ill tell you why. because its better that it grows in your sump, than over your display tank's beautiful sand bed.
so sasquatch and a i have been talking about cyano and how it can be a problem. now when squatchy and i get a talking, bad things happen. like this thread
question about MH and zooxanthellae but this time was different.
squatch's idea to get rid of my cyano was simple. grow it in the sump. so how should i grow cyano? the concept is simple. give it water, really icky yellow light and it will come. during a brainstorming session between him, woodstock, hippy, and me i came up with this drawing...
99% of the concept was squatch's, but i made a few small changes. basically its a tub with a piece of roughly sanded acrylic running diagonally down the middle. the powerhead (black thing) pumps water up from the sump, it runs down the rough acrylic, drains into the tub, which then drains back into the sump. so given the ideal conditions, cyano should form on the acrylic, thus using up all teh nutrients and starving any other cyano. Then this cyano can be scrapped off, which is an awesome nutrient export.
so heres what i built.
i have a powerhead that feeds a "spraybar" i made out of pvc pipe. i just pieced a few things together and drilled lots of holes in the bottom of it. i used the magical properties of zip ties to hold the whole thing together.
the water runs out of the spraybar and down the acrylic sheet. the acrylic was sanded with rough sandpaper to give it a good texture for algae and cyano to grip onto. finally it drains into a tub with a drain in it. just a $1 tub with a hole in the bottom pretty much.
now there are a few things id like to tweak. first off, its too small. i dont have a lot of room, so itll have to work. second, itd be best if i could paint the tub black, or find an opaque tub so that the light doesnt get into the sump and promote algael growth in there too.
also, itll be interesting to see what algae grows here. more than just cyano should start popping up here. also, what would be ideal conditions as far as light color and temperature? how much water flow? im open to ideas.