[Ganrin]

I've been having a cyno issue for a while now, I thought I had gotten it back under control then today it exploded all over the tank again.

75g with 20g sump, 110lbs live rock, asm g1 skimmer, 32xtank volume flow(4 powerheads plus return), 2x 175w 10kmh lights-12hr timer but usually run less(4month old bulbs), 1in sandbed everywhere except a protected area where its 4in deep for my LTA(they like deep sand to root in).

10 fish, 4sm green chromis, 1 med perc clown, 2 red firefish, 1 med yellow tang(4in), 1 med coral beauty angel(3in), 1 solarensis wrasse, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 1 sally lightfoot crab, 1 sm serpent star, half dozen each nassarius snail and cerinth snail, 20ish astrea snail, dozen scarlet hermits. Feed lightly 1 time per day.

Tank parameters, 9pm tonight, temp 78, sg 1.026, alk 3meq/l, ca 420, ph 8.6(? never that high before), phosphate 0, nitrate 0, mg 1300. I did a 20% water change on monday(ro/di)

Ive had a small to med cyano issue for a while, Ive not been able to get it completely gone but on several occasions Ive had it down to just a couple small patches. In Feb I bought a sick LTA that I was trying to bring back, the day it finally died it dumped a bit of ammonia into the tank, I never got a spike out of it but did have a small nitrate spike that has since cleared up. About the same time I had a small fish die in the tank that I was unable to recover the body. Soon after that the very minor cyano issue became a heavy coating in a lot of areas.
I have tried turning my lights off for a couple days and it will go away, then return when lights are turned back on. It was fairly bad last week, so I did a water change on monday, then turned the lights off for 3 days, yesterday the tank looked very good with only a small patch on the rocks where I couldnt reach it to blow it off, so I ran the lights full cycle today and when I got in tonight the cyano was back everywhere, like I hadnt done anything to clear it up.

[spanko]

I put this together a while back because on another site I belong to this question was coming up often. It is a culmination of research and personal experience I have had with the dreaded red slime. Just my opinion on it.

Red Slime (Cyano Bacteria)
Cyano grows on top of nutrient rich areas of low flow. There are a number of things that need to be correct or possibly corrected to combat this without the use of chemical additives. The biggest thing is to get rid of the extra nutrients.
1. Evaluate your feeding. If you are feeding more than can be eaten in about 1-2 minutes it is too much and the remainder of it is falling to the rock and sand and becoming nutrient.
2. Evaluate your flow. If you have areas in the tank where there is little to no flow this can be corrected by adding power heads or repositioning the ones you already have. You don’t need to create sand storms just have water moving over the area to keep detritus suspended in the water column for removal by your filter – skimmer.
3. Evaluate your water changes. The solution to pollution is dilution! You want to continually remove unneeded nutrients as well as replace those things that are used by the system. 10% weekly is a good change schedule. Some do 20% every other week and some vary the schedule from there, but a good start is 10% per week.
4. Evaluate your lighting schedule. About 10 hours of daylight is all that is needed.
5. If you have a cyano outbreak do the above 4 items andh:
a. At water change time siphon off the cyano first. It will come up easily almost like a blanker.
b. After siphoning stir the affected areas a little to suspend any detritus for the water change and filtering - skimming removal.
c. Use a turkey baster now and at every water change in the future to again suspend the detritus for removal by the water change and your filtering – skimming.

Keeping nutrient levels low to non-existent will help to avoid cyano outbreaks and any algae outbreaks as well as keep your tank and you happy happy.

Hope that helps.

[dinor2]

I'm wondering if they have a 'new' dsb like myself! I have cyano on some 'dirty' sand areas and i made my dsb only a few months ago.... think I'm going to try using my gravel cleaner to go down an inch or so in this particular spot to see if that gets up any gunk that's acculmulated as cyano loves that for food.

[spanko]

Sounds like a plan. Just keep it to the one area and you shouldn't create any problem.

[migget]

I had a red slime issue and put 2 sand sifting stars in my tanke and havnt had an issue since. Just havign the sand turned over and the stars eating whatever waste is left helps out a ton and they look kool too. I would try tht is nothing else works, they make products for it, but do ALOT of research b4 you go and add those products for them may cause other unwanted probs. GL man hope tht helps.

john