Cyano in one tank GHA in the other

Okay so my tanks have not been my absolute priority lately (mostly financially) and it will remain this way for a while so cost is an option for solutions.
90g
My 90g with 30g sump which is inhabited by 2 clowns, a mandarin, and a mimic tang, a blasto frag, and a colony of pink lemonade that is trying to come back to life from the electrocution event, as well as a couple snails and crabs.

This tank has not had the bulbs changed in a long time but there are new bulbs on order. It gets weekly water changes of 15g, Nitrates = <1. I am sure there are phosphates but they haven't been checked in a few weeks. The tank has terrible cyano right now, and for the past couple months. I blow it all off each week and siphon out what I can. The tank gets fed a few pinches of pellets per day and it has nori in the seaweed clip all day for the tang. The protein skimmer is shot on the tank, it still produces bubbles to oxygenate water but doesn't really pull anything out of the water column anymore.

29g
The 29g with 10g sump has been around for 3 years or so and goes through phases GHA on occasion. This tank is inhabited by a yellow clown goby, a couple hermits, a pink chalice, frogspawn, torch, alien eye, duncan, acan, and gsp. It gets a small squirt of nutramar ova daily or every other day. This tank has not had a bulb changed in probably 1.5 years. I am ordering a bulb for it soon. I used to run GFO on this tank most of the time but haven't lately. It gets weekly 5 gallon water changes and manual GHA extraction. Nitrates ~2.5.

I am looking for some opinions on what action to take? New skimmer could be an option for the 90g, gfo for the little tank again, new bulbs.

 

Well for the 90G besides the need to get your protein skimmer going properly you could use chemiclean to assist with temporary eradication of the cyano but you need to fix the other issues which are causing the cyano, like high phosphate or other water quality issues. Just 2 be safe you may want to see if someone else can check your nitrates also.

for the 29G If you are using the manual procedure I have used a 2 person method of 1 holds the siphon and the other removes the GHA so that you are sucking up as much nutrients as possible when removing. If you are just pulling off or brushing off the GHA it is just going to release all those nutrients back into your tank giving you an endless painfull cycle.

Testing your

 

Temporary solutions are definitely not the route I want to go nor is a chemical solution if not absolutely necessary. Nitrate levels are listed under each tank's description. Neither one has what I would consider high nitrates. It seemed like the nutrient issue in the large tank is likely coming from the nori since the issue wasn't present when there was not seaweed constantly on the clip. Though other people don't seem to have this issue with seaweed in their tanks.

 

When was the last time the filters and resin were changed in your Ro/DI?

 

Filters are changed based on usage but typically in 6-8 month intervals on the sediment and carbon block, and 8-12 on DI resin. Resin gets changed when it reaches 1 on the TDS meter.

 

ok well just offering some help and chemiclean is safe for reef tanks, invertebrates, macro algaes, nutrifying bacteria and fish and I have used it with success to give corals reprieve while correcting issue I had.

Anyways good luck.

 

Hi there,

I don't see any Phos. listed. If it's there, sorry I missed it.
I feel that for my system, it's probably more impt. than the nitrates when getting unwanted growth.

And sorry if I missed it, but have you tried some big water changes?

And IMHO, 1 tds is still so like 0, I DON'T think it's your replacement water.
We get it to 0, or near, then add the salts, and it's like over 1,000 tds!
Do you think say even 5tds would add anything substantial to water that you're going to mix and make over 1,000TDS!

FWIW, I recommend WC's, skimming, and LOTS of chaeto in a sump/fuge

 

I haven't done any large water changes in probably two months. I didn't have any pictures on the thread. I agree on the TDS, I just change mine when it hits 1 since I know the DI is starting to get depleted. I will do some larger changes when I get time, also hoping the lighting will help.

 

I'm a big believer in GFO but if I could not afford it I would set up an algae scrubber. Unless you have a big enough refugium.
I use prodibio with great results and highly recommend.
It's on sale right now at MD:
Prodibio BIO DIGEST
That's only about $1 every two weeks to use biodigest. If you use it don't use the biotim until the algae /cyano is gone. BioTim is food for the biodigest bacteria so it will also feed the cyano/algae.
Read the reviews it's great stuff and nearly impossible to screw it up.

 

Honestly, a good protein skimmer on the 90 would do a lot to help the probable phosphate situation.

You could also try doing a few days with the lights off, combined with a large water change (to remove the phosphates that'll become unbound with the die-off).

For both tanks.. you seem to have a fairly small cleanup crew. More so on the bubble than the cyano, a bigger team would help keep it in check.