Cynobacteria issues

[Iraf]

So after moving our 58g tank there is a really bad cyno outbreak, is there a medication i can cycle through it to help clean this up faster? The stuff is coating the PH's and sand badly having to scrape it daily at this point

[BillyD]

I used some UltraLife Red Slime Remover, cleared it up in about 2 days. Keep in mind this is a quick fix. If it keeps comming back might look for other issues that cause it.

[Iraf]

I know moving a tank and stirring up all those nutrients in the sandbed is a really easy way to get a huge outbreak, I'll try that out and see if it clears up, also going to take the time to tell the LFS i want to see the test results off their RO tank

[BillyD]

Originally Posted by Iraf

also going to take the time to tell the LFS i want to see the test results off their RO tank

Excellent Idea.

Good luck on the Cyno!

[totter0817]

I am so tired of my cyano. I have tried regular chemiclean and just recently tried ultralife red slime remover. Its only covering one side of the sand bed in my tank. The other side doesn't have a trace of it. I have done aggresive vacumming on that one side and it still comes back everyday. I can't figure out why its only on the one side. Also, has anyone else noticed that after lights out the red slime is gone. I get my hopes every day when I first turn my lights on but after about an hour or two its back.

[BillyD]

Originally Posted by totter0817

I am so tired of my cyano. I have tried regular chemiclean and just recently tried ultralife red slime remover. Its only covering one side of the sand bed in my tank. The other side doesn't have a trace of it. I have done aggresive vacumming on that one side and it still comes back everyday. I can't figure out why its only on the one side. Also, has anyone else noticed that after lights out the red slime is gone. I get my hopes every day when I first turn my lights on but after about an hour or two its back.

How much flow do you have on that side of the tank? I had to rearange my powerheads to get some additional flow in an area that i couldnt get it to stop comming back in.

I have not noticed the cyno dissapear at night though, my Dino's do that though. hopefully this 24hr light rotation will help get rid of those. We shall see.

[totter0817]

I have two massive powerheads on eachside. If I move them anymore I end up with big crater holes in my sand bed.

[Iraf]

yeah same here, I have a mag-drive 7 primary return from sump and 2 maxi-jet 1200's so there is tons of flow

One question, with this stuff I have to turn the skimmer off for a while, would it be a safe bet to toss in a air pump/stone to the sump so there is plenty of oxygen getting put back into the water?

[BillyD]

Originally Posted by Iraf

yeah same here, I have a mag-drive 7 primary return from sump and 2 maxi-jet 1200's so there is tons of flow

One question, with this stuff I have to turn the skimmer off for a while, would it be a safe bet to toss in a air pump/stone to the sump so there is plenty of oxygen getting put back into the water?

yeah turn the skimmer off for a couple days, and a Airstone or pump isnt a bad idea aswell. I used about 2/3 of the recommended dosage.

[gazog]

This is a pretty good explanation of the how's and why's of Cryno. Unfortunatly I can't and won't take credit for this, but not only can I not find the site I got it off of a while ago I have no idea who wrote it.

Factors affecting Algae growth in the Reef Aquarium
Algae is a normal part of a reef aquarium. In fact it is an important source of food for both fish and inverts that make up the mini ecosystem that we enjoy so much.

Predation usually keeps the algae in check, problems only occur when favorable conditions enable the algae to grow at a rate that exceeds its consumption.

So the question is when you do get an algae problem, what is it that is giving the algae an advantage. For this we need to look at the resources algae needs to grow, light and nutrition

Light(ing):
This is an obvious, but misleading contributor to algae growth. Algae like all photosynthetic organisms obtain food from light. It seems logical then to think more light, equals more food, equals more algae. If this is true less light means less algae.

Well reducing the lighting levels in a fish only set up will probably have the desired affect, if you don't mind squinting at your fish. However in a reef aquarium where we are trying to grow photosynthetic organisms, in the form of coral, we would not only be killing the algae but also our expensive corals
(or plants in a fresh water aquarium)

My advice is therefore to leave the lighting alone and address the other factors that help algae to grow.

Water Flow:
This ones often takes people by surprise, after all why does algae care about water flow?

True enough in practice you can get algae growing in slow or fast moving water, but it is often associated with areas of slower moving water in the aquarium.

For example, red slime algae (cynobacteria) is as the name suggest often seen as a reddish slime covering an area. Being a slime it is easily disturbed by fast water flow, and indeed this will tend to prevent large colonies from developing.

This obviously does not work for filamentous algae's, so why do they prefer areas of slow water movement?

No doubt the gardner's amongst you have heard the term micro climate, where you get an area, often due to the surroundings, that has growing conditions at odds with those that may be generally be expected.

