what starts cyano?

[roscoe]

Ok.... I'm wondering what causes cyano? I am seeing this stuff grow in my tank the last few days!! I just tested my water with elos test kits it reads as follows phos/nitrate 0 on both, DKH11, mag. 1400, and calcium is at 425-450. I have tons of flow (70x turn over) in my tank SPS dominate and bare bottom. I think my numbers are pretty close to ideal. The only thing I can think of me doing differently is that I started to dose kalk in the past couple of months (I like what the kalk TO is making my sps grow). I always do a 25% water change every sunday and am pretty good with keeping up with my maintenace. So what else should I be looking for?

 

[ret25yo]

is it on the rocks or the glass...

 

[roscoe]

It is on the rock and glass. It's stringy. I had this happened about 4 months ago. I used chemiclean and it pretty much wiped out the cyano overnight. Now it is starting to show up again.

 

[Dr. Dee]

Do use carbon in your reef? and how long do run it? if so.

 

[roscoe]

I run carbon on and off every other week.

 

[tamarindthai]

Red slime::too much food,,too high in neutrient,,fresh raw food feeding?
red leg hermits and good flow on the buttom will take care it,,from my experienced.

 

[roscoe]

Red slime::too much food,,too high in neutrient,,fresh raw food feeding?
red leg hermits and good flow on the buttom will take care it,,from my experienced.

I do feed heavy but my phos and nitrate are zero. I have plenty of flow especially the bottom half of my tank. I have low nutrients and over 70x turn over so what else could it be?

 

[tamarindthai]

that the tough one ,,gonna be some in the water make the red slime grow fast,feed heavyly including rod's food????,but i still belived in ecosystem though,,jannator crews should help.

 

[MikeS]

I do feed heavy but my phos and nitrate are zero. I have plenty of flow especially the bottom half of my tank. I have low nutrients and over 70x turn over so what else could it be?

Cyano tends to be proximity based and also can rapidly use up availiable nutrients in the water column, which could explain low phos/nitrate readings. Also, how old are your light bulbs?

MikeS

 

[roscoe]

Cyano tends to be proximity based and also can rapidly use up availiable nutrients in the water column, which could explain low phos/nitrate readings. Also, how old are your light bulbs?

MikeS

I run a 14k hami on a ice cap ballast and it is only 3 months old.

 

[roscoe]

that the tough one ,,gonna be some in the water make the red slime grow fast,feed heavyly including rod's food????,but i still belived in ecosystem though,,jannator crews should help.

Yes I do feed rods food Dang mixed with forula one and two.

 

[tike]

Hey Sarang,

What's your photo period? Maybe if you cut it back a bit it will let you get an up on beating this thing up?

 

[roscoe]

My photo period goes like this. Actinics come on at 11:30am halides on at 12:30pm then halides goes off at 10:30pm and actinics off at 11:30pm. I've always ran my lights at this photo period for the longest time.

 

[JeffGil]

I had an outbreak of cyano in my 20g and none of my cleanup crew would go near the stuff. It had even started growing on my corals so I had to do something. The LFS suggested I use Blue Vet's RedSlime Control. I guess most people don't like it, but it sure did a job on my tank--and quick! A few days later there wasn't a trace of it left and everything else in the tank was still happy. I added another koralia for more flow and changed nothing else and it never came back. You've got a lot of flow, but maybe there are some dead spots somewhere letting food or something pile up?

 

[tike]

Awhile back I had a cyno problem. I was running an 11 hour cycle. Someone suggested that I cut to 9 hours. When I did the problem went away in about 2 weeks.

 

[roscoe]

I think I will cut my photo period back and see what happens. I did dose chemiclean so that will help. Beleive me I have no dead spots in my tank there is a ton of flow in there. Most of the detritus settles in a spot where the multiple currents meet and stays at that spot all the time.

 

[tike]

Good Luck with it!

Kick it's butt!

 

[atlantisaquatic]

Hopefully you'll have the problem snuffed... chemiclean rocks. Either way, in my experience, even locallized pockets of nutrients caused by trapped food particles or fish emulsions can give rise to cyano. The tough thing about cyano is it functions as both a bacteria and an algae... Julien Sprung (I believe it was) even mentioned that once it gets a foothold, it has a way of "creating" its own phosphate... though what "creating" means, I'm not sure.
If small, localized pockets of nutrients are the issue... then the high flow rates will help with the problem (by diluting the nutrients pockets throughout the system). If the problem is high nutrients throughout the water, then the high flow rate won't necessarily help. The livestock tanks at my work have often shown the first signs of cyano on the area of glass hit by the sump return (higher volumes of water hitting one area = more nutrients in that particular spot). This same concept can be seen by overflow boxes that dirty-up faster than the front glass on a display.
Not sure if that helps any... but I hope so...

 

[Boomer]

"creating" its own phosphate... though what "creating" means, I'm not sure.

It can dissolve carbonate substrates that have Phosphate bound to them and it can convert organic phosphate into inorganic phosphate extracellularly.

 

[atlantisaquatic]

BOOMER! You're the man... now, I gotta know... did you look that one up or did that just come to your head of its own accord? Swank Brother... swank.

"creating" its own phosphate... though what "creating" means, I'm not sure.

It can dissolve carbonate substrates that have Phosphate bound to them and it can convert organic phosphate into inorganic phosphate extracellularly.