"Cyanobacteria War" -Waving the white flag

[TheSaltySpitoon]

I am new to Reef sactuary. I was appointed to this website by a friend because i have a war going on in my tank with Cyanobacteria. It shouldnt be able to grow in my tank conditions but surprisingly it does. I have been in this hobby for a year now and i love it. I have checked out many threads and posts about cyano bacteria but i dont get why it is growing in my tank it shouldnt be able to. I have a 75 bow front fish only tank with a dog faced puffer and a ghost eel. I feed them krill/silversides and clam every other day. I dont feed them to much but i do enough to keep them from being hungry. I have plenty of flow. I run an under gravel filtration system 24 hours a day 7 days a week. 2 550 penguin heads (290GPH). I have a air stone in back running for bubble wall to create more flow so it cant be lack of flow. I have one 48" 40watt power-glo light 18,000 (yellow) Thats not on for more then 6-8 hours a day. No sun light is directed on my tank. my tank runs at a temperature of 78-80 degrees. I do steady water changes depending on how bad the cyano is. I start by stiring up the coral and letting all the bacteria settle then scyhpon out the bacteria and anything else that has settled to the bottom. After a good water change this cyano bacteria starts grow lightly on the bottom of my crushed coral and it stays growing lightly and just continues to grow over 1-2 week span(sometimees even 7 days after a good water change it will start to grow back) I hate when it starts to grow on the walls so i try to keep up with it and do a water change every 1-2 weeks. After a 40-50percent water change every 10-14 days i add: Marine Buffer to my tank directly after my water change. This is supposed to saftly raise my PH to 8.3I deffenatly slowed down the cyano growth rate though i cant seem to completely stop it. I am winning the war but it cant seem to end it but im ready to wave the white flag

What am i doing wrong!! it shouldnt growin my tank considering all the odds against it in my tank!! why is it growing? what should i do? this cyano is ruining my enjoyment for this hobby im ready to give up.


Thank you!

[blue_eyes53813]

Hello, Welcome to RS.. I can feel your pain,, I went through the same thing. It can be a very frustrating disheartening time. It really make the hobby miserable. Sounds like you are on the right track. As far as what is causing it Im not sure without seeing your tank or seeing/being there to see what is going on. I know cyano can live on alot of different things. Im not sure if you've tried all of these but it is a very slow process that all need to be worked on or the algae seems to thrive on something that didnt get changed.


Just some ideas.. and keep doing them ALL and it should slowly disappear.
1. Reduce light period to 6-8 hours a day
2.Reduce feedings ( Make sure no food settles on rocks or bottom
3.Crushed coral may be a culprit. Food settles on the bottom and it is very hard to clean no matter what you do. Think of switching to bare bottom or shallow sand bed.
4.clean all filters and sponges daily , clean clean clean
5.Increase flow. With the powerheads you listed that still doesnt seem like much flow for a 75, ( unless I read it wrong, sorry if I did) Is that 7 times turn over for flow,????
6.Im not to sure your undergravel system isnt causing the problem??? Maybe something to check into??? Not many use this in a SW system.
7. Lastly try turning off the lights for 3 days when the algae starts, With FO this will help alot, The algae will die.

[glampka]

Have you checked your phosphate levels? Where are those phs pointed - at the bottom? You may not have flow along the bottom of the tank. Get yourself some phosban - that should take care of the problem.

[goldenmean]

What is the source of your water???
If you are using tap water that could be your problem

[TheSaltySpitoon]

Originally Posted by glampka

Have you checked your phosphate levels? Where are those phs pointed - at the bottom? You may not have flow along the bottom of the tank. Get yourself some phosban - that should take care of the problem.

Get yourself some phosban - that should take care of the problem.
__________________
? whats that?

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by goldenmean

What is the source of your water???
If you are using tap water that could be your problem

This was my problem... look at source water.I bought a new house and the new well water caused an outbreak.. once I got my RO/DI unit installed it went away...
I still have nightmares about that STUFF in my tank.

[goldenmean]

Tap water is not good for SW and no additives are going to clean it up enough. They cyno is being fed by tap water (phosphates)you are using so when you do a WC you are just giving it more fuel.

A good ro/di unit is a great investment. (reverse Osmosis. de-ionize) and really necessary for successful reef keeping. IMHO
you can buy ro/di water from your LFS or some larger grocery stores have ro water dispensers. In the long run it is cheaper to buy the ro/di unit plus then you dont have to lug jugs of water around.

There are lots of threads here on RO/DI.

