Please Help - I Am Useless

[LouiseRat]

my hubby has a nano reef tank about 2 foot , we have had the tank from just after xmas and have continuously had cyano in there , at first it was brown , now it is scarlet red and has been for 3 months , everything we try doesnt work to get rid of it , we tried cleaning 3 times a day with a toothbrush , with water changes . then we thouht go the other way and it will run its course , but its still there

we have a black clownfish and a ocilarus nemo looking clownfish and a pj wrasse in there with 8 turbo snails 4 serith snails , 6 hermit crabs , a peppermint shrimp and an emerald mythrax crab .

my hubby seems to of lost heart with the hobby because of this cyano and for the fishes sake it needs to be sorted so i have stepped in and thought i would pop on here and ask peeps who know what they are doing , what on earth do we do to get rid of the cyano for good?

 

[norite]

Hi, what are your phosphate and nitrate levels like? if you don't know then get some test kits, and report the results back on here...

 

[N1z]

Few questions, do you use Ro water? If not you start needing too as normal tap water contains sulphates and phosphates that cause this.
Also do you run phosphate remover? As this ill tkae out the food that the cyano lives off.

And finally my way to kill it off is:

Cut down feeding
Cut the lighting hours
And dont do many water changes this way you will starve the cyano bacteria, which is the best way to rid of it.

Some peoplle say flow can stop it but tbh it never worked for me so best tyr the other option first.
But generally speaking it should be gone within 2 weeks if u dont do a water change for that long.

 

[LouiseRat]

my hubby did all tests 2 days ago and said everything is spot on as it should be (we have the big hagen master testing kit and we bought a few individual test kits too so we have the whole lot ) he also tested using the refractometer and all levels of everything are as they should be (we really have a crazy amount of testing stuff)

 

[norite]

Your phosphate levels should be zero. Ideally, your nitrate levels should also be zero.

 

[LouiseRat]

yep we used rowaphos phosphate remover and the level is at 0 , also we always use r/o water , we havent done a water change for a weel or so but we do have the lighting on for around 12 hours a day , we only feed them once per day with either brine shrimp or marine food mix , the expensive one also should i be cleaning off the live rock with a toothbrush 3 times daily or just leave it ?

 

[ox5477]

yep we used rowaphos phosphate remover and the level is at 0 , also we always use r/o water , we havent done a water change for a weel or so but we do have the lighting on for around 12 hours a day , we only feed them once per day with either brine shrimp or marine food mix , the expensive one also should i be cleaning off the live rock with a toothbrush 3 times daily or just leave it ?

If you wanna scrub the lr before a water change, this could help, but just scrubbing the rock without the wc will do nothing as the algae will just float around and eventually land somewhere else. Plus, you might scrub off some beneficial things from the LR if you do a real thorough job so idk, just keep the glass clean and do a wc after you scrub the glass and this will help

 

[LouiseRat]

i just thought aswell if we cut down the lighting time will that do any damage to our coral , we only have 1 which is a toadstoom/mushroom coral which our clownfish host ?

so if im understanding correct i need to

cut down lighting time
no water changes
feed once every other day

 

[N1z]

yup, and the one thing u will notice when it starts to die is it gets hole in it and becomes like a greeny yellow ting in the wholes.

 

[SkiFletch]

Do you know the TDS of your RO water? It's possible that your RO membrane (no matter how new) has gone south and is leeching phosphates/nitrates/silicates into the water causing a fuel for the cyano... I would also consider dropping your light cycle to 8 hours and then changing what you're feeding. Your food could be adding fuel for the cyano. Remember, just because you're tests show 0 phosphates or nitrates, that's because the cyano is growing so fast it's consuming the nutrient before you can effectively test for it.