- Location
- michigan
how do i get rid of it? all parameters on the money. not over feeding. but the tank is only 7 months old could that be it? siphoning it daily?
cyano
- Thread starter ROGERWILCO357
- Start date
- Location
- Long Island, New York
So your phosphates are low (.01-.04). Are you using a photometer ? Assuming that you do than lets move on. Check your flow... In addition, I feel that your tank is still new and is maturing. One product that I have tried and seems to work well is Special Blend. Other than the above husbandry and just letting your tank mature will right itself. I am not an advocate of the chemical slime removers. Just be consistant and siphon it out and keep on it....it will subside. We all get cyno from time to time. And most get outbreaks in the begining phases of our tanks.
Thane
phosphate readings can be elusive regarding the presence of the cyano because the cyano and various algae can be consuming the phosphates, giving the appearance (in testing) that the phosphates are very low or even at negligible levels. I agree that cyano is more prevalent in newly set-up tanks but it also appears from time to time in well-established aquariums. It may be addressed by blasting it off the rockwork, etc. with a turkey baster, more frequent water changes using RO/DI water, lessening amounts at feedings, and also pouring off the liquids that appear when defrosting frozen foods before putting them in the tank to feed. Increasing the flow in the tank will also usually help address cyano development. Another measure to consider if you don't have patience to wait to see if the mentioned steps have a positive effect is to put a phosphate-reactor (or two, depending on the amount of water in the system) using a good quality phosphate-removing medium. And, be sure that your skimmer is working efficiently all the time.
- Location
- michigan
yes using a photometer by hanna and the phosphates are low , i too hate the chemicals so will continue to vacuum it out and hope it get over it soon. thanks
and yeah using a six stage ro-di unit new bulbs 3 months old 250 hqi and t-5's
Last edited:
- Location
- Southampton UK
Cyano in relatively young systems certainly isn't unusual, in fact its pretty much the norm to be honest. There are allot of theories out there as to what happens and why it may be a short phase or a long one, and why it can come back at later stages.
My own thoughts on this based on what we know for certain tied with a bit of logic is that when you start up a system and add any substrates, you will always get a degree of early precipitation into those substrates (commonly indicated by a short period of Alkalinity suppression commonly tied with Mg depletion) as the sand and surrounding water equalise chemically (look at just about anything you put into seawater and you get some precipitation onto its surface until a chemical balance has been met...)..during this process its highly likely that you will also bind background levels of Po4 into it as well seeing as its pretty inevitable that you will always get a given amount of die off on new live rock when its introduced giving you a pool of free nutrients (even low levels). so in the early stages you basically have a substrate that is pulling nutrients from the surrounding water by diffusion which is then being bound in with any precipitation until a chemical balance has been met...Then over the next few weeks to months you get increasing colonisation of bacteria within those substrates which start to alter what was previously a pretty stable environment, taking up available 02, giving out secretions used to adhere to the surface structure of the grains, and causing a gradual slope of nutrient depletion with increasing depth giving rise to the growth of the anaerobic barrier layer (dependent on grain size and diffusion rate) The more bacteria you get, the greater the difference becomes between the chemistry above the substrate and that within it most crucially pH which starts to fall as you go deeper into the substrate due to oxygen depletion and various secretions from the bacteria present. As pH falls, you start getting dissolution, IE a reversal of the previous scenario where bound Po4 is now being released along with increasing amounts of nitrogen gas as the anaerobic action starts to kick in.
By this stage you've probably had some form of Po4 remover running which has stripped free levels from the main water column above the substrates to below that now found within the substrate layers be that bound or free...all things being equal, the natural pathway for chemistry to equalise across the environment is for some of that Po4 to come out to balance out the situation, and its this initial release of previously bound Po4 combined with various other food sources (nitrogen being another) that triggers and encourages the growth of opportunistic surface dwelling organisms, namely the Cyano bacteria.
As the bacterial population stabilises over time along with the various biological and chemical processes, then the bed settles down to a relatively constant rate of diffusion, and dissolution from the lower (suppressed pH) layers . The Po4 that was previously bound in the early stages during rapid precipitation runs out, and the food supply is cut off. hence why the Cyano disappears after a certain amount of time if the system is otherwise stable and well maintained with a low free nutrient pool.
