Update On My Tank

[Siamese Fighter05]

My Astrae will eat it off the rocks but they never even go on the substrate, let alone munch off it Hermits do a great job for me

Here's what im doing to remove the Cyano.

Increase water changes to twice a week, using some tubing to suck it off the substrate,
Increased cleaner crew especially hermits and ceriths.
Use my RO unit properly

I will get around to using a small internal with carbon and rowphos but im skint ATM

Goodluck

 

[SkiFletch]

Interesting SH, my astrea's wont touch the stuff... The only surface that they've eaten it off is my pvc sump return pipe. They wont touch it on the rocks, glass, or substrate. Very weird.

One thing I'd like to chime in about flowrate, I have to disagree with the master Navarre. At least the species of cyan I have doesn't respond to increasing flowrate. I setup a cyano-covered rock right under the powerful jet from my maxi so that the hardest stream was flowing on it as a test. The cyano didn't budge. So then I vaccumed off what was on that rock still leaving it right in the stream. Within 3 days the cyano had grown right back, high flowrate be damned. I also experimented directing the flow towards my sandbed which at the time had lots of cyano on it too... I'll give everybody two guesses to what happened but you'll only need one. Man that was a cloudy mess

There is unfortunately no real catch-all answer to cyano. What works for some, doesn't work for others. Maybe flowrate will work for you maidenfan, maybe not. Gotta try em all and see what works for you.

 

[maidenfan]

guys thank you so much for all your replies

to be honest i'm still not 100% sure it's cyno looking at pic from steelh looks more red and pink compared to mine which is defo more rusty brown and my LFS reckon its not either but i'm not saying you guys are wrong either to be honest i've got advice coming from all sides and i'm a bit confused but whatever it is i have to cope with it, deal with it and move on, which now knowing i'm not the only one suffering with this type of prob is comforting

i'm following near enough the method of sf05 at the moment except i'm already using rowphos in my external filter so going see how i go

a quick word on the powerheads i find it bloody difficult to position them to give good movement around the tank without removing half my substrate into the water like i've said going try another powerhead behind the rock to try stop any dead spots there may be there

i'm a bit worried too about removing my media from my trickle filter just hope i've done right thing i know people say they breed nitrates which in turn feed my algea but was still bit nervous dismantling it

i was hoping to take a breather and just let the tank run a week ago but now i'm back in battle again nevermind hey anyway thanks again please keep posting on your cyno remidies and updates and i will do likewise then at least newbies will know what theve got coming to them

maybe we could have a pinned algea topic cheers

 

[SkiFletch]

As for the ID... I have to the best of my knowledge 5 different strains of cyano going in my tank. One is a dull brown, the second is bright red like SH's shots, the third is a deep green, the fourth a neon green, and the fifth a dull red (inbetween SH's and a straight brown). So, this stuff comes in many variations

 

[maidenfan]

hi quick update and request for ID on something growing on my LR

been LFS today and had them check my water
as follows

am 0.00
nitrite 0.00
nitrate below 5
phosphate 0.00
sg 1.018 agghhhhhhh

got sg back up to 1.024
found out my hydrometer is naff anyway changed to old type glass on advice of LFS until i can get refractormeter

got positive ID on algea defo cyno but all part of cycle, not looking too bad at moment

and finally got this growing on rock any ideas anybody??

 

[SkiFletch]

yikes, thats one way off hydrometer...

About the ID, i'm honestly not too sure. Could be a soft coral or sponge. Tough to tell from the pic, but does it have any texture to it, or is it just that amorphous blob?

 

[maidenfan]

it looks as it is in pic ski just to add it is domed in shape is transperant and is pink in the centre where it joins the rock it looks as if the tranparent part is made up of loads of little tubes

found out the red sea hydrometer is reading 0.03 below so when i got 1.022 it was 1.019

 

[maidenfan]

hi all
not posted for a while with holidays, work and stuff anyway things seem to be moving in the right direction at the momment with my tank. cyno has receaded for now my water readings are stable and ive had a new fish

how are we coping with the heat?

here are some pics

he's a orange spotted goby and has settled in fine up to yet

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow, great lookin little goby, and thats one awesome macro shot

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Very nice!

Can you get a pic of the clowns together please? They look so different now

 

[maidenfan]

cheers ski he's great so different to the clowns in his ways so makes a great contrast in the tank

hmm the clowns now these little fellows are keeping out of each others way at the momment or should i say the smaller darker one is, to be honest i've been quite worried about him because the other one has bullied him quite bad even damaged one of his fins at times but i've since found out that this can be quite normal and the bigger clown could be changing into a lady and its hormones etc etc

as soon as the lights go out however they are side by side waddling away so i'm not to worried now

here are some pics best i could do i'm afraid

 

[SkiFletch]

Not sure how much or how often you feed your clowns, but I notice that mine bully each other when I underfeed them...

 

[maidenfan]

well at the momment i feed them frozen food every other day on the advice from lfs i sometimes put the odd flake off dried food in in between is this enough?

 

[SkiFletch]

I tried the every other day method, and thats when they nipped at each other. Now I feed frozen daily (in the evenings) to everybody and if I'm home when lights are on earlier in the day I give some pellet/flake for asnack. I haven't seen an ounce of nitrates in my testing since about week 3-4 of my tank, so I'm pretty confident that a little overfeeding isnt hurting me . Dunno what your situation is with nutrients though...

 

[maidenfan]

mmmmmm intresting stuff

i've noticed since i've had the goby i'm obviously feeding a little more frozen and like i said putting the odd flake inbetween the bigger clown is not quite as bad towards the other so you mite be right ski

as for nutrients mmmmm not sure my nitrates climb to about 10ppm inbetween water changes but i have no algea blooms at the momment cyno as completly vanished and coralline algea seems to be flourishing so all seems well at the momment

by the way the polyfilter and rowaphos media iv'e put in the external filter have worked really well for me

i've also found a brilliant book which ive found good advice and a whealth of knowledge its called Reef Secrets by Alf Jacob Nilsen and Svein A. Fossa

the main thing it teaches you is patience because even the best of us have a tendancy to try and rush a tank and get fish corals etc in there as fast as possible of course thats what we want to look at but after reading and and looking at what the likes of stealhealr have to say i've slowed right down. all these algea blooms and cyno are quite normal its just your tank settling down but when you don't know it scares the life out of you. as long as you follow good practice's with your water changes, filtration system etc the only other thing you need is patience.

my tanks been running 5 months now i've just added my third fish plan one more in about a month then don't plan any corals until close to xmas i'm planning to complete my setup one year after starting but if it takes longer i don't mind

so don't expect me to be posting in members tanks for a while yet