Help me get rid of my cyano bacteria

[gkimble]

I have a 72 galloon bowfront sps tank.
Tank has been setup for 4 months
I have a 15 gallon refuge
I have a 20 gallon sump
I have 2 maxihet mods (1600GPH)
I have a 2000GPH return
ASM GX1 skimmer pulls out really nasty gunk. Fulll cup once a week
I have a Phosban reactor with phosban
I have a phosban reactor with Black diamond carbon
I have 2 onyx clownfish
1 kole tang
1 candy hog
2 pajama cardinals
I have around 150 pounds of live rock
The carbon has been running for 5 weeks. Should I get rid of the carbon?
I feed my fish omega flakes once evrey day.
My nitrate levels are 0 to 5.
Calcium is 440
alk is 8.2
PH. 8.2
magnesium 1300
I have been doing 10 gallon water changes every week, but I have been busy and only was able to do 10 gallon change for the last 2 weeks.
The cyano was really heavy in my fuge, and then progressed into my main display today.
I really want to get rid of this nasty crap. I changed my Aqua FX 4 stage RODI filters 2 months ago.
I am lost on whre to begin. I really don't want to have to deal with the red plague. I have some beatifull SPS i my display that I would hate to lose.
I am thinking about doing these things:
Getting a tunze nano wavebox for more flow.
Changing the fish food.
doing 10 gallons every week on Friday.
change the carbon
Change the phosban
Changing my MH bulbs (They are only 6 months old.)

What else should I try.

[Gary Majchrzak]

leave your MH bulbs alone!
I'm surprised you feed your Cardinalfish and Hog nothing but flake... or do you actually feed something else you forgot to mention?

during water changes I would siphon out cyano.

[gkimble]

I feed some spectrum like once in a blue moon. and every once in a while they get a little bryopsis when I feed my chalices. I will get on track about doing 10 gallon water changes.
The other thing that sucks is that I have some bryopsis sprouting around. I am slowley raising my mag levels to 1500 to 1600 to try and fix that problem. I kinda wish I wouldn't have done a refuge. Any idea why it started in that tank?
At one point I had 2 cardinals and 2 onyx clowns in the fuge when they were babies.
The thing that is so mind boggling is that my corals are more colorfull than ever during this imbalance in my system
I am going to have to get a new TDS meter to test my RODI unit.
Should I do 2 10 gallon water changes once a week?
Ih and one more thing, I keep my lights on for about 10 hours a day. MH on for 7 and my T5's on for 10. My fuge light is on when my display tank is off.
Thanks

[Gary Majchrzak]

this aquarium is 4 months old?

[lilalove]

Do you have macroalgae in the fuge? It starts there because flow is more subdued in the fuge. I noticed cyano as well when I first set mine up. A couple of snails took care of the problem.

[Jerm77]

Originally posted by gkimble

I am going to have to get a new TDS meter to test my RODI unit.

grab one of those dual (in/out) in line TDS meters. they are like $35 bucks. spectrapure makes one. a conductivity meter will tell you how well your DI is working.

[gkimble]

Yes the tank is 4 months old.
And I have around 4 trochus snails and around 10 nasarius(SP?)
Still is coming on like a red storm. The wierd thing now is the cyano on the sand is turning green in my fuge. I am going to turn my ligh off for 4 days on my fuge and put the light on my sump to see what that does.

The rock has been cycling in my tank for 6 months. But got everything set up 2 months later.
Very small amount of cyano in my display.

[Boyman]

I would add a lot more snails. I don't think that is enough snails for a 72g.

[gkimble]

Originally posted by Boyman
I would add a lot more snails. I don't think that is enough snails for a 72g.

no no this is in my 15 gallon fuge.
In my display I have 30 trochus and 30 nasarius, 15 hermits, and 10 astria's

[blueye]

I had the same problem.My 300 gal.SPS tank was setup and running for 3 to 4 mths.I tried everything to correct the problem more flow,less feeding ,more water changes.Cut back on lighting,it just came back.I went to my LFS they told me about using anti-red made by Aqua Medic.I went home,clean the rock and the sand as much as I could to get rid of it.Then dosed with anti-red and waited. Do not run your phosban or carbon .After the third day I did a 20% water change.Still there was some left in the tank.By the end of the week,the tank was showing no signs of cyano.It has been over 2 mths. now and my sand is white and live rock shows pink and purple coraline algae all over.My headache was gone!

[Flipper62]

Here is a good artical on Cyano Bacteria

This is from a past post from Capn hylinur.......

http://www.reefcentral.com/wp/?p=288

[gkimble]

Thanks for all the help guys. I want to try to find the source and keep the chemicals at ease for now.

[WhatIgot]

Hey there, same tank, similar equipment and bioload.
I had horrible cyano until I moved one of the mjs (upgraded) to the top of the tank so there is significant surface air/water interaction.
My tank is open top so I was surprised this did the trick but after I made this change I basically just siphoned the cyano out once and that was it.

Tank at the time was only 6 months old, so my timing might just have been good.

My 2 cents though

[gkimble]

My maxi jets are towards the top as well, I need more flow towards the sand.