The same is happening in the aquarium. When water flow slows down, particles of waste matter or food, that were being held within the water, settle out forming a layer of detritus. Decomposition occurs within the detritus releasing phosphates and nitrates, food for the algae.

Once an area has been colonized by a hair or filamentous algae (even macro algae's) they help to increase the problem by further slowing the water flow in the immediate area thus harvesting more uneaten food and waste products.

Chemical Nutrients
Finding the culprit can be a tricky one, as the algae itself, can often produce a situation where the nutrients are undetectable my the test kits.

This problem can occur when the high nutrients are a localized phenomenon, due to a 'micro climate' caused by poor water flow allowing detritus build up and decomposition (as discussed above). In this situation you are unlikely to detect the nutrients in the rest of the water.

Even if the nutrient problem is more systemic, for example nutrient release from over feeding, the chances are that a large growth of algae will be sufficient to strip the water of the prime culprit. The only up side is that in this situation, the bloom is probably self limiting to the level dictated by the
availability of the undetectable nutrient. The detectable nutrients being whatever is left over and not in fact limiting the algae's growth


Nutrient import routes:
These are varied in nature, coming from food (eaten and uneaten), waste products from fish etc, top-up water (due to local levels of nitrates, phosphates), marine salts and even some carbon media.
Nutrient import is not in itself a problem as long as you have a matched level of nutrient export. I personally like to 'over' feed my aquarium. This ensures healthy, well fed fish and plenty of food for a healthy population of minor inverts, busily breeding to provide natural food for the aquarium residents.
Overfeeding is only possible without causing problems if you have adequate nutrition export roots.

Nutrient Export routes:
Mechanical means
Skimmers and mechanical filtration (only effective if changed very frequently) Both aim to remove waste materials before they break down into more readily available nutrients

Bacterial
Nitrates - Via the nitrate cycle (in deep sand beds, plenums, nitrate filters) Nitrates are broken down into nitrogen gas which disperses into the air by diffusion at the water surface

Assimilation into Bio matter
Phosphates and nitrates - used by growing Algae (rapidly), corals (slowly) and other inverts (in sand beds / refugiums ).

Note: The nutrients are only actually exported if removed from the aquarium, for example by harvesting Algae or corals. The rest of the assimilated nutrients are just temporarily locked into the bio matter. In this respect plenums and deep sand beds are excellent nutrient processors and nitrogen removers, but are not phosphate exporters on their own (without the use of algae etc). I am however a great fan of their ability to convert the nutrients into bio matter available for consumption by my fish and corals.

Temperature Fluctuation (seasonal algae blooms):
Cynobacter in particular is frequently seen in inadequately cooled aquariums in the summer. Possibly as a result of the general disturbance caused in the aquarium's 'natural' biological balance leading to small spikes in nutrients. Cynobacter is a particularly adaptive, and fast growing, capable of taking full
advantage of these nutrients. If you think you suffer from this problem either invest in a good chiller or cool by evaporation.

Biological control
Algae and cynobacter are both very old forms of life and as such have many predators that have evolved to take advantage of them as a source of food. These start as small as a single celled organism, and go up from there. For example many inverts that live in my sand beds specialize not only in mopping up uneaten food, but also eating any algae or even cynobacter (red slime algae) that grows within reach.

Although this means that small algae problems can often be controlled by the introduction of the relevant predator, in practice any form of biological control can be overwhelmed if the supply of nutrients to the algae is so high as to result in a true population explosion.


In practice biological control is most useful as a mopping-up operation once the cause(s) have been addressed.

The efficiency of predation by even the smallest critters is demonstrated by the effect of transferring a selection of live sand, or a piece of living rock in contact with the sand bed (both is best), from a well matured and balanced tank to a new tank. It will usually speed up the resolution of the early algae / cynobacter blooms. This method can also work on older tanks that (possibly) due to inadequate feeding of the natural bio load, have lost some of their biological controls.

Cynobacteria
Common Name: Red Slime Algae, Blue-green algae

Cynobacteria are unicellular aquatic bacteria, only visible to us when they form large colonies, often in sheet form in areas of slow water flow in the aquarium.

They are one of the oldest and most important forms of bacteria. Photosynthetic in nature, they can produce their own food from light. In fact plants contain ancestors of cynobacteria in the form of chloroplast within the
plant cells.

Unsightly outbreaks of cynobacteria are often initially associated with an excess of nutrients (chemical causes), although once established nutrient levels are less important. Other environmental factors that seem to encourage outbreaks include physical causes such as slow water flow and fluctuating or high water temperature (often occurs in the summer in inadequately cooled aquariums) and a lack of predation (biological control).

Unfortunately for us, it is their adaptability that makes them so successful in the aquarium, as such it is usually not a single easily identifiable factor that is responsible for an out break.