HELP! Red cyano bacteria

[kdwal]

I mentioned before that the skimmer did not seem to be working all of a sudden, I have adjusted it and still very little is being collected. ?Is there something in the skimmer that I am missing, I mean, do I need to take off the whole shabang and clean it, inside out? Could it be the pump inside the skimmer not working at full power? It is new, since april and I think it is an 800. I use to have to clean the skimmer cup about every 2-3 days. If I am not skimming properly, could that be part of the cyano problem? I keep checking water parameters and everything is checking out fine. P04 came in at 0.1. Have done a couple of water changes and removed as much cyano as I could. Tank looked pretty good for a couple days, came home from work tonight and it has quadrupled from what it was yesterday.
Another question, a little different. Calcium was low at 280, I started adding supplement to bring it up, it is now at 340. Is there any danger to raising calcium level to quickly?
thanks once again guys and gals.....

 

[Angelscrx]

Not sure about exactly about the calcium question but I am sure that any major change in water parameters can't be good. I would raise slowly.

I too am having to deal with the cyano problem and I have crushed coral on top of my sand. I pull out the CC with the red slime on it and drop it into a plastic cup. I then take it to the sink and rinse it in HOT water until the red koolaid look is completely gone. After a couple of rinses the red slime turns bright green and shrivels up and just pours out of the cup. I then just dump the CC into the refugium where the macro algae is. Has not come back yet so this might be working for me. I also am going to get another power head for even more flow.

 

[kdwal]

UPDATE.....Cyano

Just an update. As I said before, the skimmer did not seem to be working properly, so I took the 600 pump apart and cleaned it. There was a slight build up of salt in the intake hole, narrowed the opening by about 1/2 (kind of like a blocked artery that causes a heart attack), put it back together and I do believe that air-intake has increased. Now will wait and see if the skimmer starts functioning properly. I then painstakingly scooped out as much crushed coral covered with cyano as I could (thanks Angelscrx for the suggestion), rinsed well etc. then stirred up the DSB where the heavier infestation was and suctioned the pieces of cyano out with a smaller hose, BTW oxygen tubing is too small if you have CC, worked fine until pieces of CC got sucked up and clogged it up. Finally I Did another water change, to replace what I sucked out. Now I wait........and watch......and pray......that it does not bloom again over night. Thanks to all for your help and suggestions, it has given me more things to think and learn about and stirred up a little creativity.
WOW - just noticed, I am a Basslet now, does that mean I graduated a grade?

 

[Angelscrx]

Congratulations on the promotion! I guess you go from Gobie to Basslet then Blenny. I just noticed I am a Blenny, how cool is that.

I aimed the powerheads down towards the RS areas and still doing the hot water rinses and it seems to be working. Water change day is today.

 

[Craig Manoukian]

Well I just had this conversation with mojoreef not but two days ago. Cyano bacteria is a combination of bacteria and algea that is the most efficient exporter of nitrates and phosphates that there is. Better than any macro alceas including Glaceria. The algea creates a canopy for the bacteria to live. As has been said above, there must be a food source for it to exist so eliminating that source will eliminate the cyano. The chemical treatment will only mask the situation. Siphonong the cyano out of the tank is the ultimte export of those unwanted elements.

Nassaurius and cerith snail are algeavores and detrivores. The Nassaurius are sand stirrers par excellent! While Nassaurius don't eat the cyano the eat the detritous and carion and break it down into bacteria sized bites for further processing, as well as disturbing the sand making the cyano become water born and allowing it to be skimmed from the water column. Cerith snails will eat cyano and green algea on the glass at the sand line.

HTH

 

[forsaken541]

Just thought I would chime in here because I was having the same fight you all are. I was told to look very carefully at the food I was feeding and so I did a little experiment. I started removing one type of food ata time. I was feeding a mix of flake pellet and fresh shrimp and clams so i descided to take away the flake first and low and behold after a week of no flake all my cyano is totally gone and I now have the nice white sand that you see on tv!!(lol) So my suggestion would be to look hard at the food sources and try eliminating them.
Erik

 

[Beckmola24]

Forsaken541, A few months back, I had the same cyno problem and I did just that. I found out what food was causing it. It turns out that if not eaten quickly, cyclopeeze gets into the cracks and decomposes and causes algae blooms. I didn't cut it out compeletly, but I made sure that my fish were consuming what I put in. Cyclopeeze is tricky, if you put more than a drip then it can really cause algae issues.

 

[Craig Manoukian]

Flake food is very high in nitrates. I feed freeze dried cyclopeze once a week. The fish don't let it hit the ground and my maintence crews cleans up every last morsel!

Nitrates feed the algeal and phosphates feed the bacterial components of cyanobacteria, hence such a great export mechanism.