. (I also run a reactor with bio-pellets and a reactor with GAC) I haven’t tested their outputs yet. I started thinking about what I add to my tank. Food (fish and coral) a mini cal calcium reactor and that’s it. No other dosing. Well I do occasionally use a bit of Kent ZooPlex or Kent PhytoPlex. Coral food is BRS reef chili. Fish food is a mix. New Spectrum pellets, nori sheets occasionally, occasionally Ocean Nutrition formula two, and my homemade food (consists of fresh shrimp, frozen mysis, bryne, blackworms, nori, fresh garlic (some new spectrum pellets to cover any missing vitamins) and one or two other frozen things that I can’t remember at the moment) blended and frozen in cubes. Well I tested some of my food for PO4. The new spectrum pellets I soaked overnight in tank water (next time I will use RO/Di and to save on reagent (since this will require a lot of testing) I used my API kit that I shelved when I got the hanna. My homemade came in at between 5 and 10 ppm. The new spectrum came in at between 1 and 2 ppm. I’ll continue testing everything I use in the tank and try and source the problem but obviously I’m getting PO4 in there somehow and I’d like to find the cause and avoid using the chemiclean band aid again since all that did was trade one problem (cyano) for another (high phosphates). Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any thoughts would be appreciated.....

 

[dan_k]

Im still a novi so i really cant help you that much but when you get your tank all back to normal i can give you another piece of that monti. It grows like crazy in my tank.

 

[fatoldsun]

Im still a novi so i really cant help you that much but when you get your tank all back to normal i can give you another piece of that monti. It grows like crazy in my tank.

Thanks Dan. That would be awesome. How's the Staghorn doing? I think some of mine is still alive. The RTN stopped so we'll see but hopefully the piece you have is doing well - I may ask for done if that too if it takes off under you LEDs.

 

[dastrader]

I had a bad case of cyano for a few months. Finally got rid of it by doing a better job of my tank upkeep. 1) I started skimming a little wetter (as someone said). 2) I did 5 % water changes twice weekly for awhile. 3) I shortened the time on my main display lights for awhile and 4) I THINK THE MOST IMPORTANT was I changed my GFO (which I think was extremely old and was "leaching" back into the tank) and I began changing regularly every 4 weeks. Within 2 months almost all was gone (and I pulled out sheets of it daily). I think the GFO was the biggest factor. Old GFO is bad. Now everything in my tank looks much better. Glad yours is gone, sorry about the frags.

 

[fatoldsun]

I had a bad case of cyano for a few months. Finally got rid of it by doing a better job of my tank upkeep. 1) I started skimming a little wetter (as someone said). 2) I did 5 % water changes twice weekly for awhile. 3) I shortened the time on my main display lights for awhile and 4) I THINK THE MOST IMPORTANT was I changed my GFO (which I think was extremely old and was "leaching" back into the tank) and I began changing regularly every 4 weeks. Within 2 months almost all was gone (and I pulled out sheets of it daily). I think the GFO was the biggest factor. Old GFO is bad. Now everything in my tank looks much better. Glad yours is gone, sorry about the frags.

I was thinking my GFO may have played into it but I tested the output and po3 was 0. To me that meant it was doing its job. I'm gonna change it tonight anyway and adopt your schedule of 1x a month