cyano battle lol

[wreck]

should a person turn off the gfo reactor?

and install a couple air stones in the sump? when using chemi clean. just picked up a package

[kien]

Originally Posted by wreck

should a person turn off the gfo reactor?

and install a couple air stones in the sump? when using chemi clean. just picked up a package

You don't have to turn off the GFO, but you should turn off carbon if you're running a carbon reactor.

You can install an airstone. If you're running a skimmer you can either turn it off, or take off the skimmer cup and let the skimmer overflow into the sump. If you turn your skimmer off then make sure you do add an air stone to help keep your tank oxygenated.

[wreck]

Originally Posted by kien

You don't have to turn off the GFO, but you should turn off carbon if you're running a carbon reactor.

You can install an airstone. If you're running a skimmer you can either turn it off, or take off the skimmer cup and let the skimmer overflow into the sump. If you turn your skimmer off then make sure you do add an air stone to help keep your tank oxygenated.

thanks!! much appreciated

[asylumdown]

I'm going to be the dissenting voice and say that I doubt reducing your nutrients drastically will do much for the cyano.

a) it's commonly reported on fish forums that cyan thrives in ULN tanks and is often associated with organic carbon dosing.

b) mats of cyanobacteria are often the only organisms living in some of the most oligotrophic (i.e., nutrient poor to the point of being hostile to life) bodies of water on earth.

c) 'cyano' is in fact an incredibly sophisticated assemblage of heterotrophic and autotrophic organisms, including prokaryotes, dinoflagellates, diatoms, and cyanobacteria, all stratified along micro pH and oxygen gradients within the mat and fulfilling different roles in what is in fact a mini ecosystem. There is strong evidence to suggest that some assemblages can fix nitrogen directly from the atmosphere. The whole assemblage is designed to be as efficient at recycling captured nutrients as physically possible (i.e., they don't really lose any nitrogen or carbon once they catch it), and to be as efficient at scavenging nutrients such as organic carbon and nitrogen from the environment as any ecosystem can be.

I honestly think the best way to think about cyanobacteria is to equate it to an infection. It can thrive in your tank regardless of your nutrient profile, and has attributes that actually give it a competitive advantage in an extremely low nutrient environment. Once it's gotten out of control, I think hitting it with a chemical treatment is one of your best options. The goal after it's gone is to try and encourage the kind of microscopic competitive regime that favours forms of life other than cyano, which, given the fact that it's such a common and unending problem in the aquarium trade, seems to be incredibly difficult to do.

[kien]

^ Translation: you're ****ed. Don't fight it.

[asylumdown]

hahaha! when it comes to cyanobacteria... I'd say you might be right. If you vacuum as much of it out as possible before you hit the tank with chemiclean, you might be able to beat it back, but it's what comes after that I think we have very little control over. Some people would say to start dosing your tank with one of the pro-biotic solutions available on the market today like microbacter (that's a real thing right?) or Zeoback or something, but I'm uuuuber skeptical of any bacterial supplement that hasn't been refrigerated along it's entire chain of custody. I've tried looking at a few under my microscope and I've never seen anything in those solutions that one could clearly say is alive. Even if they were alive by the time you added them to your tank, the microbiology of bacterial competitive regimes are way too complex and poorly understood for anyone claiming that bacterial product X produces Y effect to have much empirical backup.

At the end of the day, you can't have a problem with problem algae unless you have a problem algae. Why do some tanks get overrun with gross cyano while others look pristine even though they have the same testable parameters? I'd argue part of it is that the species that compose the cyano mat were introduced to one and weren't to the other. If the water can support coral, it can support algae of some kind, but what algae you will have depends as much on the stochasticity of unintentional contamination as your particular nutrient profile.

Ultimately all you can do is try to keep your nutrient profile within the parameters of the system you're trying to emulate and hope for the best lol.

[intarsiabox]

The only time I've ever gotten cyno on my rock is when I have a sand bed present. I've taken the same rocks and coral out of one tank and put them into a bare bottom tank and that is last I ever see of the cyno. I am in the process of setting up a new tank and am having trouble deciding to go BB or not as I love the look of a shallow sand bed but also enjoy not ever having cyno.

[brotherd]

I have used Chemiclean. It works but is a temporary solution for sure. And...it made my skimmer very angry literally 90 seconds after dosing the tank. I forgot to shut it off beforehand. Next time it occurs Chemiclean will be the last resort. I'd rather try to manually remove it but that is a daunting task too. No matter what, cyano is a b***h.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by brotherd

I have used Chemiclean. It works but is a temporary solution for sure. And...it made my skimmer very angry literally 90 seconds after dosing the tank. I forgot to shut it off beforehand. Next time it occurs Chemiclean will be the last resort. I'd rather try to manually remove it but that is a daunting task too. No matter what, cyano is a b***h.

You say next time, so your cyano hasn't returned yet? How long ago did you dose and how long has the tank been cyano free?