Cyano Question

[noon6]

As you can see in the picture I am starting to see a cyano outbreak in my tank that is showing up in a few spots on my substrate and a small area on one of my live rock. Is this spotty outbreak caused mostly by dead areas with no flow?
I am running chemi pure elite, purigen, phos guard and blue/white filter floss I'm my media rack and when checking all my parameters using my API test kits nothing shows negligible in any of the tests.
My main return is pointed at the surface for has exchange and I have two Korillia flow pumps one on each side of the tank at different heights and angles so I am puzzled as to why the outbreak all of a sudden. My tank has been setup since Memorial Day and I am doing 15% water changes at least every other week.
Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Steve

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[noon6]

Sorry for the spelling errors, I was trying to type this on my lunch break!


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[sirrealism]

that sounds about right. I find its somewhere around 3 months up to 6 months that you end up with a cyno Seems to happen to everyone. Couple things to check. your water source is it 0TDS. You say parms are good using API but what do you consider good. With API N03 and P04 need to be zero. If your showing anything then its not good enough when you have cyno. Remember Cyno is not algae its bacteria. vacuum it out and stay on your water changes and you will win. Every tank I have ever had has gone through at cyno at least once. some will tell you to increase water flow and yes its a good idea but doesnt mean its going away. Vacuum it away and it will come back over and over again but it will get less over time. when was the last time you changed your chemi pure elite, purigen, phos guard

 

[Snid]

My tank is a little older than yours and I've had a couple small outbreaks of Cyano. I just manually remove as suggested, and it seems to pretty much take care of it. Good husbandry is the key.

 

[noon6]

Does this have anything to do with having a crushed coral substrate vs sand. Does that lead to having more cyano outbreaks then the average tank?


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[Snid]

I would doubt there would be any difference from that on such a young tank. Mine has a DSB and it gets them sometimes. In fact, I have a small one now that I'll be manually removing tonight or tomorrow night after work. That and a couple of Green Bubble Algae trying to start up.

 

[reefer gladness]

I've never had cyano problems in my tanks. About the only difference I really see with other systems is that I have a very active reef with a couple Vortech pumps making sure there are no dead spots.

Same for green bubble algae by the way, my display tank is too active for it too take hold anywhere. I know it's present in my system because it appears in the overflow box on occasion and I don't have any natural predators so I attribute it to the water flow.

 

[Snid]

Do you think the UV sterilizers could also be a big contributing factor with your system, reefer gladness, since Cyano is a bacteria? Jut curious because I feel like I have adequate flow in my tank all over and have done the string on a stick method to visually see where any dead spots might be.

 

[Choff]

I agree with SirR. I think almost all tanks go through an algae cycle. I know I did about that same time. I also had a recent outbreak when I added a ton of sand to build up to a dsb. It lasted a good month and was ugly as heck, but I just kept up with my husbandry and it cleared up on its own.

There is another case where your water is so clean that cyano can also break out as it does better in ulns than most algaes. Looking at all the chemicals your are running this is a possibility. Especially if you hit the phosguard too hard.


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[reefer gladness]

Do you think the UV sterilizers could also be a big contributing factor with your system, reefer gladness, since Cyano is a bacteria? Jut curious because I feel like I have adequate flow in my tank all over and have done the string on a stick method to visually see where any dead spots might be.

It may be a factor for free-floating bacteria but I haven't always run a U/V sterilizer so hard to say how effective U/V is on it's own. Several factors contribute to allowing cyano to grow, controlling nitrates and phosphates is number one IMO but temps, lighting and waterflow are also factors.

[video=youtube;-SZjjKnoFyg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SZjjKnoFyg&list=UUr_zp7gqcCzv-ThGRJYSJdg[/video]

 

[PSU4ME]

Crushed coral as a substrate can cause use issues. What happens is detritus gets caught in the books and crannies as opposed to it being on top of the sand where increased flow can pick it up and get it into the water column.

The older your tank gets the more of an issue this can become.