repeating Chemiclean treatment

[Reef Pilot]

Yes, having a theory is better than blindly taking action without any understanding of what you are doing. But as you probably well know, after a theory, comes testing, and properly interpreting the results. And then repeat, and repeat...

In your case, you started MB7 before doing the Chemiclean, which as I said was a total waste (hate to say it so bluntly). The cyano was already well established and being fed by your carbon dosing. Ideally, you are supposed to start the heavy dosage schedule of MB7 for 2 weeks even before carbon dosing. And then gradually increase (bio pellets, vodka or whatever). If you over dose with your carbon, you can be right back to square zero.

And then when you did the Chemiclean you probably wiped out any MB7 bacteria as well as the cyano.

So right now you are at square zero, and how you proceed from this point is most important. Like I said, this is when you need to dose MB7 heavily for 2 weeks. I would even shut down your bio pellet reactor for that time. Because right now it is probably not even working (needs bacteria) effectively anyway, and might just promote again the bad bacteria (like cyano).

Back to the theory and my experience, I have to say MB7 has worked exactly as I expected (and advertised), so I don't think my theory has been far off. What was especially telling for me, is in the past it tried to reappear when I had stopped dosing MB7 (because I was away for a few extended time periods). But after heavy dosage for a week, it would disappear. This actually happened a couple times, and each time I was quickly able to beat it before it got out of hand. But have not seen it for a long time now. Wish I could say the same for GHA and other algae (although I have a theory there, too, and my actions seem to be working with that too, now).

[asylumdown]

You think the BPs are toast? I debated redirecting the inlet and outlet of the reactor to a bucket of water while I did the treatment but lazy reefer syndrome took over. I really wish I knew what chemiclean was made of so I'd know more about what it's actually doing. It's obviously safe to nitrifiers or it would nuke tanks, but something in it is killing bacteria.

They say on the box that it's specifically not erythromycin succinate, which either means it's not erythromycin at all, or it's just a super sneaky way of saying that it's actually erythromycin estolate or stearate or something like that.

[lastlight]

well soylent green is people... so anything's possible.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

You think the BPs are toast?

Don't think they are toast, but am quite sure their effectiveness has been interrupted. What's worse, is they can be producing carbon, but with no or very little beneficial bacteria present, could resurrect the cyano again. It for sure, thrives on carbon dosing.

That's why I say you should suspend the BP's for a couple weeks, while you dose your system with MB7 and get the beneficial bacteria fully seeded. Then introduce the bio pellets slowly again, to be sure nothing gets out of whack again.

[toytech]

Ive done the treatment before and had to do a repeat after the 20% waterchange , it was a skimmerless tank only ran carbon and everything was fine , now I didn't have any sps at the time so I cant comment on the effect on them .

[asylumdown]

Well I did the second dose this afternoon after a water change, and I redirected the biopellet reactor to a bucket so that the pellets keep tumbling (I don't want them going stagnant) for the time being. The tank looks cleaner than it has in months right now, the last few patches of cyano look pretty dead but I want to be sure it's as dead as I can make it.

My elegance coral retracted half it's tentacles for a few hours after I dosed a second time, but otherwise there appears to be no negative reaction. I'll do a second water change on Thursday, change the GFO again, fire up the skimmer and as soon as it stops going insane I'll start dosing the MB7. We shall see if this combined with my other maintenance measures clears this problem up for good.

[asylumdown]

Well I only did the second treatment for 24 hours. A couple of my LPS were looking particularly unhappy, and my two gorgonians shrivelled up beyond recognition. A few of my larger colonies also retracted 90% of their polyps by the morning of the third day so last night I did another large water change, changed my GFO, and fired up the skimmer. It went crazy for a few hours emptying directly in to a drain doing another partial water change on the tank, but by 10pm when I went to bed it had died way down so I did the first dose of MB7. I put half directly in the BP reactor, though I'm not sure how effective it will be recirculating in the bucket, and the other half in the display.

This morning I was able to turn the skimmer back up to almost where I used to have it set, and I added a mesh bag full of carbon to my filter sock to mop up the final traces of chemiclean and any organics that are floating around in the tank as a result of the treatment. I also did the second dose of MB7.

As of this moment, my sand is as white and sparkling as the day I put it in, and there's not a so much as a speck of cyano or dinos anywhere in the tank. Once the skimmer has had a chance to get back to normal I'm going to do another round of sand bed cleaning in the places the cyano used to be the worst. Here's hoping I've licked this problem for a while at least.

[Delphinus]

TBH I'm a little surprised you felt the need to do a second treatment so soon. Unless I'm mistaken as to when you did round #1. Honestly, cyano being one of the most successful lifeforms on the planet (here long before us, will be here long after us I'm sure), it's going to take some time to recede, but it almost 100% always does after a treatment - just give it some time.