Net water volume is 140G

ZEO start is .5 ml twice a day. But I am doing more like .4 twice a day.

I am not adding AA or Coral vitalizer. Just the three basics.

Hmmm...Ok. Did you have it before ZEO?

This is not stuff I can live with :neutral: I have never really had it before (maybe just tiny bits that went away after water changes) and this is pretty bad. I mean its quite stringy on the sandbed. Then now to see it on rocks...

So weird...the corals look great but cyano all over. I can't decide if the tank looks good or not ;)


I will take some pics tomorrow.

try just doing 0.5 once a day or 0.25 twice a day

J

Ok, sounds good.

By the way, I am also cycling the reactor 3 on, 3 off like advised. Don't know if thats relevant in any way.

cyano bacteria
 

its strange my tank was doing good till I wanted to lower my nitrates..
i tried this stuff called nitrate destroyer ... for about a week didnt notice much ... then the second week i noticed cyano bacteria and some stringy slim brown stuff ... on the sand and some of the rocks..... kinda like what you described too ... but instead of zeo im using nitrate destroyer ......
http://www.tailoredaquatics.com/index.html?a=0&d=63
i wonder how long its gonna be before the brown leaves my tank

^^ Yeah I was quite happy with my tank before ZEO and still happy but not happy about the cyano. It REALLY drives me nuts.

I still don't know if its the ZEO making my corals look nicer or if they would have looked this nice anyways. Before ZEO, the tank was starting to look pretty good on its own. So its hard to say what is going on exactly but I am pretty sure the cyano is from the ZEO because I have never had it before this.

It's all about promoting the bacteria you want to grow.

ZeoStart, ZeoFood, Coral Vitalizer, Amino Acids and a couple more products act as food for both corals and the bacteria. Cyano is a bacteria so you will be feeding it as well.

J

Hmm could this cyano bloom be part of a secondary cycle that a tank would undergo while the Zeo reactor matures?

Ok, so this is then something that I will always be feeding? Does that not mean it will be pretty hard to rid the tank of it?

Im not so sure that a trade off I can make.

?
 

yeah i dont know if it really is a trade off... but everyone i know or read that started zeo or something simular is doing very well... strange ....

http://www.tailoredaquatics.com/index.html?a=0&d=63 <------ i wonder if this stuff does the same thing ?

Yeah me too for the most part but I have heard of many people getting cyano during start up. I have never followed their tanks though long enough to know if it goes away.

Christy says she has had it (and runs ZEO) and it sounds like hers has stayed around.

I am obviously going to stick with it for now as it hasn't been that long now but I am certainly worried. Since I am setting up the new tank mid February, I would like to plan it now. If its also going to be ZEO (which was the plan) then I will just set things up like now but if no ZEO, then I need to plan a nice big refugium.

Im sure I will stick with ZEO but man this sucks right now. I will take pics and you guys will understand. Its BAD.

yeah lets have some pics .....

Sure. It will have to be tomorrow though since lights have just gone out.

My cyano appeared after I had a couple clams die which I believe was part of a dosing product I was using, although the product maker says no, I can't attribute losing 2 clams in 2 weeks to anything else. I was also dosing Ultralith at the time. It came on strong and then disappeared. However it resurrected itself quite quickly after starting zeo and I haven't managed to get rid of it. It grows in various areas where there is "less" flow and all over corals that have dead bits or are struggling (then the cyano just finishes them off slowly, awesome! :rolleyes:).

Its really frustrating as I'm doing everything I can to get rid of it. I turkey baste it as often as possible but its back right where it was the next day, sometimes within 12 hours or so. At this point, I'm liking using the zeo and have gotten into a routine but I often wonder if the results I'm getting (which aren't the fabulous ones on zeovit) are really outweighing this cyano issue. I don't know how much more flow I can put in the tank without the fish being pressed up against the glass. I have 2 tunze 6060s a tunze 6045 and a wavebox in a 90 gallon tank.

I dunno, I don't like the idea of using chemicals in the tank (although I don't have any problems using zeo, weird) but I'm on the cusp of nuking the tank with chemi clean and possibly giving up on/restarting zeo. I dunno, it changes daily and I waver between treating the tank/giving up on zeo/keeping going as I have so much invested/going back to ozone.

Currently, upon the advice of zeovit.com I"ve been dosing a bit heavier on the zeostart and zeobak and not dosing the zeofood at all, in an attempt to reduce my nitrates (which were zero before starting zeo, I think I must have a heavier hand with the feeding). So far, no results. I was hoping this would kick the cyano's butt too but nada. :neutral:

FYI
I have been using Ultralith products and I have not had a cyno outbreak yet...but I have a very low bioload(fish)

Thanks for the info.

I am trying to get this figured out now because I am setting up the new tank and don't want to deal with cyano in it too. I still have a chance now to plan it with a 75G refugium instead of ZEO if I wanted. But I have to build a bigger stand to fit my sump and 75G.

I was suppose to build the stand this weekend but I don't think thats happening as long as I have cyano in the tank and I don't know how I want to set up the new tank :(

Cyano is not an option for me. I would gladly go back to my old way of keeping a reef which did not include the stuff.

The only reason you have Cyano is because it is outcompeting the "good" bacteria for the carbon sources.

Double up on the dose of Zeobak for two weeks. Make sure your skimmer is off and the reactor is running while you do so.

Also, cut back on the use of any oily frozen foods for the time being.

