Cyanobacteria outbreak

Sup all,



So been fighting Cyano for about a month since my Pistle shrimp decided to get active again. I think he stearded some things up. I have decided to go lights out for the next two days! Hope this helps and don't cause any ill affects.Wish me luck! I have been sucking it out, but its starting to get old and it just keeps coming back.

 

Good luck Kyle.
Keep us up to date on things.

 

When was the last time you changed out your RO filters?

 

Good idea. I dont use the R/O much. I will change my R/O filters anyway. Is 24 hours with out light good? Or just how long is good.

 

I've never tried to starve it of light but its worth a try. In the past, I have done a combination of the following: changed my bulbs, run GFO or change filters and then replace topoff water and do water changes.

 

I also tried what slovan did in the past, which works but it just takes a while for the results to kick in. I have read many things about people going lights out for 1-2 days and having great results, so why not?! good luck, hope it works!

 

I started GFO around a week or so ago. Table spoon at first and i am up to 4 table spoons. I am doing water change tomorrow. I am going to do lights out for 24 hours and see how it goes.

 

I agree with Sone, change your RO filters / replace DI and if you have old bulbs get them changed. I have done the "no lights" for a few days in the past and it never helped. I think it would take a lot longer than a few days of no light to make a difference.

 

I had it in my tank for awhile. what worked for me was increasing my water flow.

 

Just an update,


With just 24 hours with lights out I seen a big difference in the color of the Cyano. Its looking Pale red and almost gone where I stopped any of light from reaching it at all from my frag tank next to it. I would say this method works very well and would say try it and at least it will kill it and then you can see if you still have something its feeding on.


In this picture the whole right side of the rock was covered in Cyano. I put a cardboard piece on the glass on the side of tank to keep it real dark there. The other red that is there is looking like its starting to die. Its getting a lighter shade of Red.

 

I am almost sure its not flow, but I am aware that is one reason that cyano outbrakes. Flow change in my tank has not really changed. The only real change is the pistal shrimp moving substrait around all over. Fact is the Cayno is waving around in the water motion like its saying hi at me how you doing.



kyle

 

I had the same issue 2 months ago, I would manually siphon it out. I also siphoned my sand really well but it still came back in two days or so. I decided to hookup a BRS biopellet reactor and I haven't had any algae for two months. I barely get any film algae on the glass anymore either.

I ran the output of the reactor to the input of my skimmer. The nice thing with the BRS reactor is it's fairly cheap and the lines fit perfect into the input of our skimmer. I say our's because I know we have the same one. I got tired of cleaning the skimmer everyday( I skim wet) so I drilled a hole in the bottom of the cup and ran a line to another container. Now I get by with cleaning the cup once a week.

I know some people have success with pellets and others don't just like anything else. Just my two cents on how I cleared mine up. Good luck

B

 

p.s. prior to the pellets I had a GFO and carbon reactor hooked up along with a refugium with cheato and mangroves. I have since taken the GFO offline and my cheato has been shrinking rapidly. So I almost have a hard time keeping enough nutrients in the time.

 

yeah I have one of these, but I don't want to risk screwing up my balance of my system. I have seen alot of people crash there tanks tring to get that Biopellet deal to work. I have just started using the GFO and It maybe starting to work for me. I need to do some Water testing tomorrow I think. I am going to use it on my 220 right off the start I think. Still coming to terms with that.

I do need to modify my skimmer to drain to a overflow cup so I don't have to clean it all the time that is for sure.



Thanks for your input Brandon.