So what causes later outbreaks ?. Well from my own tests on DSB's and SSB's over the years i would definitely say that in all healthy substrates (IE those that are active both bacterially and well colonised with micro fauna that keep the substrate free and diffusing correctly, that you should end up in a state of constant slow dissolution from below the boundary layer. I've measured pH at various depths in a healthy DSB and found that below just a few inches (sometimes less) the pH can drop well into the region where aragonite sands will start to break down (albeit very slowly) hence the reason that you have to top up sand beds over time as the level falls. (some of it is being washed away into the current and removed as fine aragonite silt via your skimmer, but certainly not all of it) the rest is going into solution....not enough to buffer the systems alk and Ca demands noticeably, but certainly to a very small degree.
In a healthy and stable system, this process should be an ongoing one. what upsets things, is when the water chemistry above the substrates is drastically altered be that by changing salt brands in one go, suddenly shifting temperatures or pH, rapid increases in any element being supplemented, (or nutrients being rapidly stripped for that matter) intermittent top up causing constantly shifting salinity (this is one of the biggest issues)....In fact anything that causes a sudden forced shift in the stability of the substrates chemical makeup.
Remember nature always wants to try to balance things out, the bigger the differences, the greater the effect and longer it takes (in this case I'm talking the differences in elemental chemistry/pH/Temp/overall salinity etc between whats going on above and below the substrates surface (equally this applies to LR as well). If you do something that suddenly shifts pH down or up in the main water column by a greater margin than your normal ambient daily pH range, you have to expect a near equal drop or increase in pH below the boundary layer in any substrates present within a relatively short time frame biologically speaking...what happens then is that you suddenly increase or decrease the rate of dissolution (depending which way you went) beyond what it was previously, and we are back to the same situation we were in a year or so back during those first few months of the systems life with fluctuating rates of diffusion and dissolution through the substrates. and low and behold another Cyano outbreak as the bed effectively 'coughs'...
In the case of ongoing and long term large Cyano populations in systems still exhibiting what would be considered a good low free level of nutrients, then its definitely worth looking at chemical stability, salinity, and temperature stability etc etc...somewhere along the line there will always be an underlying 'trigger' as it were. The Cyano isn't the problem as such, its just an indicator that there is an instability somewhere thats causing a fluctuating environment with unstable nutrient pathways. The Cyano is simply taking care of an excess within its local environment. not necessarily from the main water column.
The annoying thing, is that the presence of Cyano across the substrate actually exasperates the situation. All the time its smothers the sand below, it limits gaseous exchange and diffusion through that sand dropping the pH again which causes further dissolution etc and we end up in a vicious circle despite really good main water column conditions, so syphoning off, is definitely a worthwhile exorcise if we want to stabilise that substrate area quickly.
Just some thoughts.
regards
My own thoughts on this based on what we know for certain tied with a bit of logic is that when you start up a system and add any substrates, you will always get a degree of early precipitation into those substrates (commonly indicated by a short period of Alkalinity suppression commonly tied with Mg depletion) as the sand and surrounding water equalise chemically (look at just about anything you put into seawater and you get some precipitation onto its surface until a chemical balance has been met...)..during this process its highly likely that you will also bind background levels of Po4 into it as well seeing as its pretty inevitable that you will always get a given amount of die off on new live rock when its introduced giving you a pool of free nutrients (even low levels). so in the early stages you basically have a substrate that is pulling nutrients from the surrounding water by diffusion which is then being bound in with any precipitation until a chemical balance has been met...Then over the next few weeks to months you get increasing colonisation of bacteria within those substrates which start to alter what was previously a pretty stable environment, taking up available 02, giving out secretions used to adhere to the surface structure of the grains, and causing a gradual slope of nutrient depletion with increasing depth giving rise to the growth of the anaerobic barrier layer (dependent on grain size and diffusion rate) The more bacteria you get, the greater the difference becomes between the chemistry above the substrate and that within it most crucially pH which starts to fall as you go deeper into the substrate due to oxygen depletion and various secretions from the bacteria present. As pH falls, you start getting dissolution, IE a reversal of the previous scenario where bound Po4 is now being released along with increasing amounts of nitrogen gas as the anaerobic action starts to kick in.
