Can cyano be related to bad rodi?

[Paolissimo]

I been battling ciano for a few months now. It always pops up, on the same rocks or part of the tank. These r part of the tank with fairly strong water movement and light. I change the water every 2 weeks and I vacuum the ciano with a hose. After a water change, 2 or 3 days later I can start to see ciano on the same spot where it was vacuumed from. Except for last month I waited a month to change the water, what I noticed was that after two weeks cyano was receding. It never disappeared, but by the fourth week, I had less cyano. Can a "dirty" rodi unit cause cyano? I have a 5 stage spectra pure unit, and I change the pre-filter and carbon filter regularly, but the other rodi filters I haven't changed in a long time, more than a year. I have tds monitor and they show zero. I also check the chloride and it's zero.
Any ideas?
Thank you
Paul

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

Absolutely. Cyano comes up for me everytime my ro/di comes out of whack feeding my tank unwanted "extras" that my overdue filters aren't taking care of.

My experience from letting my RO/DI filters especially my DI resin go out leads to algae issues. You can see your phos remover do it's job but get exhausted a lot quicker than normal.

I have had my tds monitor read zero and after changing filters you can see everything start stabilizing. The algae caused by the issue will reside unless you do something drastic like red slime remover. It will take much longer if you dont. You can also do a black out to help get rid of it.

Yes, sometimes I get lazy! But you live and you learn. I usually don't see cyano until end of my filter life cycles. I should really get into the habit of buying some before dealing with it!

Remember this is from my experience. I don't know the 100% truth of it but it is what I experienced and what I did to resolve the issue. I can show you my tank and you'll see zero cyano right now. I should have taken pictures when I do have it and show what I did to show that the steps above helps remove it. It has been about 2-3 months now since I had any cyano. So i'll need to change my filters/resin in the next few months.

 

[Mattl22]

I just fought cyano for 6 weeks if not more I finally stepped up Gfo changed carbon turned LEDs down a bit and lg wc also used special blend and nite out 2
So far seems to be working
Good luck don't do too many changes at once do things few days apart so corals don't get bleached out

 

[Dan_P]

I been battling ciano for a few months now. It always pops up, on the same rocks or part of the tank. These r part of the tank with fairly strong water movement and light. I change the water every 2 weeks and I vacuum the ciano with a hose. After a water change, 2 or 3 days later I can start to see ciano on the same spot where it was vacuumed from. Except for last month I waited a month to change the water, what I noticed was that after two weeks cyano was receding. It never disappeared, but by the fourth week, I had less cyano. Can a "dirty" rodi unit cause cyano? I have a 5 stage spectra pure unit, and I change the pre-filter and carbon filter regularly, but the other rodi filters I haven't changed in a long time, more than a year. I have tds monitor and they show zero. I also check the chloride and it's zero.
Any ideas?
Thank you
Paul

I have seen enough posts about cyanobacteria blooms associated with water changes to suggest it is something in the salt stimulating growth. I stimulated cynobacteria growth two times in a row with water changes, the last one is still going on after six months. I have hopes it will eventually end.

If you have no urgent need to change water, suspend it for awhile.

 

[Loose tenticle]

Usually excess nutrients in the water can cause it also mot enough water movement. How long have you had the rodi unit?? If more than 2.5 years might consider new membrane(s). You can also purchase chemi clean and a airstone and thatll cure remove it over night (it did in my case). The product is reef and fish safe.

 

[Rob&Gab]

what color for the Di resin in the BRS color changing one , means its time to change ? mine is like a brown redish right now. made about 300G so far changed about 4months ago. also along with the other filters . i have more right now, just dont really know when to change them i usually do it after 300-350G are madde. got a 150G per day brs 5 stage. been almost a year now that i had it so membrane i dont thnk needs to be changed yet/ .

i too am battling a little cyno on a pair of connected tanks but one one of the smaller tanks has it only on the sand bed/ (lightly) been battling it for about 3 weeks now/ the other tank connected has no cyno/ witch IMO i thought was weird. both tanks lightly fed. total of 13 fish now i think if im corrrect.


trying to avoid any chemichals besides chemi pure and phosban.



tagging along guys.

also on my output of my tds meter that comes with my rodi system says 4 in and my output is 0. so idk lol . got good water in our area. i do kno that.

