good ol' cyano Q's
 

so I'm fighting some pretty bad cyano on the 120g. I just used a scraper and a net and pretty much took off the top layer of my subtrate. i plan on cutting my mh lights for the next couple of days and wondering if its ok to run my actinics or should i do a total black out. ive also cut my feeding down but also wondering if there is anything else i should do? i dont want to add any chemicals unless its a last resort. just checked my levels and they all are perfect but the cyano is prolly effecting the tests.i was thinking of running my phosban reactor but 1 of the orings is toast so thats out of the question. I am open to sugestions if anyone has any!

cheers
Ray

total black out for 3-4 days does the trick with 2 decent water changes before and after. also run carbon

I had a real problem with cyno. Tried everything. In the end bought a better power head and it cured it in days. Thecure was in front of my eyes all the time!

i have pretty decent flow . i have a tunze 6105 wavemaker and a korilia 3. im thinking of adding a korilia 4. I started off with a couple mj-1200's(came with the tank) and hated them. do you think if i moved my korila 3 to work the lower part of my tank would do the job or should i use the 4 to do that? also did you find you had a little sand storm going on?

Sounds like you have fairly good flow. Perhaps if you targeted a certain area of the rocks and gave them a good blast for a little while. I had some fairly large rocks and found that moving the power head around on them peeled the cyno off. The other thing I found excellent were two tuxedo urchins. Since you have a FOWLR, this is not an option. I found the little guys peeled the cyno off to wear???

i have 3 urchins in my tank and they do a great job on the rocks but they never move along my sandbed. i was reading up on some sand sifters and was thinking about adding a knobby sea cucumber cause i read that they filter sand thru their bodies. all i have for sand sifters i have right now is 2 sleeper gobies. well i bought 2 and have only seen one i hope the other one is just hiding.

P.S i should change my tag all the fish in my tan were reef safe so i have added a couple frags in the last few weeks

cheers
Ray

I have the cleanest sand bed ever! I have a sand sifting star and a dragon goby. The only down fall to the dragon is he tends to cover the coral the lower corals with sand and undermine some of my rocks. I fixed this by putting base rock down and blow the sand off my coral during my daily maintenance. I still have lots of critters in my sand bed, I don't find they eat everything. I may consider buying some recharge for my sand bed if I don't see critters against the glass anymore. They will be even happier if I get my planned 230g upgrade. LOL

recharge? whats that?

ha ha im trying to convince my girlfriend that we need to buy a bigger house so i can get a 200+gallon tank ha ha i never factored in how addicted i was going to get to this hobby when we bought out current place haha

Is it the PC biocube?....if so, how old are the bulbs?....How old is the set-up?....better flow at the bottom of the tank, black out, adding a handful of nassarius snails, KZs Coral snow....all of these will help.

I have seen Sand Bed Diversity Recharge Kits at the stores and on the internet. May be worth a try because I love my sand sifters!

Im all for chemical warfare when it comes to cyano bacteria.
I have used antibiotics for this purpose for 10 years
I have done everything trying to battle cyano and this is what i end up doing every time ...
so i now just cut to the chase if i have a break out once a year.
I have never lost shrimp/coral/fish from using these medicines
and running active carbon for 24 hours will remove any organics and leftover meds

I use to treat with 200 mg of Erythromycin per 20 gallons of water
for a few days.
(i continued skimming) and ran carbon for 24 hours the day I ended treatment.

recently i used APO-amoxycillin 1200mg 1 time
and have not had any outbreaks again.

the medicine i use is normally left overs from family members sore
throats being viral and not bacterial (therefore they stop the antibiotics)
and i use them for my fish tank:D

often you can also talk to your local pharmacist, they are really helpful if you explain
your problem and have often given me the medcine.

or your local pet shop carried these meds.
hope all goes well in your battle
cheers

this is in my 120 not the biocube. im not 100% sure of the age of the mh's i was told around 8 months old when i bought the tank but i plan on buying new bulbs within the next month just to make sure they are good.

the chemical way sounds easy but i dont know if the pharmacies around here would do anything like that.

I would think about changing the bulbs asap.....If they were 8 months old when you got them, they were on the threshold of needing changing then....in the mean time try pointing your K3 down towards the worst of cyano. It usually develops in areas of low flow.

i know ive seen this debate on here a few hundred times but i gotta ask...... what bulbs should i get? i have a 48" cofalife 2X250w mh with actinincs. i really like the blue look so does that mean i should get 20K's? ive never bought mh bulbs before so i have no idea what to get!

cheers
Ray

Or you can use Chemiclean which is the same thing pretty much.

I'm on a monthly cycle at the moment. Toss/vaccuum the sand bed, then lights out completely for 24 hours. That eliminates the problem for about another month in my case.

i do vacuum everytime i do a water change but i have sugar sand and find it clogs up my vacuum in a matter of seconds which causes me to curse very loudly lol i love the look but i like how easy crushed coral is to clean

I had a queen conch that would eat cyano, and fast. Not sure if all conch's would though.

I did some more reasearch and went to my lfs and bought another korilia and some coral snow. Any tips on using the coral snow or should I just follow the label? Wish me luck ha ha


Ray

should i be running activated carbon and the coral snow at the same time?

So im on 48th hour of my black out period. I have added coral snow twice in this period and added kent tech m once and have been running carbon the whole time. As of right now my tank looks spotless! no trace of the cyano at all! im a happy camper:biggrin: im gonna continue the black out for at least 24 more hours. Thanks everyone for the tips you were all a big help!

cheers
Ray