Thats definitely Cyano and i just got done(hopefully) with a 6 month battle with it in my 55. I tried every single method out there. I did several 1 week blackouts and dosed KN03 until i had 15ppm and it didnt help, so i slowly increased it to 30ppm and it got much worse. From my experiences with it im fairly certain that in some cases the only way to treat it is with an anti-biotic(maracyn). It just kept coming back no matter how many times i thought id gotten rid of it using traditional methods, and i even broke the tank down and swapped out all of the substrate to try and kill it, but it was back within a week. So after a long a fruitless battle i gave up and used medicine on my tank for the first time ever. I just got done with a 5 day treatment and i havent seen any at all. Im keeping my fingers crossed that this will work.
btw- The slime itself isnt the bacteria, its a form of protection that the bacteria uses as a shield and also uses to harvest energy. Basically, once you see the slime then its too late because that means that theres already a bacterial colony. Some people have gotten it in parts of their tank that doesnt have any flow and were able to remove it for good, but most of the time once it takes hold youll have to do something drastic like a long blackout or maracyn to actually kill it. Also, keep in mind that if you do use maracyn you need to clean out as much of it as possible and do a large water change before you start the treatment. Then once its begun make sure you get out all of the dead cyano asap so that it doesnt cause phosphate spikes in your water. Its a good idea to perform these steps when youre doing a blackout as well. Others have said that it wasnt necessary, but i did it just to be safe. Good luck man. I truly hope yours isnt as persistant as mine was.
btw- The slime itself isnt the bacteria, its a form of protection that the bacteria uses as a shield and also uses to harvest energy. Basically, once you see the slime then its too late because that means that theres already a bacterial colony. Some people have gotten it in parts of their tank that doesnt have any flow and were able to remove it for good, but most of the time once it takes hold youll have to do something drastic like a long blackout or maracyn to actually kill it. Also, keep in mind that if you do use maracyn you need to clean out as much of it as possible and do a large water change before you start the treatment. Then once its begun make sure you get out all of the dead cyano asap so that it doesnt cause phosphate spikes in your water. Its a good idea to perform these steps when youre doing a blackout as well. Others have said that it wasnt necessary, but i did it just to be safe. Good luck man. I truly hope yours isnt as persistant as mine was.