 

[Loose tenticle]

I had a huge brown hair algae problem previously until i just ended up purchasing ro water cause i was waiting for my membrane, ever since changing the membrane and the ro filters the algae has diminished. Ro filter maintenance plays a big roll imo but i have a 57 gallon tank so i can only speak from personal experience im sure Rob has way more experience and knowledge to pSs on since im fairly nee to the hobby.

 

[Paolissimo]

I just purchased new ro/di membrane and filters. Should be here next week from Spectrapure. Honestly though, my TDS read 0 so the water should be ok. Anyway we'll see. On a side note, i been sick for a week so I haven't done much with the tank, my temp on the tank slowly dropped (i guess my heater is not strong enough), from a steady 78 (at night)79 (during the day) to 76.4 (at night) to a meximum of 77.9 (during the day). This has been the temp for about 3 days. Cyano is definitely slowing down and disappearing. I haven't done nothing else on the tank other than the temp dropped. Very interesting indeed.

 

[Loose tenticle]

Very interesting, hope you get better. With clean new ro filters youll see the difference, i did. Just monitor your feeding as well.

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

Rob - My Di resin came in blue. Once it was exhausted it turned into a yellow/golden color. Maybe too much pee in my water?

 

[jackson6745]

I am convinced that cyano is due to bacterial instability of a tank. You can blame nitrate and phosphate all you want, but there are tanks out there with much higher nutrient levels with no cyano, why? They have an adequate bacterial population for the bioload. Sudden increase in bioload or nutrient introduction can spawn a response of cyano, so yes old rodi filters can possible create a nutrient spike leading to cyano (not very likely IMO).

Water changes do make cyano worse but I believe it is from removing waterborne bacteria. The waterborne bacteria population seems to be shunned off because more bacteria exists on rock and sand surfaces, this doesn't mean that frequent water changes won't reduce the biological capacity of your reef system.

For me the best cyano cure has always been dosing special blend bacteria, more recently in conjunction with nite-out II. I continue dosing these additive in my tank at maintenance levels. My system is super stable and I attribute a good portion of that to these bacterias.
Avoid slime removers!

 

[Paolissimo]

Rich
the only thing I would argue with your statement is the fact that many successful tanks and a lot of successful aquarium stores use UV sterilizer in their tanks which kill pretty much any life suspended in the water. Having said that, I don't use a UV and the amount of rock in my system is less than one would consider ideal. If i have to trace my steps back, maybe my cyano started once I started siphoning off my sand, as i am trying to go bare bottom. Your point might be valid, I could increase the amount of live rock in my sump, as it is about 30gal and see what happens. You have a beautiful tank with what I would say is minimal rock work, you think if you would stop dosing special blend you could run the risk of getting cyano?

 

[jackson6745]

That's a good point with the uv. I don't know anyone running a uv on their reef these days, not personaly except for 1 reef, and they have cyano for a long time (not necessarily the uv though)
In general I can remember getting cyano with anything that killed off bacteria,or a sudden spike in bio load that requires more biological filtration, or of course a new reef that is gaining it's biological filtration.

My display has 50lbs of rock, but i also have 25lbs of rubble in my sump for added surface area. I have also been pumping this tank with various bacteria and carbon sources since the start. It's a probiotic reef and this method has produced some of the fastest growing sps that I ever had. I think if I backed off on any of my dosing with my large bioload and heavy feeding, I wiuld see a nutrient spike and would almost certainly see cyano form.

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

^test your theory!

 

[jackson6745]

^test your theory!

I thought I did already?

 

[evoIX_Reefer]

Oh, your last statement sounds like "if you tried" then you can confirm.

 

[Paolissimo]

I should be getting my new ro/di filters in the next few days. I am also trying to increase the amount of surface area so that more bacteria can grow as jackson suggested. Also my temp has been normal (78-79)and cyano has definitely come back, so a temp below 78, will stop cyano from growing.

 

[Mattl22]

My temp 76 and had cyano bad for weeks finally beAt it with special blend nite out 2 combo and manual removal during wc

 

[Paolissimo]

Matt
I am not sure then, i am not using any chemical to treat it because i want to see how i am getting it. The reason i brought up that with a lower temp cyano seemed to have slow down is because in my tank with lower temp cyano did slow down to the point of disappearing. Do you measure your temp with a controller?

 

[Mattl22]

Yes it's tracked with apex and my main heater is plugged into a rancho temp controller heater turns on at 76 so temp is usually 76-78 this time of yr