Cyano and LEDs?

[Enigma]

Woah! Just switched out my T5s with LEDs this morning, and the cyano outbreak I've been battling has become way worse in the last two hours. It is all over the place now, where as before it was limited to a few places on the sand bed.

Coincidence? Am I just seeing it more clearly now? Or, does cyano just really like LEDs?

Everything in the tank looks good, so I think my light setting are probably pretty close to what the tank's inhabitants are used to.

[ocean diver]

What do you have the led's set at %? if you just put them on the tank today then they should be at a low % for awhile them increase it over time so everything can adjust to the increased light.

[Enigma]

They're at 45%, and 12" above the tank. I had them at 11" above the tank, but I didn't like the way a couple of my SPS were looking. Moving it up to 12" the SPS look better.

The t5s were 2" above the tank.

[ocean diver]

cyano algae is caused from high levels of nitrate and or phosphate so control them and you will control cyano algae. What are you using for water? tap or RO? What is your bio load? The leds aren't causing it but might be able to see it better now.

[Enigma]

High bio load. Zero phosphates using the Hanna Checker. 0 Nitrates on the ELOS test. RO/DI water. Changed carbon and ROWAphos last week. Not skimming, as the skimmer still isn't producing foam since I changed the reactor media.

Haven't had to remove film algae from the glass in five days.

The cyano issue was very close to being resolved, so this is a bit shocking. Nothing has died. Everything is accounted for.

The LEDs have 40 degree optics.

[ocean diver]

Do you have a sand bed? How old is your set up?

[Enigma]

Originally 30 lbs of sand in a 40 breeder. Some has been siphoned out when siphoning out cyano, maybe around five pounds worth? The sand is three months old: it was new when i upgraded the display tank. The system started out as a ten gallon in March, so some parts of the system are 6 months.

It may just be that I can see the cyano better now. It is a different color under the Sols. It is a very dark wine color now and is really obvious. The cyano was disappearing overnight, and reappearing as the day progressed for the last couple of weeks. I'm going to to try to get it siphoned out again today. I may try using airline tubing for the stuff that I'm seeing on the rocks.

[04V10]

Hey enigma,
I don't know if you remember the cyano outbreak post that i had made, but i didn't siphon any out at all. My personal thinking was that when i disturbed the sand bed when moved the tank, that is what caused the outbreak because of the garbage that was released. So all i did was really maintain my normal maintenance duties, cut back my feeding a hair and just waited it out. Took me 3 to almost 4 weeks to rid of it. My setup is under radions and i saw the same thing as you, a dark red wine color that would go away at night and grow during the day. I did replace my chemistry elite, and added a bit more macro to my hob fuge.

So yeah your leds might be making it "look" worse than it is. Hopefully it goes away for ya.

[MarkoD]

could be because the color temp changed?

the reason your phosphates are at 0 is because the cyano is consuming it to grow.

[Enigma]

Hey enigma,
I don't know if you remember the cyano outbreak post that i had made, but i didn't siphon any out at all. My personal thinking was that when i disturbed the sand bed when moved the tank, that is what caused the outbreak because of the garbage that was released. So all i did was really maintain my normal maintenance duties, cut back my feeding a hair and just waited it out. Took me 3 to almost 4 weeks to rid of it. My setup is under radions and i saw the same thing as you, a dark red wine color that would go away at night and grow during the day. I did replace my chemistry elite, and added a bit more macro to my hob fuge.

So yeah your leds might be making it "look" worse than it is. Hopefully it goes away for ya.

I remember. I'll have a read through the thread again.

could be because the color temp changed?

the reason your phosphates are at 0 is because the cyano is consuming it to grow.

The primary reason my phosphates are at zero (other than the fact that i tested with a device with a .04 window of accuarcy) is because I'm using Phosbuster Pro and changed my ROWAphos. My phosphates spiked at 0.26 before that. While I am obviously still adding phosphates to the system they are nominal and my ROWA fluid reactor produces a 0 reading, even if the phosphates are registering high in the tank. The small amount of phosphates that the cyano consumes are negligible compared to what the Phosbuster and ROWA process.

I suspect I'm now seeing cyano that I just didn't notice before. The Sols have really changed the way some things look. It makes me wonder how bad it would have looked when my battle with this stuff was at its height!

[MarkoD]

also another thing you have to consider is that phosphates can be absorbed into sand and the rock. GFO and other phosphate removal media only removes whats in the water

[toytech]

chem clean works great on cyano , just turn off your skimmer first, Cyano is also very photosynthetic but dosent have alot of energy reserves thats why it goes away at night , a 3 day black out helps knock it back . Get the skimmer going again and see if it will skim out whatever the cyano is feeding on . Maybe test phosphates at night when you notice the cyano is gone and see if it spikes.

[reefwars]

hey shelly have a read here, lots of info on how cyano works and lots of interesting facts , it doenst just need nutrients to feed its a bacteria not an algae its causes are many and the reasons its hard to get rid of is because there could be 20 small reasons why its growing including new lights for sure;)




http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jmb/2012/259571/

[Coralgurl]

I think the new lights are displaying the cyano differently. As my radions ramp up and down, it was only at a certain point during the day could I really see how bad it was on the rocks. I used chemi clean and kept the lights off for 3 days, haven't seen it since!

[Enigma]

Okay. I'm going to do it.

I purchased Chemiclean a few weeks ago, but I held off using it, as it looked like i was beginning to get the upper hand. Hopefully it will work.

If the cyano comes back hopefully it will be more localized, and I spot it quickly.

[Enigma]

Did it.

:eek:

[Enigma]

Well, as of this morning I've changed my mind about the lights. I definately think, as MarkoD suggested (and Denny backed up), that the spectrum shift contributed to serious cyano growth in a very short period of time. I see a lot in the tank, and normally I don't see any (except for one patch that is in a place I can't get a hose) before the lights come on.

I'm doing a two day "storm" (just keeping the tank lights off: not a complete blackout). I was hoping to wake this morning and find it all gone thanks to the Chemiclean, no such luck. Apparently I've read a few too many steller reviews. I did find one poll online where Chemiclean didn't work for 14% of respondents. I hope my system isn't in that 14%.

It is kind of hard to tell with the lights off, but I think everything survived the night. With the two air pumps (running three airstones) pH only dipped to 7.98, which is 0.16 points higher than it had been dipping at night lately.

I think, if I read the instructions correctly, that I can turn my carbon back on at 6:20 pm tonight (24hours), and then do the 20% water change when I get home from work tomorrow night.

[Enigma]

also another thing you have to consider is that phosphates can be absorbed into sand and the rock. GFO and other phosphate removal media only removes whats in the water

And, being that I use dry rock (the equivalent of a phophate bomb), I think the issue is compounded. I think that issue is mostly resolved by this point, as the "new tank" gha disappeared from the new rock about mid-August (I think).

[Enigma]

According to is article (which is actually an article for planted FW tanks)
http://www.aquascapingworld.com/algaepedia/full_view_algae.php?item_id=40&algae=Cyanobacteria the spectrum cyano thrives in is 530-620 nm. The corresponds very well with the cool whites in the Sols.

I'm thinking that I just need to keep the whites off, and that a bit of blue and royal blue won't be particularly detrimental.