Need Help
 

For the last 2-3 weeks my tank has been out of control. i get this brown and red stuff all over my sand and rock, I can use a turkey baster and clean it off then next day it looks the same. I was doin a 10Gal water change 1x a week but have been doin 2 lately a week to get rid of this mess. My setup is a 20GAL REEF .....60GAL SUMP.... 20GAL FUGE...
30 Pounds of Sand in main tank and fuge, about 40-50 pound live rock in tank and 5-10 in fuge with little bit of macro. Now i use the baster and clean my tank suck out the sand and blow off the rocks. Then right after i change water. :sad: :sad: Nothing is working i have a 5 stage RO unit i will get the water tested tomorrow to make sure it is working.

HERE IS A PIC!!
http://www.phatkids.net/sand.jpg

Looks like cyanobacteria to me. What are your tank specs? Alkalinity? Do you have a skimmer? Hows your circulation? Definitely check your RO unit.

Christy :)

I would decrease my lighting hrs if I were you....

Re: Need Help
 

I get small outbreaks of cyano from time to time. I turkey baste, too. I break up the cyano on the sandbed as well as baste the rock and corals. I have foams in my mechanical filters that trap some of the crud. When the tank clears, I clean the foams right away, so the crud is exported from the system and does not become a nitrate/phosphate factory.

With bad outbreaks, which I haven't had for many years, I used to baste the tank a couple of times a day for a few days at a time, then cleaned the foams when the tank cleared. Exported LOTS of cyano producing crud that way and the cyano went away within a week.

Instead of just blowing the cyano around with the turkey baster, when you do your water changes suck it out. Maybe do a bunch of small ones and suck it out when there is enough to remove. Also make sure your not over feeding causing excess nutrients.

Dave

Blowing the red slime cyanobacteria is not the best thing, because you are basically moving the slime elsewhere in the tank which will just allow it to spread to even more places. Take a siphon and remove it out perferable a slower siphon so you can collect as much as possible without losing too much water, the slime will come out in sheets and is very loose, you'll pick up the coral sand as well, just rinse it out really good with RO water before you place it back in. Those that are on the rocks will come off just as easily. Take notes on more flow, regular maintainence, RO water for makeup and top up, a really really really good efficient skimmer and keep that skimmer in good working condition, good quality lamps not old bulbs, less feeding but no overfeeding, keep on top of the slime cyanobacteria when you see it forming siphon it out. Lots of patient and eventually if you're good, then it will disappear. Regards and best of luck.

It looks like DINOFLAGELLATE to me!!!
Cyano is more of purple velvet like film.
When I had an outbreak of that stuff, I simply just let it grow untill it absorb all of the nutrients it thrived on and than the colony would crash.

4 words: GET A GOOD SKIMMER!!

I had the exact same problem, did water changes every day and the stuff would grow back on my substrate and glass in hours.

I was using a crappy prizm skimmer beforehand, but I upgraded to a remora pro. You will be able to tell by all the crap you pull out of your tank, that is the nutrients that's feeding your cyano.

Trust me on this one, don't cheap out on a skimmer because to me it's the most important instrument to keeping a successful tank (besides using RO/DI water)

:sad: ya thats why my skimmer is crap i am waiting for a new one in the mail. Been 3 weeks and still no word. I clean my tank daily and do water changes like crazy still dirty within mins.

What a load of crap. I have kept successful reefs for years, and don't use a skimmer , or RO/DI. Do the proper research, and you will find it is not nutrients that cause Cyano. Cyano is a part of natural maturation of an aquarium. I have not seen Cyano in my tanks for years. However, I am tired of being the voice that cries in the wilderness. Go ahead waste your money on a skimmer. At least you will have a gadget that looks like it is doing something.