Help me with my battle with Cyano! :)

[fkadir]

Hi Guys, been away for awhile due to my new daughter born on 04th March! Also been tied up immensely with the kid so reef was rather neglected for a month or so which includes not dosing any of the zeovit components.

Have restarted the regime for my reef about 3 weeks ago with a fresh change of Zeoliths and dosing of Bac/Food at 6 drops once every 2 days for the first 2 weeks and 6 drops of Bac/Food 2x weekly thereafter. Dosing ZeoStart1 at about 0.5ml 2x daily giving me total of about 1ml/day.

Details about my tank volume etc etc is in my sig.

Now on to the problem, CYANO! it has gained a foothold on my 2 inches thick sandbed.

Nowadays, feeding pellets once a day to my fishes (from a auto-feeder), Used to be feeding multiple times a day of various frozen food/nori/pellets for the last 3 months or so due to the introduction of an Achilles Tang and in an attempt to get it to start feeding.

Make-up water is running thru RO/DI and TDS of product water is 0.

Water changes are done with distilled water and Aquamedic Reef Salt. (which has not been done for the past 2 months due to the first paragraph).

Advices on the plan of attack pls?

[Orion76]

Congrats on the new baby!

Cyano does like PO4 and does not like strong currents, is your water flow what it should be?

[fkadir]

I have a return of about 3000L/hr and the feed to the AP902 skimmer is about 2000L/hr. In tank, I have 3 x 6100 at corners of the tank pulsing from 80% to 100%. Planning to add another 6200 into the remaining corner to increase the flow further.

[Orion76]

Those Tunzes give good flow

Do you have strong current in the area where the cyano grows?

[Aquatic Image]

How about your water changes? Were you keeping up with them? Check Nitratre as well as it is another unwanted nutirent that icresases the growth and different types of alge, & cyano.

[fkadir]

Nah, have been lacking in the water changes for about 2 months now. As per Salifert testkit, NO3 and PO4 is undetectable.

[Diesel3443]

I had a problem with cyano until I started using start2 , now its gone. You may want to try that.

[fkadir]

Yeah, didnt have a problem with cyano when i was running rowaphos in a FR. Will get Start2 today and stop using Start1.

[fkadir]

Got a large bottle of Start2 and will swop out the older Start1. Hope it helps..

[Aged Salt]

Hi Farish, congrats to your wife for a job well done & to you on your new addition.
Farish, can you comment on your coral colors & growth during the two months w/o water changes. Thnx. Bob

[fkadir]

Hi Bob, thanks for the congrats

The coral colors slowly become darker and darker and some of them have turned a light brown hue in color but with the original colors still evidnet. The Pinks/Purples remain vibrant but lost the blues turned brown fast..

Coral growth became stagnant for majority of the corals. Once I changed the zeoliths and restarted the zeovit dosings, growth has exploded again and the corals are slowly but surely regaining the colors.

Have still not changed water yet but the conditions are improving even without them.

Only Issue i have now is cyano on the sandbed. Everything else looks better everyday.

Bob, Do you think changing from start1 to start2 will help with the cyano?

[Aged Salt]

Thnx. Farish for the update. Both Starts will expediate excess nutrients from your system. Can you provide a close-up pix of this "red-growth"? Bob

[fkadir]

Bob, for my tank.. dosing start2 0.5ml 2 x daily 12 hours apart should be ok rite? Gives me a total of about 1ml/day. Water volume is about 800L

Running 2L of zeoliths with a flow of about 800L/hr, 1L of Rowa Carbon in a bag. 6 drops of bac/food7 2x weekly.

Do i need to change anything with the introduction of start2 instead of start1?

[fkadir]

Uploaded a photo of the cyano to my gallery but dunt know how to link it here.. hehehe

[Aged Salt]

Hi Farish, can't seem to find your gallery to view the "red-stuff". The Start2 dosage is fine, but if you're dosing AAHC, I'd recommend holding this until the problem has been cleared. Bob