re.REDICULOUS cyano bacteria problem

[Marinoman08]

Well i have a 55 gallon tank with 3 fish.... Clown Eel and engineer golby.
-I have 2 105 gallon power head cycling the water on both sides of my tank alone with a bubble wall in the back. lighting for my tank is usually 5-6.30 hours a day. Feeding- I feed them brine shrimp every other day alone with 1 krill for my Eel. Very little enough to fill my engineer golby and clown and 1 krill to my eel and non is left over.
Maintance- 45-55 precent water change every 4 weeks. added marine buffer yesterday and cyanobacteria remover today.
Tuesday i did a 80% water change and now today witch is thursday night already i am seeing purple cyano start to come back small spots. Those small spots with rapidly growth

AND I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO THIS IS REDICULOUS
YOU WOULD THINK THAT AFER 80% it would not grow for a month or so but no 2 days not even later it is comming back.

[Dentoid]

Marinoman, take a deep breath and say to yourself, "...everything will be alright". There, now, the one thing I didn't see you mention in that littany of a thread was about your lighting.

What type if lighting are you running?
How old are the bulbs?
What is your daily photoperiod?

We'll help get you through this!

[AQTCJAK]

Cyno is a a bateria it has to be killed like the flu you have to kill the bug. Use Boyd Enterprises Chemi Clean

Scott is correct in his questioning. These are very important

[Marinoman08]

Originally Posted by Dentoid

Marinoman, take a deep breath and say to yourself, "...everything will be alright". There, now, the one thing I didn't see you mention in that littany of a thread was about your lighting.

What type if lighting are you running?
How old are the bulbs?
What is your daily photoperiod?

We'll help get you through this!

Lighting- 2 and a half foot 40 watt light. On for 5-6 hours a day thinking about cutting hours in half 2-5 hours a day and i dont even know what photoperiod is

[ReefGuy69]

photo period is the length of time. What type of water are you using? Tap water? if so that could be your culprit. I would get some Ro water and start making your water changes with that. Another thing you may want to consider is doing weekly water changes rather then once a month. Many small water changes are better then one huge water change. Even though in the end its the same amount of water. Do you have a skimmer? that may help as well get some nutrients out of the water that they cyano may be feeding on. hope this helps any.

[Roks-Sharky]

Help! I've got the same problem!

My tanks:

Both with R/O water

Tank 1
92 gallon corner tank, FOWLER, 100lbs live rock, 30 gallon Berlin bag sump, 2+ gallon refugium, red sea protein skimmer, 2 pumps (each over $100), metal halide light 250 watts, some nice purple coralline algae, no charcoal. 4 healthy fish.

Has a bad case of red algae.

Tank 2:
150 gallon tank, FOWLER, 100lbs live rock, 40 Trickle gallon sump, 25 gallon refugium, one good pump ($100+) the other about $75, no charcoal, 80 watts florescent tubes, about 7 fish.

Has a some blue-green algae developing.

Tanks are almost 2 years old, for about my first 15 months I never had an algae problem

Now I've been wrestling with one since the summer.

I tried to solve it with frequent water changes and increasing circulation with add'l power heads. No luck.

Moved to my favorite medication at $20 a pop, (that I will never use again!):
ULTRALIFE Reef Products: Red Slime remover. I have NO idea what the heck it is.

My copper tests fine so I figure, I'm okay

Cyanobacteria has now killed ALL my inverts (pods, stars, worms etc) in my big tank.

In my 92 gallon tank it is slowly suffocating or poisoning everything but the bristle worms.

My water tests FINE! PH a tad low at times. I read that this algae locks up nitrates so I began siphoning the algae itself. This seemed to help. It's growing back more slowly. Works just as well as the medication, wish I had figured out to siphon sooner.

But my tanks just don't seem to be healthy & thriving like they used to.

It's just fish & rocks, when I used to have a thriving population of all sorts of tiny creatures that live on the rocks. And lots of Caulerpa Algae, which has also disappered. In the big tank I think it may have gone "sexual" in my refugium causing some big problems.

I have tried to re-introduce some pods, they die.

I'm about to dump in some sea water to see what might decide to make itself at home.

I just don't know how to bring back the life.

Does anyone know what might be going on?

[DaveK]

Just about all nuisance algae control comes down to controlling nitrates and phosphates. You must take out as least as much as you put in. Also, and this is very important, just because the water tests show low or zero values doesn't mean you don't have a problem. You do have a water quality problem. The nuisance algae is using up the nutrients, and growing.

