cyanobacteria

[davelin315]

Here's a picture of cyanobacteria under a microscope. I'm looking for a video of it moving but haven't located it yet on my laptop.

 

[Lee Stearns]

Dave thanks for the great background material on this.

Pam,

I know your set up is well run. My own experience is that it is most likely related to aging Bulbs.

 

Of Course getting the excess nutrients out of the tank is always a good thing- you might turn up your skimmer to do a bit wetter skimming. Running carbon is a generic trap for extra nutrients and is not a bad thing at this point- but go slow as too much carbon too fast can affect your corals. A little Phosphate remover (Rowa phos or phos guard) also could help, as between the Phos, nitrogen, and light frequency are what has sparked this stuff into growing.

 

Your tank wil get over this, and as many have said a bit more flow seems to fight it as well- Your tank has good flow so I would not get too excited about increasing that. Siphoning just before the lights go out is generally the easiest and gets the most cyno out at the end of a fast growing day. I have played with Anti-bacteria tablets in a nano reef to get rid of the stuff- Actually placed the tablet on the cyno and then moved the tablet around over new patches as it disolved- Relly whacked the Cyno back in a fish and softy only Nano. Worked good for short periods of a few weeks but, changing the bulbs in the Nano got rid of the stuff- I have also had the stuff in my main tank- and changing out the MH bulbs after working to get excess nutrients out is what ultimately made the stuff go away, only to return about 12 months later- guess what time to change the MH bulbs in my main tank.

 

I would love to see how your tank has improved over the last year at some point.

Regards,

Lee

[jason the filter freak]

Is it just a coincidence or has any one else noticed a sharp increase in cyano activity in the clubs tanks, or peoples tanks in general? I work in a store that deals in a high about of fish, fish goods, tanks etc. And for as long as I remember I haven't received the number of cyano complaints in fresh and saltwater tanks, ever as I have received in the last month. In addition I am of course having my own problems with it. Is there a possibility that there is an x factor in the water we're missing? Or another thought, could it be the swing in over all ambient temp of our houses and the swings they go though in the winter? Even with a temp controller I'm seeing very "significant" swings in my temp gradient though out the day. I assume some people with the aqua keepers, computers etc can actually log any temp swings, but then again have more advanced systems with chillers, controllers, larger more temp stable bodies of water, where they don't experience the swings that we do. This is not to discount overfeeding/nutrient abundance, lighting, flow etc as causes. Could other factors how ever be making it worse, or driving the problem over the edge? Thoughts?

[jamal]

well my temp rarely fluctuates more that 1 degree per day with a decent sump. i need to replace my pc bulbs next month so that is probably a factor but after adding a phosban reactor last week and running it a couple of days and doing a water change after that my no3 came down 3ppm and the cyano has stopped growing. i dont believe flow is an issue in my tank as my turnover is 5200 gph right now. perhaps there are some nutrients present in our salt mixes that has spurred this outbreak. if a correlation were discovered that would be very fasicinating and perhaps lead to some solution that may not yet be available

[Ne0eN]

This is what i know about Denitrate. Again. I have heard about if a few times, but the folks at Marine Scene and Wallys really got me thinking about it. De*nitrate