aaron23 said:
Well obviously my advice is not dose a ton of alkalinity. Test and dose with intelligence, keeping alkalinity on the higher side will slow / kill the growth and cyno.
My point was to one, second nanoreefer's point and two to point out that an insanely high alk, in my case, did nothing to slow the growth of the cyano.
A skimmer won't remove phosphate which is the number one cause of cyano.
What I love about forums is it's where hobyists (not marine biologists) talk about what has worked
for them. In the not so distant past hobyists were growing SPS and the scientists were explaining why SPS could never be kept in captivity. The spread of this "what worked for me was..." is what leads to our new inovations.
On forums people post the equivalent of "I have a Chevy Malibu and my alternator broke! How do I change it"
A helpful response is not:
"Only own a Honda. Go buy a honda."
Sometimes people don't have your "perfect" setup and need help. In this case telling them what was worked for you can be helpful. Last week on one of the vidcast sites was a guy with a 65 gallon low flow NO SKIMMER SPS tank that was sick!!!! No fuge, and Barebottom!! It's been up for 5 years and it looks great. HE HAS a sick SPS tank with NO SKIMMER!!!!!!!
Of course we would all have some advise for him but aparently we still don't know everything that there is to know about this hobby.
My advise on cyano:
1. Get rid of the problem, not the symptom. Your levels are off, most likely you have high phosphates. Figure out where it is coming from and correct it (often tap water or not
thouroughly rinsed frozen food).
2. Use chemi-pure if after a week of doing everything you can to remove phosphates you still see no imporvement. (This treats the symptom and not your problem)