Cyano deaths?

[Murminator]

OK about 3 weeks ago I had red cyano pop up in my 90 FOWLR 1st time I had it. Small little patch syphoned it out next day back little bigger did same with small water change with tap water. Over the next few days it was getting bigger and bigger suck and bunch out and 10G water change. My mother in law got real sick and was admitted to the hospital and we had a few round the clock nip and tuck days wife was staying at hosp I was running back and forth feeding fish and taking care of dogs. The cyano exploded it was everywhere now that things was under control at home I tried turning tank around with big water changes changing carbon nothing worked. I turned to chemical Red Slime Remover no removal of carbon, no water changes increase O2 recommended. So I added the appropriate amount 2 days ago and added an airstone yesterday red slime gone water cloudy but my coral beauty was swimming paniciky but still ate, everything ate. Today come home from work late only 2 out 10 fish to be found 1 not looking so good 1 fine, found 3 bodies. Did a 50% water change water very cloudy fearing the worst.
Anyone know what red slime remover does?....I'm guess it depletes O2 and thats what killed my fish or was it just the chemical itself?

Casualties
1 coral beauty MIA
2 yellow belly damsels 1 found 1 MIA
1 mandrain found
1 lattice butterfly found
1 neon dottyback MIA
2 clowns 1 not doing good 1 MIA
1 filefish seams to be healthy happy and eating

Tomorrow i will start pulling rocks to remove bodies :cry:

[toytech]

wow that reall sucks , sorry about your fish man . I think the remover is like anything else that causes mass death , it kills all the cyano , then the cyano causes other algeas/ bacterias to bloom creating toxins and low o2 levels . The fish get stressed one dies , more bacteria / toxins from the dead fish , causing a cascade of fish death :cry: .

[toytech]

Oh and the cyano remover is usually an oxidizing agent .

[daniella3d]

I used red slime remover many times and nothing was affected. I did not overdose, never got any cloudy water either and never had any spike of ammonia or anything. It did not affect the biofilter nor the corals, nor the fishes.

In fact, I use it every month or every second month to make my water crisp clear, which it does each time, so the opposite of what you got.

I beleive that your tank had big problems, and it had nothing to do with red slime remover but you probably got an ammonia spike and that killed your fish and made your water cloudy. Or you got a bacteria bloom and that deplated your tank of oxygen.

Never use tap water, your problem probably come from using tap water. Use RO water. When you use tap water, do you treat it with anything to remove the chlorine or chloramine? Chloramine, if your water contain it, does not go away in a day or 2 and it is much more stable than chlorine. If by any chance you do have chloramine in your tap water and you used a product that only neutralize chlorine, that released the ammonia from the chloramine and probably killed your fish. So tap water is very bad, and more so if it contain chloramine since you really need something like Seachem Prime to neutralize both the chlorine and ammonia from the chloramine.

Red slime remover does not kill the cyano, it dissolve the organic waste in the aquarium so that the cyano does not have any more food to feed on. It does not contain any antibiotics so it does not kill the biofilter either. It is simply an oxydant, and a mild one too. Like anything else, if you overdosed, that create a dangerous situation. Especialy if you left the carbon in, then it probably absorbed all the product anyway so I doubt it was overdosed, probably was quickly absorbed.


The cyano exploded it was everywhere now Anyone know what red slime remover does?....I'm guess it depletes O2 and thats what killed my fish or was it just the chemical itself?

Casualties
1 coral beauty MIA
2 yellow belly damsels 1 found 1 MIA
1 mandrain found
1 lattice butterfly found
1 neon dottyback MIA
2 clowns 1 not doing good 1 MIA
1 filefish seams to be healthy happy and eating

Tomorrow i will start pulling rocks to remove bodies :cry:

[reefwars]

i doubt tap water did that to your tank im using the same stuff you are and so are lots of people..youve been a reefer for alot of years murray so when you say youve never had cyano before i believe you and know that you do your homework....with that being said the cyano i believe was a hint....probably havent tested in a while because everythings good right???

did you notice any of your fish missing before the cyano is it possible something has died or spawned and the red slime remover just made it worse??

:):)

[Murminator]

I have been using tap for 7+ years with no problems but this fall when I tore down and rebuilt the tank into a FOWLR I started with tap water and cycled on tape water and then changed all my top ups and water changes with RO/DI. I do not have storage for the water I just make it couple evenings a week for top up when I get ahead I do a water change. I didn't have enough on tap to do big water changes thats why I used tap water.

[Murminator]

i doubt tap water did that to your tank im using the same stuff you are and so are lots of people..youve been a reefer for alot of years murray so when you say youve never had cyano before i believe you and know that you do your homework....with that being said the cyano i believe was a hint....probably havent tested in a while because everythings good right???

did you notice any of your fish missing before the cyano is it possible something has died or spawned and the red slime remover just made it worse??

:):)


Never noticed anything missing don't test much now that I have no coral last test month ago only test ammonia which almost nil, phosphate 1.1 and nitrate wasn't zero was pretty close though.

[daniella3d]

You can never be sure with tap water. One day the water company decide to add some desinfectant or some treatment and bingo...dead tank.

You can't trust the water company, period. It is not because you are OK using tap water that one day you will not have a big problem with it.

Phosphate is 1.1 and tap water is ok? hmmm... and ammonia should be nil.

i doubt tap water did that to your tank im using the same stuff you are and so are lots of people..
:):)

[reefwars]

something is feeding the cyanoto make it reproduce so fast maybe something from the transfer or something died.... since its a fish only id just keep battling it with water changes,and flow the usual and my little trick i tell everyone and they all seem to love it is take a pantyhose over a cup use a turkey baster to suck up mats of cyano and empty it into the pantyhose once your done you have a sock full of cyano and your down no water. i keep that stuff right next to the tank so i can suck it up as soon as it appears again:)

when ever my snails reproduced i would get little outbreaks of cyano and that was how i knew they were mating, at first they are so small i cant see them but the signs are there and with in days they are view able:):)

[reefwars]

possible for sure anythings possible but i could make theorys about everything like that then id trust nothing or no one...but im not saying tap water is better .... if he believes that tap water caused a mini crash in his tank while there could be other issues its worth investigating.


rough luck with the tanks buddy for sure this year i hope it gets sorted out for you soon:):)

[asylumdown]

I'm using tap water for my tank because I don't have any other options right now. With weekly water changes, I can predict when I'm going to have cyano problems down to the day because of it.

Whenever there is precipitation, or a lot of snow melt, I end up with algae problems within 3 days. Spring melt = fluctuating diatom outbreaks (high silicate mountain run-off), summer storms and mid winter chinooks = cyano flare ups (agricultural run-off).

not saying that's what happened there, but tap water is pretty inconsistent.

[Murminator]

I am thinking it is a combo of cyno, red slime remover and 1 of the fish dying caused a huge chain reaction. Not sure if I can rule out tap water problems. I was a firm believer in tap water. I have had dinoflaggets before and hair algae in different tanks but I blame that on summer time and not keeping up with maintience. I have also done numerous 75-90% water changes on salt tanks packed with coral with tap water with no ill effects. I have been tap water for 30 years At 1 time I was running 10 tanks on on tap water 3 of them saltwater all treated with prime. Now I am down to a meer 6 tanks and in 1 on salt which is RO/DI. As for the 1.1 phos it was before a a water change with a dirty filter sock and filter floss which i was using to polish the water a bit.