can chloramine cause cyano?
 

Ive been struggling with cyano for a very long time and cant ever beat it. Once in a while I have to use chemiclean to clean it up but it comes back soon after.

Im running a full blown sps tank with a couple softies and everything is colorful and thriving. Parameters are perfect for sps and lighting is led so its not old bulbs either.
Flow is more than enough also.
Rodi water with 0tds coming out.
Im even carbon dosing and adding bacteria and wont help either.
I have no algae in my tank at all except cyano.

Temp 78
Alk 7.5
Cal 430
Amm 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 2
Phos .02 (change media every couple weeks)

Ive covered all the basics and the only thing I can think about is either my salt (H2ocean) or chloramine which I recently learned Edmonton puts in the water and an rodi system wont remove.

Any ideas?

chloramine is removed by a regular ro/di. If it wasn't, cyano would be the least of your problems. Your nitrates are at the upper end. Flow?

Check out the RO/DI article I recently wrote in the "New to the Hobby" forum. It covers how RO/DI systems deal with chloramines.

After you read the article, this will make more sense; if there is ammonia making it through the DI resin that could cause cyano. Cyano does like ammonia. However, if there is ammonia making it into your reef you would probably be seeing bigger problems.

Cyano can be very persistent. The best method I've found is manual removal - week after week.

Upper end? Many people run sps tanks Upto 10ppm for nitrates. For flow I'm running 2 wp40 and I got about a 1" wave going on the at the top and everything in the tanks is swaying around.

Ok thanks for that article, just seems I've been battling this cyano for almost 2 years since I started this reef. I've tried the siphoning and that does remove it but a few days later it starts to come back to the same spots again.

Have you been using H2Ocean the whole time? I just started using this salt and since day 1 of using it I have been having cyano issues.

Yes I have. My pail is almost empty so I will be trying something else

It's just that after every after every water change the cyano gets worse so I'm assuming it's something I'm putting in.

What are you carbon dosing?

Flow doesn't really help it just helps spread the bacteria

I'm th gonna go out on a limb here and say your carbon dosing is prob a bit aggressive and is out competing your po4 , this can cause Cyano

First I was dosing vodka for about 4 months and then I switched to vinegar which has been 4 or 5 months. I'm only dosing 10 ml per day which isn't much at all for vinegar. I started carbon dosing and adding bacteria to see if I could out compete the cyano but it didn't help at all. I never really had a nitrate issue I just tried carbon dosing to run a unls system for sps and try to rid the cyano.

Denny would you pull the gfo offline?

if it were me right now i would cut back on the carbon dosing and pull the gfo temporarily.

i would look at adding carbon and then stopping vinegar all together for a while.

still cut back on feeding but let everything settle back to low range and not so close to ULNS, these are very hard to keep stable when looking at it from a nutrient point of view( tough balance to keep stable, one binds the other feeds)

once your back to low range you can then try again with the vinegar and gfo , although i would start with the vinegar and add the gfo later or only when po4 is creeping up on you.

half the problem is the carbon dsoing is pulling out anything readable on nitrates but isnt doing it for the phosphates, in an ULNS system 0.02 for po4 is a bit high when you cant see anything for nitrates, what are you using im assuming the hanna ULR? cyano being resilient pulls out food where ever it can get it, sometimes more often then not for only whats available....half the reason why its so hard to pin point a cause:)

how low is your bioload ?



you using bulk gfo or rowaphos?

at your point theres nothing dying so i would do all this slowly and bring it back to low range , your corals will darken a bit you may even get some more cyano or diatoms but colors can come back and diatoms will go away , same with the cyano.

of course.....its all hard to pin point but i have noticed this many times while using carbon dosing methods.

other options are to start adding natural po4 removers like cheato and mangroves etc. , maybe not now while so low but once you get up there again.



cheers buddy


denny

Ok I'll give that a shot!
For checking phosphates I use an Elos kit
Bio load is light to medium
Rowaphos is what I've always used

Thanks a lot for your help

a little advice when trying to go with ULNS is too up your bioload the lower your getting, as well coral supplementation may or may not have to be met.

good luck buddy if you go slow back to low then slowly back to ULNS with a few extra steps youll find it will go away really quick and may not see again. its common for this to happen.

That's what I would do too.

Thanks for all the help. I just turned the vinegar and gfo offline. I'll report back with the results.

go easy on food for now so the po4 doesnt creep up to fast:)

Does the "redfield ratio" take account here? 16:1 nitrate to phosphate?

if i were you i would post this to RC as RHF is posting alot these days and he would help you better in the answers:)

some good advice and insight to how aggressive alot of these process are.

natural vs chemical---in this case natural out competes chemical by alot.

Sorry I was just a bit confused. Thanks for clearing that up. You guys are awsome :hail:

So after almost 2 weeks of trying to get rid of it i haven't had any luck. It started to smother my corals so I tried chemiclean and it didn't make a dent. After much research I've come to the conclusion that it's actually Dino's. I tried a 3 day black out and it helped a bit but the following day it was back full blown.

I have to constantly blow my corals because the snot it releases get caught on the sps and smothers them. I have a little bit on the rocks but I think it's just the snot blowing around and getting caught.

If I removed my sand bed would it get rid of the Dino's or is it something that's actually stuck in my rock as we'll?

Many people have battled this and very few prevail.

I planned on doing a tank overhaul next month and restarting it because it's got a massive internal overflow box and I'm turning it into an external. I don't care about replacing the sand bed But I'd like it if I didn't have to replace or cook my rocks and recycle my tank as I don't have another one to keep my corals and fish in for the time being.

Any ideas?

Thanks