CYANO: how to fix it.

[Sk8r]

Cyanobacteria AKA cyano is not an algae. It's a bacterial sheet. It's red or brown (according to your lighting) and it has oxygen bubbles in it. This stuff is ancient and ubiquitous (everywhere). It gave Earth its oxygen after the Permian Extinction (before the rock that got the dinos). It is the foundation of the photosynthesis of all green plants.

So forget trying to avoid it. It's probably in every house and pond on the planet.

Every tank is likely to have outbreaks particularly in spring and fall, particularly as the planet's angle shifts relative to the sun and sunlight starts reaching the tank from windows that never used to reach it. Guaranteed cyano outbreak.

Also when your lights are nearing their expiration: MH is good, eg, for about 8 months to a year before it undergoes a spectrum shift and becomes unuseful. Write the date of acquisition or expiration in laundry marker on your lights or in your logbook and you'll never be left wondering if you should make an 80.00 light replacement now or later.

And beginners should NOT use chemical means of ridding themselves of cyano unless you have a monster skimmer. Without a skimmer potent enough to take out the dieoff, you can crash a tank.

The best method for a moderate case is a 3 day lights-out once a month. Won't hurt corals. But a total blackout is NOT good for dragonets, who go profoundly to sleep and can be attacked by, yes, snails. So if you have dragonets or wrasses, just turn the lights out and don't drape the tank.

You MUST have a skimmer to do this efficiently. However, a water change after lights-on can do good. And both are not a bad idea. This exports the dieoff.

When turning your lights on, run only the blue lights on the fourth day, then go back to normal on the fifth. This lets everything wake up naturally, as when cloud breaks after a bad storm.

You must repeat this process several months running to really get rid of the pest. Using a [never used for turkey!] turkey baster to siphon out the red sheets before you start the process is helpful.

You'll generally see your corals emerge undamaged. They mostly suffer from lack of light while covered by the red sheet. The bacteria themselves do no apparent harm.

Remember: patience. Do this no oftener than once a month, for 3 months. With water changes.

[Sk8r]

I'm posting copies of articles like this on my RC blog. Admin has thinned the sticky ranks and asked us not to clutter the top of the forum, which is a good thing. But---you can find my informational posts at any time by hitting the little blue number under my avatar.

Hope this helps you.