Convince me not to use chemicals.

[ellebelle]

I give up.

When I was away during the month of December, I got a huge cyanobacteria outbreak. I have been fighting the stuff ever since. I have been doing tons of water changes. I added a second phosban reactor onto my sump. I have been sucking it out regularly with a turkey baster. It gathers in my overflow on a daily basis and I've been lifting it out with a net. It also gathers in my sump (I've been lifting it out of there with a net as well). I have also increased the flow in my tank, and removed an old polypad filter than I'd forgotten about.

NOTHING HELPS. The stuff just keeps growing and growing and growing.

I hear there is some kind of chemical that you can add to your tank that wipes it out. Here are my questions about it:

1) what is the product?
2) what is the exact chemical? it is some kind of antibiotic?
3) why should I not use it?

I am about to do a fairly sizable water change and thoroughly scrub out my sump. But this is getting ridiculous.

On the upside, the cyano doesn't seem to be inhibiting the growth/coloration of my corals. I am still getting good growth and relatively good color on my SPS. My LPS also look really good. My softies have been pouting for weeks.

 

[Deanos]

How large are the water changes? Also, what are you feeding the tank and how much?

 

[Bob 1000]

A long time ago I used red slime away I think it's called... It never came back after, but then again I did large water changes and followed-up with good husbandry... So I can't say no and I can't say yes... But I can say increase the size of your water changes..

 

[marrone]

Leave the lights off for 3 days straight and then do a large water change after. This has worked for a nubmer of people.

I've also used Chemi-Clean in the past, did 2 treatments, and that got rid of the Cyano. The only person I know that had problems with it was Dave, but he got a tainted batch.

I have some cyano in my sump but none in my main tank. This is common and it seems that in every tank people go through a breakout once a year or so.

 

[Bob 1000]

Oh yeah the lights out for 3 days.. Also a good thing to do..

 

[ellebelle]

How large are the water changes? Also, what are you feeding the tank and how much?

I've been doing 5g changes twice per week on a 40g tank.

I've been feeding only once per day. I've been cutting back on both mysis and cyclopeez. I've been feeding cyclopeez once or twice per week, mysis once or twice per week and flake/pellet the other days. My fish can eat everything I put in there in under 2 minutes.

I am running both phosban and ultraphos.

If I leave the lights off for three days, should I also leave the moonlights off? Or just the halide?

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Lissa, are you using carbon at all?

I use Chemipure and chemipure elite and algone in my tank to help with chemical filtration.

 

[marrone]

I would leave all the lights off for 2 - 3 days. From posts on Reef Central, and here, it does seem to work but you need to do a good size water change afterwards. You corals and fish should be fine with the lights off for 2 - 3 days.

Cyano can be very hard to get rid of and once it's in your tank sometime the only thing to get rid of it is to use a chemical, like either Red Slime or Chemi-Clean.

 

[ellebelle]

Lissa, are you using carbon at all?

Yes. I have a sack of it in a filter sock in my sump. Originally it was supposed to go into one of my reactors, but I converted it to a second phosphate remover.

Is chemipure a GFO or something else?

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

It's just high resin carbon. The elite has phosphate remover in it. Read a little here as well about algone

 

[Deanos]

I've been doing 5g changes twice per week on a 40g tank.

If I leave the lights off for three days, should I also leave the moonlights off? Or just the halide?

Leave the lights off for 3 days then do a 15g water change with water aged for those 3 days.

Use chemicals as a last resort since the cyano is not threatening your livestock.

 

[caad3]

Lisa,

I hate to admit it but I used the product Red Slime and it really works. I had a really bad Cyno problem, that I just couldn't get rid off. When you use it, make sure you turn off your skimmer, it will overflow like you wouldn't believe. I had some inverts, and it didn't seem to bother them. That being said, yes I cheated and used chemicals. Ok I feel better now. After I got rid of the cyno, I added a refugium, incorporated better husbandry, added phosphate remover and fed less. It has not come back since.

Hope that helps.

 

[ellebelle]

Hmm. I think I will try the "lights out" first. But what exactly is IN the Red Slime product?

 

[caad3]

I'm not sure, but somebody once told me it was an antibiotic of some sort, as thats what kills the Cyno bacteria

 

[inked]

I've used red slime remover it took one dose and never returned. It was gone in a couple of days.

 

[fritz]

I used tap water for my reef for about one year straight. As you can imagine after that period my sand and rock were saturated with PO4 and could hold no more. Osmosis took care of the rest and I had a long battle with cyano. My research taught me that cyano is present in the air we breath and thus you will never 100% get rid of it. Your best course of action is to remove it's food source.

You're going about it in the right way so far. It took me about 6 months to fully remove all of the PO4 that had saturated my rock. FWIW I've used both of the cyano killing products mentioned here and they just attack the symptom. The cyano will come back in about a week. The manufacturer also recommends a hefty water change after each dosage. You'd be better off doing 5 gallon daily changes. Ditching your sand would also be a good idea.

The antibiotics aren't bad as a last resort, if it ever gets so bad that you cant' take it but it's a temporary solution.

 

[ellebelle]

I can't figure out why I'm suddenly having problems with this. In my old tank, I had next to no cyanobacteria after about a two month break in period. I'm using the same sand. There's 11 more gallons of water, but one less fish. I'm using the same food as I was before, and doing the same husbandry. I've even recently replaced my DI resin. This last month and a half has definitely been some of the most frustrating time in my short reefkeeping life.

 

[KathyC]

Maybe the new digs? As Fritz mentions the stuff is in the air. You never know..especially since you never had it before.

 

[tadashi123]

most commercial cyano quick cures are bacteriacides and have the potential to disrupt the denitrifying capacity of your system. before using something like red slime, i'd look to products like az no3 or korallin's po4 minus which facilitates oxidation of those biologically and exported through your skimmer. But those are slightly better alternatives.

If i were in a desperate situation, personally i would try dosing vodka. you can read about vodka dosing by searching on reefcentral. basically you dose a couple of milliliters of vodka to introduce organic carbon to induce a bacterial bloom subsequently depleting bioavailable P and N, and you export that through skimmer. Second alternative would be the PO4 minus or AZ NO3. Last resort would be that red slime remover product.. in that order.

You seem to have exhausted all avenues here. Good luck!

Michael

 

[jhale]

great first post Michael, welcome to manhattan reefs