Cyano suggestions

gridley · #1 01-21-2013, 08:39 PM

I'm looking for advice on dealing with cyano in our tank. We have a 90g tank that is still quite new - first added SW in August. We have seven fish so far, 5 turbo snails, 2 cleaner shrimp, a few hermit crabs and some sand snails. For filtration we have filter socks (change weekly) skimmer (clean weekly) GFO and carbon.

I had read about turning the lights off and reducing as much natural light as possible for a three day period. We went ahead and did that - I turned off the lights and wrapped the tank with a blanket - at the end of the three days the tank looked great - very clean.

Unfortunantly, one week later I noticed a suspicious growth and it is now clear that the cyano is back.

Suggestions please . . . and thanks

kien · #2 01-21-2013, 08:44 PM

Reef Pilot · #3 01-21-2013, 08:51 PM

I have used ChemiClean in the past, and it does work. Be sure to follow instructions exactly, though.

However, once it is gone, MB7 is a great preventative. It seeds your tank with bacteria that out competes cyano. Since I have been using MB7 with my bio pellets, never had any further cyano problems.

kien · #4 01-21-2013, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

I have used ChemiClean in the past, and it does work. Be sure to follow instructions exactly, though.

However, once it is gone, MB7 is a great preventative. It seeds your tank with bacteria that out competes cyano. Since I have been using MB7 with my bio pellets, never had any further cyano problems.

Ya, cyano is a tough bugger! Once it gets a foot hold it is a very tough uphill battle. Cyano when it gets a foot hold can out compete other bacteria and will become a nutrient sink. You can test all the nitrates and phosphates all you want but the cyano is probably sucking it all up!

I had a recent outbreak and although manual removal and tinkering with my flow and biopellets helped to keep it at bay I still had a couple of very stubborn patches that just kept coming back. I finally decided to give Chemiclean a shot and it was gone within 48 hours. Once knocked back considerably it then becomes a struggle for cyano to get back in if you keep up with maintenance and carbon dosing. At least that's been my experience.

The one thing I did differently from the instructions though was to keep my skimmer on, but I took the skimmer cup off to allow it to overflow into the sump. The instructions tell you to turn the skimmer off and to place an air stone in your tank/sump. I didn't want to do that so I just let my skimmer overflow for two days. After 48 hours I put in some new carbon and did a 20% water change, and another 20% water change the the following days for 3 days.

On Day 4 my skimmer was back to normal and my tank was spotless once again.

Reef Pilot · #5 01-21-2013, 09:19 PM

I have had almost every scourge you can think of in my main display tank. Had very high nitrates, high P04, cyano, GHA, turf algae, ditritus, aiptaisai, etc, etc. I inherited this tank about 2 1/2 years ago, when we moved into this house. It took the better part of the first 1 1/2 years to get it back under control, while learning about SW and reef keeping.

I am now happy to say, tank is looking very clean with zero P04 and nitrates, and am now starting to grow SPS. And no more aiptasia (at least haven't seen one for a long time). I have to give a lot of credit to the use of bio pellets and MB7. And to my Pearlescales for ridding my tank of aiptasia (used to have 100's, maybe thousands of those ugly buggers, even my back glass was covered with them).

Now if I could just get rid of those scratches on my acrylic tank panes...

Baldy · #6 01-22-2013, 01:27 AM

+1 on the chemiclean. i just used it less than a month ago and my tank is still cyano free. first time in 9 months or more. I have a 75g display with a 20g sump. i underdosed the tank to be on the safe side and dosed for 60g of water volume. some of the corals didnt like it but after 3-4 days, everything was back to normal (following WC and skimmer instructions of course). its a great product!

gridley · #7 01-22-2013, 02:24 AM

Thanks everyone! I'll head out tomorrow and pick some up.

I appreciate the help.

krazykarl · #8 01-22-2013, 02:59 AM

When i had my Cyano battle i use Vodka dosing and mechanical filtration changed daily. I had to lightly brush the cyano off the rockand corals so that the filter could pick it up and do its thing. The Vodka dosing took some time as you have to go slow and find the right amount but once gone it was gone. Dose not sound as keep as the product mentiond above in th earlier posts.