There are several major sources of nitrates and phosphates. The main one is overfeeding. Most people feed way too much and way too often. The next most critical area is the source of your water used for mixing salt. Always use RO/DI water. It is worth getting a TDS meter so you can verify the quality of th RO/DI water before you start. Another possible source is the carbon being used. Also, anything that dies and isn't removed is a source too. Some low quality salts being used might be a problem, but this is rare.

The next thing to review is your filtration system. This includes live rock, sand beds, skimmers, reactors, mechanical filtration, and refugiums. Make sure the live rock and the sand bed (if used) is reasonably clean. Many use a power head to blow out the live rock from time to time. It also help to vacuum the sandbed, but do not go deeper than about 3/4 of an inch if using a deep sandbed.

Make sure you are using a quality skimmer that is large and powerful enough for the tank you have. Skimmers remove a lot of "golp" before the rest of the filtration system needs to deal with it. Many people size the skimmer far too small. Use one rated for at least double the size of your tank.

Reactors like a phosban reactor can help a lot also, but you need to make sure it's clean and working, and you'll need to replace the media from time to time.

Mechanical filtration media should be cleaned at least weekly. Remember, all a mechanical filter does it move the dirt to a single point for easy removal. It's still in the system until you clean it. Incorrectly installed refugiums can also be a problem. Make sure it's being fed with cleaned water (skimmed and mechanical filtered) so that it doesn't become a settling tank and trapping dirt.

In addition, good circulation helps a lot. Make sure the circulation is the tank is good. You may need to add power heads, or do other things.

Keep up the water changes. You'll need to do a lot of them. the 10% a week or 25% a month rule is fine for a tank with out a problem. To control algae, they will need to ba a lot larger and more often. Keep in ming that if your nitrate reading is 20 ppm, a 50% water change will only cut this to 10 ppm. To really get it down, you need to do a lot of water changes.

Lighting adjustments can help. Make sure your bulbs are reasonably new. It can help to reduce the amount of light, but unless you fix the underlying problem, you'll still have an algae problem. Remember there are systems out there that use massive amounts of light and do not have an algae problem.

Another major mistake made by many people it to attempt to control algae by introducing fish such as tang, or other livestock, expecting them to eat the algae. About all you are doing is recycling the algae. The fish eats the algae. Then it poops, putting nutrients right back into the system.

Never ever use medications, or "red slime killer" products. At best, you'll kill off one type of nuisance algae only to get it replaced with another. At worst you'll mess up the entire system. Just don't use them, and save yourself the additional problems.

It takes a lot of time and effort to control algae, but it can be done.

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by Roks-Sharky

Help! I've got the same problem!

My tanks:

Both with R/O water

Tank 1 ...Has a bad case of red algae.

Tank 2:
...
Has a some blue-green algae developing.
..
Moved to my favorite medication at $20 a pop, (that I will never use again!):
ULTRALIFE Reef Products: Red Slime remover. I have NO idea what the heck it is.

My copper tests fine so I figure, I'm okay
...
But my tanks just don't seem to be healthy & thriving like they used to.
...

Does anyone know what might be going on?

I made a previous post on general algae control. That is a good place to start.

In your second tank you made some mistakes. One was treating with red slime remover. I'm sorry you had to learn the hard way on that one.

You mention that your copper test is fine. I wonder about this. Copper, while it will kill a lot of stuff, isn't usually a factor in algae control. Did you ever medicate the tank with copper? If so, this could be your problem. Copper is going to get taken up by live rock, the sandbed, and anything else that has a calcuim carbonate base.

Most likely the red slime remover and/or copper killed off all the pods and such. The live rock is likely to be continually releasing copper back into the system. It takes very little copper to kill something.

There is no good way to really fix this problem. My choice would be to tear the tank down, replace the live rock, and sandbed. Then set the tank up again.

I know, this is a very radical approach, but you have several ongoing problems here,.

If it is not possible to do that. I'd make larger partial water changes. You'll need to do at least six 30% water changes to replace most of the water in the tank. Be sure to use a top quality salt and RO/DI water.

