Combating Cyano.

For the past week I been fighting a heavy dose of Cyano, been blasting my rock, doing water changes, cutting back on lighting. Most of it is gone, but, my Coral's are not happy, at all! I am concerned and at wits end. I checked some parameters and do have a trace of ammonia at about 0.25ppm.
Is that enough to cause trastic effects on the Coral or is there something else going on?
I am thinking to drain the tank, pull out all the animals, rinse the rock, add new sand and start all over with new water, not a good idea right?

 

I would advise against pulling everything out. I've found that with cyano, my best weapon was increased flow. Cyano tends to accumulate in dead spots.

Do you have any pictures? Are you use RODI water or treated tap? Any other details about your tank will help others with making suggestions.

 

Nope not a good idea.

There is no reason you should have a detectable ammonia level in an established tank unless something died, the tank has been over feed, or for some reason you disturbed your biological filter.

Yes corals will look very stressed in the presence of ammonia.

If you pull everything and rinse rock.....you will more issues than you currently have.

Need phosphate level? Have your tried any phosban or GFO, What is your water source? Does your tank receive any natural sunlight?

 

How are you testing ammonia, API kit? I have found it is very hard to tell the difference between 0 & 0.25. I use Seachem ammonia checkers in all my tanks which will show as little as 0.02 ammonia. I would not rely solely on the API result as even though the API shows appears to be between 0 & 0.25, it is most likely 0.

 

+1 to this! API ammonia kits are notorious for being very hard to read.


I would look into adding some beneficial bacteria to your system to help balance things out again.

Microbe Lift 'special blend' or Microbacter 7 are good choices

 

yes! it is an API test kit and the color range does fall in between 0 and 0.25. I do use RO water and I under feed my fish, not trying to starve them, but there is natural food in there as well and I think their fine.
To this point I had no trace of phosphates or nitrates. I started dosing my tank 3 days ago with magnesium which was very low at less than 750ppm.
I am going to test everything I have for kits tonight after work. I do have a video on here of that mess, but it has changed its appearance. right now the Cyano is very spotty.

 

And yes! it is in a location that during the winter is gets some brief sun light.

 

Based on this, my uneducated advice is to assume your bacteria levels are fine and that you really do not have any ammonia. I would buy a Seachem ammonia checker to throw in your sump (if you do have one). They last for either 6 months or a year and are only a couple bucks. Then, you may just need to alter your flow to make sure it is not growing in any dead spots.

Do not do anything drastic though such as take out sand or rocks!

 

I've used red slime before (works great), but after that I've always done it naturally and let it die out by scrubbing the rocks (in the tank) and immediately doing constant water changes. Before using any chemicals I found find out why it happened so you can prevent from it happening again.

 

I would assume that your bacteria levels are not fine. Cyano and beneficial bacteria complete for the same resources. Need more information about your tank to pin point problem. You maybe need more surface area for growing beneficial and maybe adding a product like MB7 from brightwell or dr Tim's.