the cyno-bacteria run aquarium

[ecobalance]

A certain aquarium i set up about a year ago,with a 55 gallon refugium,with a sand depth of bout 6 inches started to form this layer of cyno in the fuge that in a week would grow to about a thickness of two to three inches.After reading julian sprungs book''algae'' and a specific part on cyno bac.,i decided to just let it keep doing what it was doing as an experament.I visit this aquarium twice a month and remove the massive layer of guck,after turning of the return to the 210 display,and believe it or not this is the most thriving,crystal clear,reef slash fish tank i,ve ever seen.Not even the smallest spot of the red slime in the display ever.Since this is my first experance with this form of nutrient sink,i don't think im ready to put cyno in all my refugium's [just yet] but would love to hear of any simular experances. Ph is always stable at about 8.1 or two alk is perfect,phosphates show barely on a basic test kit,but not enough to become problimatic as far as micro algae is concerned,nitrates 0 and so on and so on.Soi i guess i'll keep this one running on cyno,and see where it takes me.

 

[Krish]

I went through this same experience while my 75gal cycled. I made conditions more favorable for the algae to grow in the sump rather than the main display using more watts per gal of lighting over the sump for a longer period of time a day (which was an alternate photoperiod to the tank) and as a result, I would have to vaccum out the cyno every week from the sump until eventually, there was no more algae growing in the sump at all. Why did it stop growing and never came back? It was because my tank had finally matured and my rock was now able to process any excess nutrients my system produced along with the aid of weekly water changes, skimming, and a phosban reactor and so I did away with the sump light. It's cool to use nuicance algae that grows on it's own to your advantage, but the fact that you are reading 0 nitrates and basically 0 phosphates doesn't mean they aren't in your system. All it means is that it is bound up in the algae which is how it is growing...

 

[tinmanny]

I had aproblem with my sump and the alge crashed and desolved I let it stay that way for about two weeks and I had a massiv alge bloom in the main tank. I put 3 different types of alge cayno Grape and a hard leaf that is photo sensative and now no alge in the main tank and this stuff grows so fast that I can trade it all the time
I think alge in the sump is a very important factor to a beautiful tank