Fighting Cyano

[Exodus]

Well  my tank has been established now over 4 years but about a month and a half ago I moved the tank keeping everything minus the water. After moving every bit of the water with me, containing the live rock/fish/corals in separate buckets the 10 Gallons did not look appealing enough to put back in the tank so luckily I already had enough premixed on hand to fill the 12G back up

 

As of Current here are water params

Phosphate .05 (Hanna)

Nitrate <5 (API)

Magnesium 1400 (Red Sea)

Calcium 480 (Red Sea & API)

Alkalinity 7-7.3 dkH (Red Sea & API)

pH 8.2 - 8.4 (API)

Salinity 33.5 (Refractometer & Apex Probe)

Temp 78

 

So I waited for a few weeks after moving the tank to see if there would be a mini cycle but everything was looking great, I introduced several frags (2 different Zoas, Birds Nest, Favia, and another SPS) All corals were looking great and then about a week after it hit starting with a huge Zoa colony closing up and refusing to open, slowly 1 by one the Zoas started closing up while the new colony's just kept and are still growing heads and doing fine. A few days ago after inspection I realized it was red slime and has all the little bubbles to go with it, I turned up my MP10 as I saw a bunch on the sand and the next morning most of it was gone. The first colony of Zoas is starting to slowly open back up along with the 2nd colony whereas the 3rd to start having issues looks to only be getting worse.

 

The biggest concern is my Alkalinity, straight from the bucket its 10-11 dkH, i change roughly 3 Gallons every Monday and still its dropping fast while Calc & Mag stay normal , I'm sure I must be hitting some sort of mini cycle as I tend to my tank weekly religiously and have never gotten behind on maintenance so this is the information off the top of my head I can think of that might be needed in order to better diagnose but...

 

How do I keep Alkalinity up? With 12 Gallon Nano I have always been under the impression weekly water changes are enough to replenish what is lost, I know some might say Baking Soda added in dissolved water (If thats the case is that safe to add to the ATO container?) Or is the cyano responsible for bringing it down?

 

What can I do to ensure the life of my corals at this moment? More water changes? I would really like to avoid adding chemicals to the tank if possible; or do I just have to wait this one out?

 

current livestock, 1 Povona SPS, 2 small branches of Birdsnest, Small Stylo Frag, 1 small Favia frag, Open brain coral, 5 colonies of Zoas, 6 heads trumpet coral, 2 heads of Aussi Duncan and i think that's about it right now

 

any help would be appreciated

 

[momo3419]

Maybe get some Alk to hand dose? As for the Cyano Increasing the flow was one of the best things to do. I would also use a brush and a syphon to physically remove it from your tank. this worked well for my cyano but i only had any on my rocks. I would maybe try some of the sand sifting cleanup crew. Also maybe a day or two of darkness works well. With all 3 I would say that would work most of the time. The ALK is a little tricky. Mine like to hover very close to yours with no dosing I've had few problems with cyano so I would try the Physically removing any remaining and get a handful of the sand sifting snail. I can't recall what they are called at the moment.

[Exodus]

well after spending hours reading up everything I could on cyano, I have come to the conclusion the source of the issue lies in phosphates. A week ago before I realized what was going on and saw diatoms for a couple days I put some Deep Blue phosphate pad into the tank, before readings were .18 & after 3 days (before water change) was down to .05 so I know it definitely had an impact but I don't have an ULR checker so I'm aimed for 0.

 

So my primary concern as of right now is to eliminate the cyano and then correct the Alk level to get it stable in which my best guess is some weird Ion imbalance but luckily enough I can go after both at the same time, I think I will begin by upping water changes to twice a week over the next 6 weeks to ensure every bit of the tank water has been turned over closely monitoring ever mixed batch to ensure all parameters fall into the correct ranges before adding. Hand removing any Cyano I can and change the settings on my MP10 to a more randomized where I get high flow a bit but as well as low flow as my Open Brain prefers.

