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

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.

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/

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!

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.

Did it.

:eek:

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.

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).

According to is article (which is actually an article for planted FW tanks)
http://www.aquascapingworld.com/alga...=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.