picked up some Chemi-clean, but going to try my current method first for a couple of days. If I can kill the cyano off, I have some increased nutrient export that I will use called Nitroguard which should help with the issue from reappearing.

So here is the plan:

24 more hours of lights out
25% water change
filter sock change
add Purigen for Nitrate reduction (anyone use this?)
add more MB7
slow ramp up of lights
cross my fingers while I take a 5 day vacation to London
start Nitroguard in about a week...it is in transit from Montreal

If the cyno is there when I return...nuke it with Chemi-clean!
if it still survives...move on to gold fish

I had cyano when I had zero nitrates. Low flow seemed to contribute as well. Higher nitrates and better flow improved things.

The directions on my box of Chemiclean state "Continue using protein skimmer, although skimmer may require adjustment to prevent excessive overflow." The only thing it says to stop using for 48 hours is UV sterilizer, ozonizer, chemipure and carbon.

I only had to use it once in my current tank just after I set it up and have never seen it since. No issues for my tank inhabitants.

my nitrates tested high about 30 mg/ml so that is probably the issue not lack of nitrates.

Chemi-clean will be my back up

okay so lights are on now. Brought them up very slowly yesterday so that the SPS doesn't freak out. So far so good. Big water change 30%. Started off the Nitraguard which came yesterday, so that should help long term for nutrient export. Tank is looking good, but it is early days and I will have to wait to see if I manage to balance the bioload with the amount of export enough.

Back from London, and the tank is looking good! No sign of Cyano yet, measured my Phos at zero and Nitrates at 5, so far so good.

I found it was definately water flow I moved my MP40s lower as I had cyano on the sandbed, once I did that it cleared up quickly, but then started higher on rock workj. moved MP40's backup and its all gone, even on sand. I also increased how powerful the mp40s were pumping during the day.

I do have chemclean onhand and have not used it in the last 3-4 months i have been experimenting with flow.

I did increase my flow as well, so perhaps that is part of the solution. I too have some chemi-clean on hand....so perhaps this threat is helping too!:biggrin:

Well I was away for another week and came back to a small patch of the dreaded cyano! It was on the sand bed in an area of lower flow so I have vacummed it it and performed a 25% water change, changed the filter socks too. I will try to change the flow in the tank to hit up that spot some more. Let's hope that helps.

Filter Socks
 

Hi,

How often do you change your filter socks. I was told by J&L to change them every 3 days. It takes 3 days to create nitrates in the socks.

I had good results with ChemiClean as well. I followed the directions very,very carefully but I had to turn off the skimmer for a week even with water changes. In the long run, prevention is better: reduce nitrates and phosphates, increase water flow.

AquaAddict