 

I wont be using any additives to the tank, only relying on the water changes themselves. I was looking to ensure phosphates from the source were not an issue so was going to buy all new filters, but then just decided to upgrade my RO/DI unit altogether so that is on it's way as well. I appreciate the suggestion of the 3 day lights out, I have heard this many times but I personally believe that would do more harm than good, but I will be dropping a few hours off my daily lighting schedule. depending upon my progress at the half way point if things aren't looking any better I'm looking at adding some Rox Activated Carbon & GFO to the system in effort to come down harder on the phosphates and suspect that should be enough to ensure the Cyano is on it's way out.

 

If things clear up on the bacterial side but still suffering with the Alk I will most likely be looking at adding very small doses of Kalk to my ATO water. I figure after a full flush of the system water (12 water changes) ensuring the right params are going in whatever levels are dropping are truly being consumed and to start off very slow with the kalk closely monitoring it; I'll be able to adjust what needed and find a method for keeping things consistent as they were before, but hopefully it works itself out and weekly water changes become enough as before, then again I have many more stony corals than before so I could very well just need to start dosing to keep up with consumption.

[Exodus]

So it appears after photo Identification on another Forum, I don't have Cyano but rather Dinos..... Wasn't very fascinated with the results thats for sure. In researching it many things have become much clearer as to the problems I have had in the past and the fact it just has never seem to go away and simply comes back. There are definite reasons to this and much of it comes from the beginning but I won't go into all that. So instead before tearing everything down and rebuilding from scratch I am going to give removal a shot. I'm gonna start out with adding the GFO, blackout for 72 Hours and a daily dosage of Peroxide for a week shortening the lighting intervals while slowly increasing back to full term. I have read so many success stories and it appears to be the only true way anyone has really solved the issue, I have found out the hard way it has nothing to do with good husbandry, it's in your tank or it isn't. My fish have been fed 2 small flakes every 3 days for the last 4 years, my last 3 peppermint shrimp I suspect starved to death and their corpse was already gone before I figured out what happened  just to keep the phosphates as close to 0 as possible. My parameters have always been on target prior to the addition of several corals and the Alkalinity drop. Though any time I so much as accidentally overfeed or so much as added a new frag that came with phosphates and bam! My entire tank was overridden and the fight was on, this is partially why the first 3 years of the tank I only had 3 Zoa frags, 1 Povona Frag and a clam, was too [language filter] scared to add anything else because I didn't want the fight. I think my Husbandry has been right on the mark but now knowing what it is that I have been fighting for so long; I think this is my last option.

 

On A side note if it comes down to it, the next tank I buy will be brand new and going with Dry Artificial Live rock this time, don't trust anything that came from another tank in which I suspect is where it came from, just frustrating.

[Exodus]

So here is a pic of what I'm dealing with, This is just a bit early in the day; It hasn't gotten all of its micro bubbles yet, those come a little later

[TheClark]

Good luck on the fight.  I have been amazed at what chemiclean can do for a tank, have used it several times while addressing root cause (in my case, phosphate loaded sand).

 

I know several other successful reef keepers on this forum have used it as well.  Something to keep in mind if things get desperate.

[Exodus]

Good luck on the fight.  I have been amazed at what chemiclean can do for a tank, have used it several times while addressing root cause (in my case, phosphate loaded sand).

 

I know several other successful reef keepers on this forum have used it as well.  Something to keep in mind if things get desperate.

chemiclean is for the Cyano bacteria, unfortunately I determined it's Dinos or I would be ready for that or red slime remover....if only it were that easy :/

[badxgillen]

I know Lexinverts had a bout with this Dino and successfully beat it, I remember him using an oxidizer but that is why you would be adding the Peroxide I suppose. Wicked stuff for sure, I look forward to seeing your cure in effect, take no prisoners.