Here is a little intro
from The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners Part 1: The Salt Water Itself by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

In addition to using a suitable salt mix, it is important to use suitably pure freshwater, both for making salt mixes and for topping-off for evaporative losses. The majority of experienced and successful reef aquarists in the U.S. appear to use RO/DI (reverse osmosis/deionization) to purify tap water. I also use it. A properly functioning RO/DI filter is always adequate to purify tap water that is otherwise drinkable. Many brands of these filters are available. Choosing one is not trivial, as they can have significant differences and the better units normally cost significantly more than stripped down models. It is beyond the scope of this article to detail all of the important attributes of good RO/DI systems, but they have been covered in previous articles. It is neither necessary nor desirable to add anything to RO/DI water or to any type of freshwater used to make a salt mix (or aquarium top-off to replace evaporation), unless you determine that after adding the salt, the water is deficient in something.

Reverse osmosis (RO) alone may be adequate in some cases, but is clearly not appropriate in others. In particular, if the local water company uses chloramine to disinfect the water, then the effluent from an RO-only system will contain substantial ammonia. If the tap water has copper at the high end of the normally encountered tap water range (> 1 ppm), RO alone may also be inadequate.

The use of tap water itself entails a number of concerns besides the presence of chlorine. First is chloramine, which does not dissipate after sitting around, the way many aquarists have done in the past for chlorine. It is now being added to many water supplies, and is much longer lived than chlorine. It also requires special treatments, not just the standard dechlorinating agents. Other concerns with tap water are copper (which often comes from your home's plumbing), nutrients (nitrate and phosphate) and alkalinity (which is not per se a problem, but can boost levels too high in some cases). In general, I recommend avoiding tap water. Sure, some folks use it and have fine aquaria. That does not, however, prove that any other tap water, even from a neighboring home, is suitable.

The best distilled water is perfect for our applications. Typical commercial distilled water is likely acceptable, as long as it has not been exposed to metals such as copper in condensers, pipes or holding tanks. Unfortunately, it is not easy to know the production history of distilled water, and testing with most copper test kits may be inadequate because they may not accurately read low enough to detect its presence.

Many aquarists use water provided by machines at grocery stores or from their local fish stores. Many of these are apparently reverse osmosis (RO) water. That is, again, likely okay, with the same caveats as for distilled water and RO water and in these cases it is unlikely that the aquarist can determine the proper maintenance of the filtration systems. Sometimes a chemical analysis can be provided by the supplier of such water, but frequently that is not available.

[BigAl07]

Source Water is a HUGE culprit in many instances. Check into that yesterday.

More flow! You don't have much flow at all. In the ocean even in "slow-flow" areas there's more flow than what you have. You need to get the water really moving and the bubble wall only add some flair. It doesn't really do much for flow. If you want to get a lot of flow but it not be to "direct" look into Koralia Power heads. I have a 1800gph return pump (due to head height only getting about 1300gph to the tank) then I have two of the koralia #3's (850gph each) in there. It's still not enough. I'm going to add either another pair of #3's or maybe even add #4's (1200gph each). The beauty of these power heads is they give a very dispersed/wide flow pattern and they are SWEET!

Maybe take a large sample of your water to your LFS and ask them to run a FULL series of tests on it (phosphates included). There's something we're missing here....

Good luck and WELCOME!!

[glampka]

Phosban - Phosban | Phosphate & Silicate Media | Filter Media & Accessories | Aquarium - ThatPetPlace.com

[goldenmean]

Saltyspitoon
in the long run your best best is to buy a RO/DI filtering system.
I got mine from The Filter Guys
The are aquarist and very helpful. There customer service is top notch! but there are many places to buy a unit.
If you do not want to buy a filtering system you can buy RO/DI from your LFS
Since you have a Fish only system you can probably get away with just RO (reverse Osmosis) water. Your LFS store may have that too or many large grocery stores have vending machines that sell RO water. Just check the maintance logs on such a machine because if they do not maintain the machine you are just buying tap water from them.
Distilled water you can also buy from your local grocery store in the gallon jugs. Distilled water would be better than the tap water you are currently using.

If you buy from the LFS or the grocery store you will have to lug it back home and as you said in pm that you were looking to upgrade to 150g tank an RO unit or an RO/DI unit would be imho a very wise investment. It will save yo $$$ in the long run.

When you upgrade may I also suggest that you think about a FOWLR system
(fish only with live rock) LR is a much better filtration system than you are currently using. Maybe you will want to add corals to you system one day???

Good luck!!

[althea2you]

Hoppy is the one that said he used tap water.... salty still hasnt replied to that comment...

[goldenmean]

salty still hasnt replied to that comment...

Salty told me in a pm he is using tap water.
he is now looking to buy an ro/di unit on another thread