SPS 3 Days in The Dark - Cayno Issues

[jackson6745]

I just wanted to share my experience with you guys. It might be helpful for some. I have a young 115g SPS reef (3 months) that has the contents of my previous 60 reef. Around the 2 month mark I started seeing some cyano and it spread all over the sand eventually. It wasn't affecting any of the SPS however it was growing over zoa and acans. I had to turkey baste these corals daily to make sure they weren't smothered.

I want the reef to mature naturally so slime removers were out of the question for me. I believe they are counter productive to our reef tank, eliminating good bacteria as well. I run an ultra low nutrient reef, only growing a small haze on the glass every 4 day, but this wan't enough to stop cyano growth. I believe my cyano growth is a response to my bioload of 14 fish in a young reef. Their waste forces bacteria to grow. IME eventually nitryifing bacteria out competes cyano, and the cyano disappears??. but this can take a while.

I read several threads and articles about running your reef with no light for several days. Apparently your corals are fine with this but cyano dies off. Quite a few SPS tanks did this successfully so I decided to give it a shot since I was tired of turkey basting every day.

So, I killed the lights The next day I checked the alk and cal expecting a reduction in consumption since there was no light. To my surprise, my levels were exactly the same and I did notice more SPS growth?. in the dark! This continued throughout the 3 days of darkness. Actually, I noticed a growth spurt. My sps grew faster than normal. I had no idea that they grew at night.:thrash:

Today was the first day with lights back on. There was only a few tiny pieces of cyano left. I did a 15 gal water change sucking out what I could and I was very pleased with the results. The tank was almost completely rid of cyano and the the SPS looked healthy. I did notice a slight fading in color from that lack of light, but polyp extension was excellent and corals looked healthy. Time will tell if the cyano will grow back. I will update my experience in the next week or two.


Before the blackout (only t5 lighting)

IMG_7820 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

After blackout (halide on)

IMG_7885 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

 

[don]

cyano what type of lighting? you can add some vodka small dose 8ml am pm will kick it back must also skim heavily to remove cyano the problem with carbon dosing is the alum will ad hear to pump surfaces you also must do h2o changes and keep it up certain lighting combinations will enhance cyano can you adjust channels of led?it is not easy to establish 100 cyano free nutrient loads as a closed system traps by products of protein degradation. it will take abut a week to see long term results

 

[Rickyrooz]

I am curious to see if it comes back, mine would come back after a few days of turning the lights back on until I took out my sanded out.

 

[don]

also has to do with sand bed cyano layers onto the sand bed substrate because of several reasons mainly do to the natural ionic charge of the sand substrate, to break the bond is not an easy bio chemical fix, there has been disagreement in the reef community of the proper course of action it is my opinion that someone will come up with a pretreated substrate that will be able to be electrically charged to solve this problem once and for all

 

[bvega789]

thanks for sharing man i needed that, i noticed without light all nuisance bacteria & algae like hair algae and cyano disappear

 

[don]

you could increase your kelvin to running 20,000k bulbs for a while this will remove some red and green which may help

 

[don]

change one bulb at a time record everything so you can look back easily to see if it helps

 

[NYreefNoob]

cyano what type of lighting? you can add some vodka small dose 8ml am pm will kick it back must also skim heavily to remove cyano the problem with carbon dosing is the alum will ad hear to pump surfaces you also must do h2o changes and keep it up certain lighting combinations will enhance cyano can you adjust channels of led?it is not easy to establish 100 cyano free nutrient loads as a closed system traps by products of protein degradation. it will take abut a week to see long term results

dont really understand anything you said. and you cant give a specific amount of vodka dosing without knowing the size of someone's tank. and if you do a little research you will find alot of people had the outbreak after starting a vodka schedule.