[Exodus]

Thanks Robert, At this point I have nothing to lose. If I have to break down the tank and start over nobody would want the corals that are in the tank now as they may be carrying the Dino as well. I have a couple expensive corals that still look unaffected that I would like to keep So this is the last shot before the Dinos kill off all my zoa colonies as it has covered them and they refuse to open. I went ahead and waited for the lights to turn off today, Injected 1 mL of Peroxide from a fresh bottle into the tank and covered it up with a dark curtain. Hope this works   

[badxgillen]

Worst case scenario is I could hold frags of your corals while you rebuild, I have melafixed frags that have had this stuff on em and it kills the dinos, unfortunately the duration of the dip is rather harsh on SPS and can cause some damage if the coral is already in a weakened state.

 

one other thing is Andy swears by the fighting conch, he says it eats much dinos without the toxifying effects it has on other snails.

Got my fingers crossed for you too my friend.

[kev311]

I've read that keeping ph above 8.5 will help kill them

[badxgillen]

Yes I have battled this before and bumped up the PH, nutrient stripped the water, wet skimmed, and added much carbon. I read a bit about the PH in a Rand Farley Article and after using a buffer I noticed an improvement in just a few days where as the nutrient stripping was a s very slow process. I never got as far as too use hydrogen peroxide but that would have been my next step had it not faded away.

[Exodus]

The problem is I would mess with methods like that If I had the option of a decent skimmer, unfortunately any of the few skimmers that will fit in the back of an 12G AIO tank are just a waste of money. As for raising pH that can also be dangerous with such a small water volume could be disastrous as well. I will eventually be upgrading to a picO 20G AIO in which has the room in the back to throw in a CAD Lights ps-150 pipeless skimmer which I have seen from several videos and review is worth the cost, as Well I can run IM's MiniMax Reactor and beef the system up a bit, but where it stands it is where it is.

 

So its been over 24 Hours now and I have injected peroxide twice. I took a quick peek with a cell phone light under the covers on the tank and all I can say is I am impressed. Shrimp looks very happy, Clown is doing what a clown does and the Royal Gramma I assume is hiding as usual so Livestock is fine. As for the corals, the frag plugs were spotless, the sandbed as well had nothing I could in the way of dinos either. Though there were some long strands of Dinos still hanging from the back wall and off the SPS, but the powerhead its self looks 70% Clear vs previously. I was also impressed to see it had really taken a whack at a concentrated group of dinos that were growing out the center of a frag plug with Blue tubbs you gave me Robert. That little frag with 5 or 6 heads is well over 50 growing over the side of the rock as of to date. So far everything seems to be running smoothly we will just have to be patient and stay consistent and hopefully I can rid myself of this plague.

[Exodus]

Well it's been a full week of battle. I went through the 72 hour blackout, that certainly fended it off some for sure but not completely. The following day did a test phosphates test with hanna checker and got back 0. The lights were on normal cycle 12 hours that day and by the end of the day noted a considerable come back on the Dino's part. I cut the lights from 10 - 6, added Chemi Pure Elite, and have continued daily with dosing peroxide. As of now the corals and livestock are doing fine a couple look better than they did prior to this mess including an SPS Frag that I have never seen look so good before. The initial Zoa Colony that first closed is a quarter opened and the other two large colonies that closed are partially coming back but the huge strands of it over the back wall and sand have not come back. On a side note the Alkalinity keeps dropping like an Anchor daily, it was down to 6.27 today, so added 1/2 cap of seachem Alkalinity to the water and will continue checking daily as well as adding to see if i can get that up. Cal @ 490 & Mg @ 1400 so I guess my few SPS corals must really be sucking it down or it's simply precipitating? I would like to do a water change but seeing that simply adding fuel to the fire I am hesitant in doing so, so I might just wait till Monday (2 weeks) Before doing so... I will definitley be doing a couple more peroxide doses but I imagine I should stop soon as I don't know when it will become a point that it becomes harmful to my inhabitants.