Removing a sandbed - CYANO Covering week by week.

[JonnyJ]

I understand things like this aren't fixed overnight but i would like to get this under control.

Well for months now i have had issues with terrible cyano and some hair algae. I have gotten the hair algae under control from water changes but the cyano will not go away.

I started around 2 1/2 months ago by
Reducing feeding
Reducing light Schedule
Skimming*
Increased Flow
Changed SALT
Increased my daily water changes [20%-25% 1 time a week for almost two months]

My tank is around 20 gallons and i perform 5 gallon weekly water changes..





6 days ago i started to treat with a Red slime remover from chemi clean [boyd] and have treated the tank twice. It has done nothing, I have been following the directions and for the past two weeks i have done over 40% water changes weekly. The cyano just seems to come back and generally only on my sand. sometimes forming on the rock...

In the begging stages it always starts as a diatom looking algae and will deepen in color as the daylight hours go by. At night it really isnt too visable. Then if i do not syphon it, as the days go by it will darken and will start to bubble and cover everything.

Last week i completely tore down and cleaned my mess of a sump, i am pretty sure the dietritus buildup is the root of my problems and someone mentioned it may have leached into my sand bed.



A number of things has attributed to this problem and i know its my fault...


I started the tanks with a coarse argonite sand, I rinsed with regular tap water and even started the tank with tap water [IDIOT!] [during the 6 weeks of cycling i topped off with distilled water, then started performing water changes daily while never using TAP]

For water i was originally using nutri sea water, Something known to be loaded with nutrients.

Some of my rock was created with a combination of foam/epoxy.... It was all done and cured properly [from what i have read and followed] I do not have cyano issues on any of the fake rock...go figure...



I personally do not like and never did like my current sand and have decided to remove my sandbed, I feel like it may be the reason this is happening.

I started today by syphoning out as much as i could but limiting myself as to not cause a huge change. I plan too syphon out around 5 gallons every other day for the next week until it is all removed.


Does this sound like a good plan ? What would you do?


I am a failure and do not have a phosphate test kit.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

what are your phosphates..... n dont say they are in check or 0.

also stop using red slime remover its a band aid

 

[JonnyJ]

ILL BE HONEST AND SAY I HAVEN'T THE SLIGHTEST CLUE.

I understand its a band aid, but every time i siphon cyano out, a layer of sand is removed with it and sooner or later i will have nothing left.

The front sand was originally almost 2 inches, today it was around 2 cm.

The original idea - Treat with remover and keep doing water changes until cyano isn't forming any more.



The new idea - Remove all sand, replace with new sand.


Ill have my water tested this weekend forsure. I figured that this would have been over already lol. 6 years of reefing and never a single problem with any of my tanks and cyano.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

johnny listen buddy you started this tank the wrong way as you know. i would highly suggest getting your phosphates checked n go from there. if they are elevated which i can def. guarantee they are i would suggest getting some phosban and a reactor as well as some poly filters.

 

[JonnyJ]

I completely agree, i am going to go ahead and remove the sand this week and add a reactor tomorrow.

 

[KurtL]

Stop don't remove it yet I had the same problem and the slime just migrated to the rock. Try a phosphate remover first it worked like a charm for me and my phosphates tested zero

 

[dacaptain78]

Hey jonny. Sorry to hear about you cyno issues. I have an elos phosphate test kit. If you want to bring a sample of your water over we can check the phosphate levels. Let me know.

 

[mbg75]

Are u sure its Cyano? Only asking because Cyano is a bacteria and if u used the remover, which is usually an anti-biotic. It should have taken care of it..

I used Cyano solution on mine and it ALL was gone in a couple hours.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[JonnyJ]

What else could it be?

It starts by looking like diatom, then deepens in color, starts to bubble and then covers stuff.


I was thinking the exact same thing since the treatment hasn't worked

I treated for 20ish gallons, ran an airstone and did a water change after 48 hrs twice.

What else could it be?

 

[saltwaterinbrooklyn]

I killed my cyano by leaving the light off for four days and only turned it on to feed , then back off

 

[petraio]

that's dinofegellate if ti bubble up

 

[JonnyJ]

Dino's. After looking at photos it could be..

and realizing that the meds aren't working.


What's the next step? How do I treat them?

Google..



Seems like this is going to be a problem.

 

[JARRETT SHARK]

Special blend worked Great for me... I had it for months until I started using it and then 3 weeks later NOTHING!!!!!!!
Big thread on RC about people who love it

 

[CancerverO]

Special blend worked Great for me... I had it for months until I started using it and then 3 weeks later NOTHING!!!!!!!
Big thread on RC about people who love it

Oh man.. u beat me posting.. I call glory special blend,,lol..., I just had a break down few weeks ago.. kept doing water changes like crazy every 3 days and still cyano on the freaking sand..nitrates zero and phosphates were almost zero... I knew about special blend because Jarret told me before but I wanted to try one thing at a time.. but cyano wasnt leaving.. so went and got a bottle and no lie in 4 days gone... sand clean and my glass is clean... from now on im gonna dose every 2 weeks.. give it a try.

 

[KurtL]

I had dino's for months tried every cure in the book nothing worked. Eventually tore down the tank and started over. If it is dino's dont waste your time most people cant get rid of it.

 

[JonnyJ]

I had dino's for months tried every cure in the book nothing worked. Eventually tore down the tank and started over. If it is dino's dont waste your time most people cant get rid of it.

comforting lol, looking at the photos i think it is... it has never looked as severe as some of the photos on the web but cetainly resembles it. I have a feeling i have/had both...

i dosed special blend this morning [danielles advice]

 

[reefer4eva]

i had the same problem with my 90 gallon a few years ago and i did a few things turned off the lights for a week put in red slime remover turned off the skimmer adding charcoal to my refugium and also adding a phospad,i solved the problem but wanted answers to why this was happening.one answer i got was the lighting i was using (at the time i used power compacts) and two was the water(didnt use rodi water)hope this helps ya

 

[JonnyJ]

Thanks for the messages, Ill have my water checked tomorrow.

I'm dosing special blend ATM and will continue to siphon out my sand over the next week. I managed to removed around 1/3 yesterday of the shallow tanks sand. Ill probably try to remove at least 3/4 of the remaining sand tomorrow.

 

[Jzhou]

I wonder if the increase of iron from water changes could of helped cause an increase of the dinos. There was an article in Marine Biology about 10 years ago of how scientist were trying to find ways of figthing red tide through iron depletion since many species of Dino needed iron for nutrient transport.

 

[peteyboyny]

I also started my tank with tap...I used the chemi-clean and did a 40% water change the next day and it cleared up the cyano when I had it in my tank. Also, that's the same time I bought an RO/DI unit and started using ONLY RO WATER for top offs and water changes. I would never use anything else. It's the only way to REALLY know what's in your water from the start...NOTHING. Good luck with it.