By this stage you've probably had some form of Po4 remover running which has stripped free levels from the main water column above the substrates to below that now found within the substrate layers be that bound or free...all things being equal, the natural pathway for chemistry to equalise across the environment is for some of that Po4 to come out to balance out the situation, and its this initial release of previously bound Po4 combined with various other food sources (nitrogen being another) that triggers and encourages the growth of opportunistic surface dwelling organisms, namely the Cyano bacteria.
As the bacterial population stabilises over time along with the various biological and chemical processes, then the bed settles down to a relatively constant rate of diffusion, and dissolution from the lower (suppressed pH) layers . The Po4 that was previously bound in the early stages during rapid precipitation runs out, and the food supply is cut off. hence why the Cyano disappears after a certain amount of time if the system is otherwise stable and well maintained with a low free nutrient pool.
So what causes later outbreaks ?. Well from my own tests on DSB's and SSB's over the years i would definitely say that in all healthy substrates (IE those that are active both bacterially and well colonised with micro fauna that keep the substrate free and diffusing correctly, that you should end up in a state of constant slow dissolution from below the boundary layer. I've measured pH at various depths in a healthy DSB and found that below just a few inches (sometimes less) the pH can drop well into the region where aragonite sands will start to break down (albeit very slowly) hence the reason that you have to top up sand beds over time as the level falls. (some of it is being washed away into the current and removed as fine aragonite silt via your skimmer, but certainly not all of it) the rest is going into solution....not enough to buffer the systems alk and Ca demands noticeably, but certainly to a very small degree.
In a healthy and stable system, this process should be an ongoing one. what upsets things, is when the water chemistry above the substrates is drastically altered be that by changing salt brands in one go, suddenly shifting temperatures or pH, rapid increases in any element being supplemented, (or nutrients being rapidly stripped for that matter) intermittent top up causing constantly shifting salinity (this is one of the biggest issues)....In fact anything that causes a sudden forced shift in the stability of the substrates chemical makeup.
Remember nature always wants to try to balance things out, the bigger the differences, the greater the effect and longer it takes (in this case I'm talking the differences in elemental chemistry/pH/Temp/overall salinity etc between whats going on above and below the substrates surface (equally this applies to LR as well). If you do something that suddenly shifts pH down or up in the main water column by a greater margin than your normal ambient daily pH range, you have to expect a near equal drop or increase in pH below the boundary layer in any substrates present within a relatively short time frame biologically speaking...what happens then is that you suddenly increase or decrease the rate of dissolution (depending which way you went) beyond what it was previously, and we are back to the same situation we were in a year or so back during those first few months of the systems life with fluctuating rates of diffusion and dissolution through the substrates. and low and behold another Cyano outbreak as the bed effectively 'coughs'...
In the case of ongoing and long term large Cyano populations in systems still exhibiting what would be considered a good low free level of nutrients, then its definitely worth looking at chemical stability, salinity, and temperature stability etc etc...somewhere along the line there will always be an underlying 'trigger' as it were. The Cyano isn't the problem as such, its just an indicator that there is an instability somewhere thats causing a fluctuating environment with unstable nutrient pathways. The Cyano is simply taking care of an excess within its local environment. not necessarily from the main water column.
The annoying thing, is that the presence of Cyano across the substrate actually exasperates the situation. All the time its smothers the sand below, it limits gaseous exchange and diffusion through that sand dropping the pH again which causes further dissolution etc and we end up in a vicious circle despite really good main water column conditions, so syphoning off, is definitely a worthwhile exorcise if we want to stabilise that substrate area quickly.
Just some thoughts.
regards
Last edited:
- Location
- Midtown East, Manhattan
wow. bump so more people can read #6
That is a great piece on the cycles of sand beds.
I was wondering if cycling rock in a bare bottom tank then adding a substrate after the rock completely cycles would help mitigate the initial absorption by the substrate. Thereby lessening the later potential for outbreak on the short term.
Sent from my iPhone using Reefs
I was wondering if cycling rock in a bare bottom tank then adding a substrate after the rock completely cycles would help mitigate the initial absorption by the substrate. Thereby lessening the later potential for outbreak on the short term.
Sent from my iPhone using Reefs
- Location
- Garden city
I was dosing 2 ml of vodka in my system with special blend I thought the special blend was fighting the cyno but it was getting worse i cut my vodka dose in half and stopped dosing special blend 3 days later no cyano
Anybody know why?
Sent from my iPhone using Reefs
Anybody know why?
Sent from my iPhone using Reefs
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