I have used Chemi-Clean in the past (prior to Zeo), but I stopped about 8? months ago. I used to dose monthly. Then every two months. Then it became apparent that maybe I didn't need it at all anymore. Haven't had cyano in my Reef for awhile now.

Having said that, now that I am on Zeo, I have asked myself if I would use Chemi-Clean again if cyano returned. The answer is no, I wouldn't. For two reasons. 1). I think it would mess with the other Zeo supplements. 2). There is a Zeo routine for cyano. It's on page 23 of the guide. I think I would try that. Involves adding 1 drop, per 25g, of ZeoBac to Pohl's Coral Snow and dosing this every two days until cyano is gone. I'm not sure if the ZeoBac is the regular dose (just added to the Coral Snow) or in addition to the regular dose. The gurus on Zeovit.com would know. Of course, I would think removing most of the "bulk" cyano manually would go along way in helping this routine do it's job too.

Hope this helps,

Thanks Albert, I'll give that a try :biggrin:

Ok, I haven't been turning my skimmer off at all. Didn't realize you had to and I hate turning that thing back on...the Sicce pump NEVER starts up properly after turning it off. It becomes a 10 minute ordeal :)

I may try your idea but I am strongly considering stopping this whole thing.

I have to say, I do kind of regret messing with the tank when things were going so well. :(

I will check the guide but as I said above, I may just stop now. I know thats kind of quick and I don't like giving up so quickly but I was looking at the tank this morning (lights still out) and the cyano apparently doubled overnight and is all over my gorgonians and rocks.

I will take it out manually for now and think about what to do I guess.

Is ZEOstart just vinegar?

No, it is a proprietary mix of acetic acids and other carbon sources which are formulated to nourish the manifold of bacterial strains found in ZeoBak.

If you replace it with straight vinegar/vodka/peach schnapps/Sunny Delight, bad things happen.

I'd definitely give the Coral Snow/ZeoBak thing a go. It will help the overall reduction of nutrient sinks.

Well obviously...I wasn't asking about replacing it with Sunny delight or vinegar for that matter.

But many, many people are getting similar results to ZEO with VSV dosing. And its MUCH cheaper.

Amyways...I will try the coral snow/bak thing. Thanks!

I found when I ran zeo for the very first time I had one hell of a cyano outbreak, seems to be a common thing. I dosed coral snow and it cleared it up.

This may be why I didn't get cyano (at least, not yet). I've been dosing Coral Snow from the get go. 10ml daily, but I cut back a few weeks ago to 10ml once a week.

Cheers,

What exactly IS the coral snow?

:P

They'll get similar results as far as nutrient reduction goes. However, that is not the be all, end all of Zeovit (substate-based probiotic).

Later in the life cycle, you also the HUUUUUUUGE winfalls of pseudo-planktonic bacterial mulms which are released each time the media is agitated. This is the closest we can get to mimicking the natural bacterial-planktonic fauna found in the wild. Corals each this stuffffff. I've personally experienced massive polyp extension shortly after pumping a reactor, no doubt a response to the increased food stimuli in the water column.

That's the million dollar question :D

For all intents and purposes, it's miracle juice, haha.

I though sponge power was the miracle juice :p

Well all I know is that right now I need the miracle juice!

I don't have time to go grab the coral snow now but I will get some this weekend and see what it does.

I was being glib...

We all know the only miracle jui -

Nevermind, family board.

Coral snow has never done anything significant for me. Turns your tank milky white for a few hours...by the time it clears, you're happy that the tank looks better!

I cleared out the cyano this morning and just came home to find it back but about twice as much!

This really sucks...

I wonder if it does have a lot to do with my very high bio load?

Manual removal of cyano is utterly futile.

I ran Red Slime Remover when on Zeo and it kicked the cyano once and for all. I was all jittery about doing that while on Zeo but it worked out fine in the end. FWIW I ran Coral Snow like no tomorrow and followed the Zeo instructions on page 23 or whatever and all it accomplished was I used up more Coral Snow and Zeobak than otherwise. Didn't touch the cyano in the least.

The cyano never came back after that treatment.

FWIW/HTH/IME/etc.

What is in Red Slime remover? I seem to remember someone telling me once it can really screw a tank up. I can't remember what exactly they said but I do seem to remember being warned about the stuff.

I am seriously debating going back to a good old refugium, ozone, kalk, ect. to keep nutrients down in the new tank over ZEO. I know I should be giving it more time but I am not even a fan of having to dose so much and test everything all the time, ect.

Seems like so far it has done the tank some good but also been a pain. I think what I will do is see if someone wants to buy the reactor package from me. If I can sell it easily, then I will not do ZEO on the new tank but if not, then I will stick with it. LOL...seems like such a stupid way to decide but I don't really care either way at this point. I just kind of want my tank to go back to how it was pre-ZEO :(

I always thought red slime remover was erythromycin. Which is why it can mess with your bacterial load. Kills the baddies but some of the goodies too.

Of course I may be wrong (note that I said "may" :wink:)

I do remember the person saying it killed something in their tank every time they used it but...I can't even remember who told me this :biggrin:

Hmmmm...Tony says its fine though, so I will use it and then blame him if/when anything goes wrong :mrgreen:

I'm going to try the coral snow/zeobak mix and see how that goes. If that doesn't work then well, I'll wait to hear your results and go from there :razz:

I've used red Slime remover before in my Zeo Tank.

My skimmer went nuts for 8 days but other than that no problems

J