Can cyano harm snails, inverts, fish?

[fishcrazee]

I'm having a bit of a battle with cyano right now, and my snails have been acting sluggish, and just seems to not really be eating....... can cyano hurt them? They just don't act like they did when I first got them. I have 8 large Turbos, a dozen or so nassarius, and a few ceriths.
The water parameters are ok, except, of course the nitrates, which are 10ppm and slowly creep up to 15ppm during the week until the water change. Since I have crushed coral, it was recommended to me to start vacuuming it to get rid of the detritus/phosphate. Anyways, is there something in the cyano that kills snails or other inverts, fish?

 

[dnjan]

If conditions in your tank are favourable for excessive cyano growth, they may have also favoured the growth of undesirable bacteria. So even if the (visible) cyano isn't responsible for the snail problems, the conditions that led to the cyano could be.

 

[NaH2O]

How old is your system? I wouldn't worry about the cyano hurting the critters, but as dnjan stated, the cause for the cyano may not be the best environment for the critters. I would also recommend siphoning the crushed coral. Also, are you certain it is cyano? Sometimes, dinoflagellates are mistaken for cyano.

This is an outstanding post on dinoflagellates: Single Post - Cyano or Dinos??. View the entire thread >>HERE<<

Here's a brief quote on the toxicity of dinos from the above post:

Dinoflagellates (hereafter called Snot Algae or Dino's) are one of the meanest things you have ever met in your life. (I unfortunately have had first hand experience). You will follow all of the advice and the problem will keep getting worse and not better. On top of that, some Dino's are toxic (think red tide). If you have a poisonous type, any snail, conch, fish, worm, etc. that eats the bad Dino's will eventually die while you are doing [EDIT....everything] people are telling you to do. Then your clean up crew (bristle worms, crabs, etc.) will arrive for clean up duty and will die as a result of absorbing the toxins in the animals they are trying to eradicate. This provides more nutrients for the Dino's to grow.

 

[fishcrazee]

My tank is new, about 2 and a half months. Yes, I did experience some fluctuations in pH recently as I was trying to get the hang of a kalk drip, and my pH was high, but then dropped over about a week to a more normal (8.2) reading. It could be dinos, who knows......... I'm so fed up with this tank right now! There is definetly more brown snot at the end of the light cycle. They are about a half inch to inch in length extending up from wherever with bubbles coming out.
I currently have 2 skimmers on it, 2 powerheads, 1 powersweeper, and an emperor HOB filter with carbon/denitrate in it I also have a phosphate reducer pad on it. The skimmers are going nuts, I have to empty them each day.
I'm going to suction the substrate tonight after I suck up as much of the brown snot with my turkey baster. I'm going to try and leave the lights out for 2 days and see what that does.
All the snails are acting poorly, 2 of the 3 fish I had in there have become ill and I had to remove them to QT (they are improving some now) and I'm thinking of throwing the snails in there too. My star polyps are all closed up, as well as my zoanthids....... and they were open yesterday Maybe I should throw all the critters/coral in there, LR and all! I'm afraid I'm going to lose them if I don't.
I thought I was doing things right, I did a 20% water change every week with RO water. I didn't feed too much. I didn't overstock. I had a good cleanup crew. The levels were all pretty good.

 

[Curtswearing]

There is definetly more brown snot at the end of the light cycle. They are about a half inch to inch in length extending up from wherever with bubbles coming out.

Sorry for your struggles. This description indicates that it is likely dino's. I think that your idea to remove the snails and corals is a good one. If one dies, it just feeds the dino's more.

Have no fear, you'll beat this.

Siphoning with a turkey baster will work but will likely take a loooong time. If you have some airline tubing for doing waterchanges, I would just do a big waterchange while siphoning out the bottom. They even make special gravel vacuums to help with this. Gravel Vacuum Since you have crushed coral, this is a good thing to do anyway.

Once you have the animals out, you can drip slightly stronger Kalk so that your pH stays at 8.4 to 8.5 during the day. The combination of the vacuuming and the higher pH should wipe them out for you fairly quickly.