Rich one of the reasons you might have noticed the growth is because of the lighting you are using. the lights out may have given the corals time to catch up. something you might play with is reducing the mh time amount to see if you notice more growth with less of the mh

 

[motortrendz]

I agree with noob, you need to calculated the amount of vodka you dose in a system and it goes in a ramp up ramp down type of cycle. If you add too much you can cause explosive breakouts of algae and bacteria blooms. If you are running a low nutrient system are you doing it on your own? Or with a zeo system? Either way what type of additives are you using and How much? I've run zeo for a while and noticed that if I followed the instructions on dosing expecially with amino acids I had bacteria blooms. Also I would cut the MH time down by 10% at a time. Keeping your T5 time the same.

 

[jackson6745]

don, The lighting is a 400w 20k Radium and 4 T5's. Water changes, heavy skimming, gfo, etc? Good methods of nutrient transport are being done. Besides the cyano, this tank has all characteristics of a clean low nutrient reef. 4 days will go by before I see any growth on my glass. I usually don't like my reef this clean but in an effort to shorten the life span of cyano I want to limit its food source. As for the bulb change, you're right. All my T5's are over a year old. I'm going to change them all out.


Ricky, you and me both. It's the second day and so far no new cyano growth.

Rick, I had that thought in the back of my mind as well. My MH photoperiod was 5 1/2 hrs previously. I reduced it to 3hrs for now to acclimate the corals to bright light again. I'll see if I hit a sweet spot as I ramp up photoperiod again.

Motortrendz, good to see you back on this site I was using prodibo on this tank since the beginning but I stopped after cyano started and began using Microbe lift Special Blend. I had good experience with this STINKY bacteria additive, and I know many others that had great results as well. Only problem is it takes around 6 weeks to fully eradicate the cyano (I am 3 weeks into dosing it)


As for the vodka/vinegar.. I have no idea. I've dabbled a little in the past, but I don't have a great understanding of the effects of it. I know what it does but it's a little too volatile for me to dial in a correct nutrient balance. If I was in desperation after months of battling cyano I would consider it, but this tank is only 3 months old (with 14 fish). I stock too fast and I expected a cyano outbreak I always seem to do this lol

I hope that the special blend bacteria starts to take effect now that most of the cyano has died off. We'll see.

 

[NYreefNoob]

ive started almost everyone of my tanks with special blend and niteout 2. was one of the few companies i was actually impressed with their knowledge of the product. macna in nj the rep gave me a few of their products to try out and use. i have a thread either on here on rc in reguards to it

 

[MrBanGa]

Thanks for all this information

 

[jackson6745]

Today is the 5th day since turning lights on and I see some light cyano patches starting to form again. It's only 10% of what it was but this stuff can grow fast as we all know. I'll update in a few days.

 

[NYreefNoob]

honestly i never noticed a down side when using red slime remover. sps or zoa's never seemed any change except actually better pe

 

[ABCDFISHES]

I

 

[NYreefNoob]

^^^ thats a good way to get banned on here

 

[jackson6745]

I was told if u put ur gooch in the tank and dip ur sack in three days in a row that the cyano will go away and then fly the helicopter right into the tank and the problem will be solved!!!!!!

lmao I have to try that

 

[jackson6745]

honestly i never noticed a down side when using red slime remover. sps or zoa's never seemed any change except actually better pe

I used the cyano solution and SPS colors faded?. no big deal. But over the next 3 months I didn't get the colors or growth back the same and PE was not the same.

 

[Pseudo]

I had cyano in my tank for a 2 week period and then nothing. Less fish bio-load than you and I am running a hell of a lot of equipment. I think the ozone reactor and pellet reactor had a big part in my cyano relief.

I also have a ton of life in my sand bed so no food goes uneaten which can cause problems also.

 

[jackson6745]

I had cyano in my tank for a 2 week period and then nothing. Less fish bio-load than you and I am running a hell of a lot of equipment. I think the ozone reactor and pellet reactor had a big part in my cyano relief.

I also have a ton of life in my sand bed so no food goes uneaten which can cause problems also.

I am a bad reefer bro I let impulse fish purchase take over. I can't control myself. I deserve cyano!