Cynobacteria problem???

[Tommy Gun]

Hello everyone!

So, I do realize that this question is probrably a real hot topic :devil: and asked all the time, but I am stumped and need some more spacific input into my situation, so please bear with me...

I have a 90 gallon bowfront tank that is set up in the early stages of a reef tank (at least I hope that is what I can accomplish). It currently holds:

120# live rock
80# live sand
1 Bicolored Angel
1 Flame Angel
2 Green Chromis
1 Six-line Wrasse
3 trochus snails
5 turbo snails
1 scarlet reef hermit crab
25 small blue legged hermit crabs
1 Thin-bar Xenia

I have a sump, which adds about 20 more gallons of water to the system and in the end, taking into account the displacement of fish/sand/rock, is a true 90 gallon tank. I have a protein skimmer (corallife super skimmer) and a closed circut powerhead system that pumps 1200 gallons per hour through three powerheads. One additional powerhead is in the form of the sump return pump and is flowing at 500 gph. There is an overflow system and the overflow chamber is virtually algea free.

In the sump there are bioballs and a sponge seperating the main chamber from the return pump chamber. I was just recently informed that the sponge can be a big nitrate factory and have since removed it and it is being cleaned now. I also heard the same about the bioballs but have not removed them yet. It is an all-glass aquarium sump (but is acrylic, go figure) and probrably the most common type I have seen for sale at any LFS.

The tank is absolutely flourishing right now and my tiny little xenia that I got for free is growing already and I have only had it for a week or two now. I did not have any hermits until two weeks ago when I finally found a store that had the larger amount of smaller crabs that I wanted.

About two weeks ago I also switched salt types from Kent Sea Salt to Instant Ocean Reef Crystals. During that water change, I removed all the algea that was growing on the back wall of my tank. This algea started out as green hair algea and then turned into just green algea. Over a month's time, this green algea turned to be a redish/dark purplish type algea. I left it in the tank because the snails were feeding from it and my angel fish also picked at it. I was advised to remove it though and so I did. I got nearly 95% of it completely out of the tank with nets and filter traps, but of course, some did stay in little bits and chunks.

Two days ago I noticed a spot about the size of a quarter of this red/purple algea growing on the substrate. I took it out of the tank with a little shovel tool I have (including the sand underneath). Today I came home from work to find all of this same algea growing in a thin layer across the substrate and on one of my two large peices of live rock. These two rocks were actually base rock that is now pretty well cured and seeing some coraline algea.

My first and main question is....Is this cynobacteria or just a result of the small peices of algea that fell to the substrate?

Here is a picture of the small spot of algea I took out two days ago:

(Sorry so big, tried to resize but it was hard to see the spot)

 

[Tommy Gun]

Bump

 

[rohnds]

Hard tell if that cyano or diatomic.

I have heard a lot of bad reviews from others about IO.

Where is you skimmer? In the sump or in the display tank?
If you have an overflow box, it is more efficient to have the skimmer in the sump.

What are you actually water parameter? Cyano and diatom flourish due to high PO4 content? Are you using RO water? What is you NO3 levels?

When you measure tham, assume the reading to be little higher than what is read as presence of algae would produce a flase reading since blooming algae comsune the these nutrients (NO3 or PO4) to reduce the levels in the tank. That is why little bit of algae is always good thing.

Rohn

 

[Ghost_knife]

if max were here he'd say loose the crushed Coral, it leads to big problems, cyno is happening because of a "Dead" spot in your aquarium because of no-or little to no water movement. your best bet is to reposisition the powerhead so it will sweep across the area, personally I move several of mine from day to day. remove the affected area with turkey baster, Remember. if you have MTS or multiple tank syndrome the Equipment must not be shared between tanks.

 

[Tommy Gun]

Well, I dont have any crushed coral in this tank and agree with max about that subject...before I ever ran into him in this forum.

I did a test recently:

I do use ALL RO water in this tank. The RO water has a PO4 reading of 0 when it is in the garbage can in my basement. I mixed a small batch of RO water and IO Reef Crystals and another with Kent Sea Salt. The IO sample had 0 PO4 and the Kent sample had 5 ppm PO4.

Right now, the tank's parameters are:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5 to 10 ppm
PO4 - 10 ppm
Ph - 8.3 to 8.5
Calcium - over 500 ppm

I am slowly removing the bioballs and have already taken out the sponge from the sump. The skimmer is in the sump.

I cannot move the powerheads in the tank since they are on a closed curcuit system and plumbed up through the bottom of the tank. I am looking at getting a smaller one to add to the tank where the glow is limited or non existant. I will try to get as close as I can with what I have right now. The algea/cyno that is growing on the substrate I have no control over flow issues because I would just make a sand storm in the tank.

I will try the turkey baster tip.

Put a turbo snail on the rock with the most algea/cyno and it cleared a path in it as it worked its way off the rock.

Going to do some weekly water changes for three or four weeks to see if I can lower the PO4 and nitrates a bit.

Cannot really feed much less than I am. Feeding very small amount of marine flakes every other day, one time. Feeding brine shrimp every fourth day (or every other time I feed the flakes). Angels are picking at whatever algea that is growing on the tank, but there is little to no green algea. Suppliment with some sea weed/algea 'paper' in the tank when I feed brine shrimp.

Have a Thin-bar Xenia in the tank now and it is doing great.

I am wondering if the may be a type of hair algea. It does get really stringy if I let it grow for a couple days. Not sure if there is a red type of hair algea or not??????

This tank is not that old, maybe 5 months, so I am expecting some algea growth but another person thought this was cyno and so I am trying to catch it before it is out of control. Starting to feel a bit paranoid though.

 

[rohnds]

I never understood relationship between algae and dead spots. It is almost impossible to get rd of all the dead spots in tank. Almost all of the powerheads produce only horizontal laminar flow (except maybe in Seios and Tunze). In another word if powerheads are place at the top level, it will not provide water movement at the very bottom of the tank. If the powerheads are place at the bottom, then middle and top the tank will have very little movement.

Seios and Tunze provide a wider stream, yet unless you have half dozen of them in a 70gal tank, you just cannot eliminate all dead spot in your tank.

So how do you resolve (or remove) all dead spots in your tank. This is question and not a statement of disagreement with your post.

Rohn

 

[lebloom]

Hey, I'd give it some time with that cyano. I had problems for a long time and using those items you buy like Red Slime Remover and ChemiClean are a waste of time and money. Just keep changing your water regularly and sooner or later it'll be gone. Try to pick part of it out and that isn't easy. But when my tank came down with that stuff I tried all of this stuff and it helped for a short period of time but it came back. I always used RO and I've been using IO salt since I set up my tank and I don't think its the type of salt you could be using. I think this stuff is something that just happens and it happened to me after having my tank for over 2 years.