Cyano problem?

[Cal_stir]

i battled dino about a year ago, i thought it was cyano as it was a reddish purple colour, it was stringy in areas of low flow, the strings were full of bubbles, the bubbles were all over the place, every morning i thought it was gone and every night i was shaking my head, it was choking out my corals, i did lights out for 4 days, reduced flow, raised alk to 11dkh, no water changes, wet skimmed, changed socks daily, after lights out period i turkey basted the rocks and corals, vacuumed the substrate, resumed regular flow and water changes and it never came back, i now run a sulphur denitrator to keep my nitrates less than 1ppm, my nitrates were 25ppm prior to outbreak but read 0 during outbreak.
i battled the dino for about 2 weeks before i realized it was dino and at one point i was ready to give up because i didn't think i was going to beat it.

[MarkoD]

Thanks for the input guys.

This stuff isn't stringy at all. It looks like purple fuzz.

It does seem to go away at night tho.

And my nitrates have been at 0 all along for the past 6 months.

[Aquattro]

You should be able to blow cyano off with a turkey baster. It should peel off in little sheets. It will accumulate tiny air bubbles as well.
I've been getting quite a bit lately myself, and discovered A., my Tunzes were almost plugged and B., my bulbs were due for replacement. So far no cyano growth since remedying these two items. I'm only running partial lighting this week to acclimate, but so far I've got no more cyano....

[Beverly]

Hi Marko,

From what I could see of your tank the other night, you definitely have cyano. The overfeeding has put a lot of nutrients into your tank. Cyano has developed as a way of utilizing the extra nutrients. A turkey baster will blow the stuff off your corals, rock and sandbed, but you must be able to export it once it gets into your water column - either with serious skimming or by frequently cleaned mechanical filtration, or both. And, do several 25% water changes over the next few days to severely reduce the nutrients. HTH

[reefwars]

i think youll find marko, like i said it does happen to us all cyano is almost always caused by excess nutrients even if they dont show on your test its just that theres not enough in the water column to show on our crappy test kits(especially phosphates) and as the years go by theres bound to be some times where we arent as diligent in the husbandry part of the hobby even the most meticulous reefers cant keep everything perfect forever theres just too many variables to take in to consideration.

cyano wont dissappear over night and if you use things like red slime remover its only a bandaid fix, im sure i sould like a broken record lol but some elbow grease, water changes and replacing of media will help bigtime and with in a couple weeks you will notice everything go back to normal and then you have the fun pleasure of wondering when you can do it all again lol.

turkey baster is your best weapon, SUCK up cyano mats and blow off ditrius and hard to get cyano on rocks, followed by some old fashioned water changes.

you can reduce your photo period but if its a nutrient issue lighting will only help a bit.


youll find that doing just one of these things wont remedy it but doing them all will surely end up with positive results it just takes some patience.


like the other good reef saying goes " nothing happens fast in a reeftank but disaster"

cheers buddy im sure youll have it licked in no time

[thanhjenn]

Has anyone tried coral snow. It works well for me. Take about a week with daily dosing.

[MarkoD]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll be working on it most of the weekend