Cyano (Red Slime), causes and solution

[Kizzy911]

Please feel free to chime in as i talk about cyano from my own experience and the solution to it for others with questions to learn and to understand the problems with cyano.

Cyano also known as the red slime algae is a bacteria that feeds not only from the waste in the sand or substrate used, but it also is photosynthetic and will also grow based on the light source. The red slime that cyano produces isn't the actual bacteria itself. The Bacteria resides within/under/IN your substrate.

Cyano can spread quickly and we have to understand the cause.

there are plenty of causes of cyano,
-left over food/over feeding
Left over food in the tank causes bacteria to build up around it and cause a bloom.

- substrate not being cleaned
This one goes with left over food and over feeding because it settles down in the substrate and it doesn't get cleaned, it rots and becomes food for cyano bacteria.

-too much light
Cyano is also feeds from the light. Long periods of lights in the aquarium helps with the growth and the spread of the bacteria.

-not enough flow
The left over food settles in a spot where there's no flow. Like i've said before it rots and becomes food.

Now that we know the causes, from these we can find out where the outbreak is coming from.
If theres are a few spots in which theres more cyano, we should make use of the causes and figure out how it started. (e.g., no flow, over feeding, light)

There are solutions to which this can be solved.

in my personal experience, i've had my luck with Chemi-clean (blue bottle $7 or so in amazon)
But before that, i've tried something else, that seemed to work just a little bit although it didn't fully extinguish the bacteria.
-My method that i used was the Blackout.
With this, you may risk your corals, i had a bunch of frag plugs and didn't have too much corals to relocate. I Moved my corals to a smaller tank and let my tank sit with no light for 3 days.
After those three days you see that the slime was deteriorating
After putting all my corals back, a week later the cyano was back, although it wasn't heavily infested like it was before.

Other methods:
-Physically remove the slime as it can act as another food source for the bacteria. Reminder: the slime isn't the actual bacteria, the bacteria resides within your substrate. (although it won't eradicate it, it will help and slow it down while you think of other methods)

-Like i've said (cut down on light source: blackout)

-Add powerhead to get flow around the tank:
-Move around rocks so cause a circulation of the flow in all parts of the tank rather than being clogged up.
-Focus on badly infected areas, increase flow.

-Like i've said before (Chemiclean) cheap bottle used to get rid of cyano. (read instructions as listed for your tank)
-You might want to turn the bubbler off your skimmer as this will cause it to go crazy.
-You can also the skimmer completely off but it's better to keep it running without bubbles, just let it overflow into the sump.
-In less than a day you will definitely see results
-It is reef safe and will not harm fishes, corals, inverts, etc.
-Follow instructions and do a water change 2 days later.
-If it's still heavy, try a second dose (like i did)


It's been a while and no sign of cyano. make sure you understand where the problem is coming from or it will keep coming back.

[Tautoga]

I never had it in any tank until I got it my 75 gallon with fish only. I tried mega dosing the tank with erythromycin and I tried the cyano killer stuff from the LFS. Nothing worked. It always came back with a vengeance.

My only recourse was to wait until the last fish in the tank died and I let the tank sit fallow for a year with no lights and topping off the tank with tap water.

Then this past summer, I siphoned all the sand out of the tank, removed the rocks, cleaned what little scum was left on the glass and filled the tank with fresh water and poured 8 gallons of concentrated bleach into the system.

Everything that was going to be re-used was bleached, all buckets, the garbage can I use to make salt water, all water change hoses, all plastic baskets for the filter, the protein skimmer, the glass tops, everything. I wiped down all the tubing, connections on the aquarium and bleached the sink I use to wash filters. Everything that couldn't be bleached that had ever been in the tank or used to clean the tank or filters was thrown out.

The bleach sat in the tank for a week then I did a complete water change with tap water and it still smelled like bleach but I let that sit for another week followed by another water change and another rinse to get rid of the remaining chlorine.

I re-started with new sand, new rocks everything.

If that didn't get rid of it, then I give up.

[Kizzy911]

Originally Posted by Tautoga

I tried mega dosing the tank with erythromycin and I tried the cyano killer stuff from the LFS. Nothing worked. It always came back with a vengeance.

Did you try Chemi-Clean at all? it's in a small blue box?