[bigfish]

when i had a bad outbreak a few months ago i took out everypiece of rock in my tank, place it in my tub and scrubbed it with a real course brush. I did this til it was spotless. then while it was out i scraped all the walls in my tank with razor and did a 30 percent water change. my rocks look beautiful now and they are really showing some great color. the cyno has not come back at all. i feel as as long as it is in your tank it is going to be a lot harder to stop then it being down the drain. I didnt want to subject my tank to all the chemicals either. so put in a lil elbow grease it is WELLLL worth it! and then get your nitrates and phosphates down!!

[Roks-Sharky]

Originally Posted by DaveK

I made a previous post on general algae control. That is a good place to start.

Please post a link, I don't have much luck with the search engine.

Originally Posted by DaveK

You mention that your copper test is fine. I wonder about this. Copper, while it will kill a lot of stuff, isn't usually a factor in algae control. Did you ever medicate the tank with copper?

Nope, I never medicated with copper intentionally. I tested the water to see if there was any present from using medications that don't have ingredients listed.

I plan to continue to siphon and make water changes, I will NEVER break it down. I just don't see an end in sight for now . .. . which makes me think something is wrong I am unaware of.

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by Dentoid

Marinoman, take a deep breath and say to yourself, "...everything will be alright". There, now, the one thing I didn't see you mention in that littany of a thread was about your lighting.

What type if lighting are you running?
How old are the bulbs?
What is your daily photoperiod?

We'll help get you through this!

Doc asked the best question so far. Could you both tell what kind of lighting you are useing and how old the bulbs are?

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by DaveK

Lighting adjustments can help. Make sure your bulbs are reasonably new. It can help to reduce the amount of light, but unless you fix the underlying problem, you'll still have an algae problem. Remember there are systems out there that use massive amounts of light and do not have an algae problem.

Dave it is not the amount of lighting but the Par that it is producing. Certain spectrum's promote algae growth. When bulbs go bad they produce more on the yellow spectrum. Professor Sanjay did some article on this. I will look for it later if someone doesn't beat me to it.
It's in here somewhere. Untitled Document

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by Roks-Sharky

Please post a link, I don't have much luck with the search engine. ...

A link is unnecessary, I made two posts back to bac. One to address general algae control problems, the second to address your specific problems. When I suggested tearing the tank down it was in relation to the question about using copper. Sorry, I wasn't too clear about this.

Here is a quote from your original post "But my tanks just don't seem to be healthy & thriving like they used to.

It's just fish & rocks, when I used to have a thriving population of all sorts of tiny creatures that live on the rocks. And lots of Caulerpa Algae, which has also disappered. In the big tank I think it may have gone "sexual" in my refugium causing some big problems.

I have tried to re-introduce some pods, they die."

The fact the you can's seem to keep pods going, and that the tank doesn't seem to be healthy and thriving indicate to me that there is something seriously wrong. I suspect it is the result of medicating the tank, or improper use of additives, but there are many other possible causes. This may not mean tearing down the tank, but you do need to find out why this is occurring.

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by Frankie

Dave it is not the amount of lighting but the Par that it is producing. Certain spectrum's promote algae growth. When bulbs go bad they produce more on the yellow spectrum. Professor Sanjay did some article on this. I will look for it later if someone doesn't beat me to it.
It's in here somewhere. Untitled Document

In this case we are talking about algae control.

Yes, certain bulbs produce more PAR than others, but it's possible to keep an excellent reef using any bulbs from about 5600K through 20000K, and in the typical range of tanks, using bulbs from 150w to 400w.

When a MH bulb fails outright, the result is obvious, no light at all. If the bulb is going, yes, there is often a shift to yellow, but this is usually very dramatic, and quite noticeable, especially if you have two or more bulbs.

If you are changing your bulbs on a regular basis, and you don't see a dramatic color shift, it's reasonable to assume that you don't have a problem.

Bottom line is that reducing the amount of light reduces the amount of PAR available to algae. There are various ways to do this, but the simplest is to reduce the photoperiod, the next most simple is to raise the fixture.

[Frankie]

Yeah, the reason i am harping on the lighting issue is because i went through something like this last summer. I had brand new XM's go south on me in under 2 months. I couldn't tell because i also had 4 actinic t'5's over the tank also. The t'5's were on before the MH's and off after the MH's. I never noticed the shift in spectrum and cyano took hold of my tank. I could not figure out what i was doing wrong! After a month of trying to kill it with chemicals, water changes, and siphoning i turned the T5's off the find the MH's were completely yellow! So the moral of the story is, keep an eye on your lighting. It pertains to algae control also in a big way.