Beating Cyano algae - Join me on my adventure!

[lorenz0]

Personally i have had it a couple of times, and the best thing is.... chemiclean read slim remover. added it to my tank and 48 hours later it was gone. I did the light thing once and it just came back twice as bad. i highly reccomend this product to anyone and you don't get ****ed off coral cause they didn't get any light and its safe for fish. No deaths, besides getting rid of the cyano.

btw this was in my 10gal, aka the horror story. and not worth running a phosban reactor

[Drock169]

Chemiclean is a band aid, if you dont fix whats causing the cyano it will be back in a couple of weeks.

As for the sugar, adding sugar to the tank is a form of carbon dosing which feeds bateria to reduce nitrates to zero, it has its advantages and disadvantages.

[banditpowdercoat]

I want to know more about dosing sugar. I've t5ried lights out, Phos reactors, Lots of water changes, changed lighting scheduals, less feeding. I've removed a bunch of sand, added more.... Tank looks "OK" in morning, but by 5pm, the sand and rocks are covered again..

[tang daddy]

well here is my report for sugar dosing most of the cyano is gone.....

It was about 90% on everything the rocks the substrate and everything else and now there is about 15% left we'll see in a few more days if it will be totally gone but one thing intresting to make note of was the bacteria aka red slime has turned brown and blown away which is a pleasent suprise.

I have a mix of crushed coral and LS and when I disturbed the CC on the top layer it ended up mixing cyano about 1 in in the bed so the deeper stuff still remain but the top layers is gone so again tonight I released the trapped stuff into the water coloumn.

It seems that maybe a few on here are willing to try something new like banditpowdercoat.... I would say try 2 tablespoons of sugar per 50g and wait a few days like I did, it hasn't harmed any of my sps, gorgs or lps but I believe that problems take time to dissappear and afterall sugar isn't that bad in terms of killing animals like the chemiclean was on my precious gorgs so far I have 5 different species of gorgs and I would definately not chance them dying ever again.

A quick question to Drock what are the ill effects or disadvantages to carbon dosing and low nitrates?

I used Chemiclean too - with great success on my 135. No problems with anything except the Cyano.

I was very reluctant to "throw in the towel" and try a product like Chemiclean, but I was also very frustrated by the Cyano - I was sucking out huge quantities weekly with my waterchanges, but it just kept coming back as quickly as I could get rid of it. I replaced lights, modified my husbandry, and none of it made any difference. My vision of a beautiful tank was transformed into this nightmare of a tank covered in red. The cyano killed several corals and zoos. My frustration level was extreme. I finally tried the Chemiclean in desperation, followed the directions "to a T", and 3 days later - no Cyano.

It seemed to be what I needed to break the cycle of the Cyano. It was totally gone for about a month, then started to come back in a very minor way. I never treated it again, and just kept up with my routine of waterchanges. After about another four weeks of very minor visibility, it disappeared, and I have not seen any signs of it in the last 6 months.

In minor cases, I would agree that siphoning, water changes, black-outs etc. are the way to go. But if it gets severe enough, you need to "knock" it back. For me, Chemiclean did that very rapidly and effectively. The fact that it didn't ever come back as significantly indicates to me that there was not really any big problem with my feeding regime or husbandry. But I would suspect it would have taken much longer to get rid of it without the chemical intervention, and that there would have been more "friendly" casualties along the way.

[tang daddy]

As I stated before chemiclean, red slime remover by blue cross and any other anti biotic may state it's reef safe however will kill gorgonians!!

The sugar dosing worked all cyano gone in 3 days now we wait to see if it comes back....

[banditpowdercoat]

Well, I fly out tomorrow for 3 weeks, I wont be able to do anything till I get back. I'll try the Sugar when I get home. I'd get the wife to dose the sugar, but she cant do water changes, so I'd want to be home for a change after the dosing.

[tang daddy]

yes make sure before you do the sugar dosing you have a 30% wc ready btw nothing died while doing this just some things were not super happy like not fully open stuff like the ducans and elegans were 75% open but after the wc everything is back to normal.

I'll report back in 2 weeks.

[DebC]

Any updates on how the sugar treatment worked?