Cyano Massive Invasion (pics)

Dear Dr.Tim,

Before I start let me give you a brief about my system. Its a 33g rimless tank that I mainly hope it will turn out to be an SPS tank. For lighting I am using ROIII pendant with 250W phoenix. For filtration I have SWC skimmer, 100 micron filter sock. Water movement is provided by a vortech mp40 and a maxi jet return pump. For fish I have pair of clowns, fridmani, green chromis and african pygmy angel. Corals grow just fine.

My long lasting problem has always been cyano bacteria. I have no problem with any other type of algae. I added few photos to give you an idea of how bad the situation is right now. To speak the truth I feed moderate to heavy but my NO3 has always float around and less than 5ppm and PO4 around 0.03 (Hanna). I use NSW since as I have an access to a clean source and I use chlorine to be extra sure and then dechlorine it after 24h.

I know exactly what my problem is and I am looking for a permanent solution. I have lots of dirt's and debris laying around in my tank. I try to siphon as much as I can but no matter how hard I try particles covers every thing. once not long time ago I took off the whole sand bed and the cyano was cleared completely for like months then as dirts build up the problem come back again.

So after reading about your waste-away product I think that this is what I am looking for. So if you dont mind I would like to make a log of things progress and hear your thoughts and ideas. The waste away is on its way and I can not wait to have this thing in my hands. I will go as you directed with 1/4 the dose until I see no cloudiness and build up my dose till I reach a full dose.

Here are some photos for your enjoyment ;D







I did not order the re fresh. I dont know if I should ? As I said i am looking for a permanent fix so I thought the waste away would be the best choice.

Looking to hear your thoughts .

 

Yes order it. Also you might want to try the waste control also.

 

Hello

The best way to proceed with your tank is to:
1) try to manually remove as much cyano as you can
2) hit it with Re-Fresh, wait 2 days hit it again wait 2 days
3) start with waste-away 1/4 dose and every two days add more increasing the dosage if the water is not cloudy.

Turn the skimmer off for 6 to 8 hours after you dose Re-Fresh and Waste-Away but be around to monitor the tank. If the water starts to get cloudy turn the skimmer back on.

Since you have the waste-away on its way - you can start with waste-away and it you decide to add re-fresh stop adding waste-away while you dose with re-fresh.

This tank is a challenge but it can be cleaned up.


Cheers

DrTim

 

i had the same problem about a year ago with my 150 gallon tank i used something called red slime you can get it from petco and it safe for all you coral never had a issue again you can just google red slime treatment and it was show up hope this helps

 

Reef bruh, thank you for your advice.

Dr.Tim, thank you for your reply. One more thing if I decided to try waste away alone would you that cure the problem. It is my understanding that waste away has more concentrated bacteria than re fresh.

Jesse, thank for the advise the use of red slime is my lest option.However, if nothing worked I will definitely use it.

 

Hello:

A few things - red slime remover is an antibiotic. It will kill the cyanobacteria and it may kill some beneficial bacteria as well. But it will do nothing to get rid of your problem long term. It will just mask the problem by dealing, for a little while, with the cyano.

Next: Re-Fresh and Waste-Away are completely different products. Re-Fresh in a natural alternative to products like red slime remover. But like red slime remover Re-Fresh will only mask the underlying problem - too many nutrients. So if you want to speed things up you can use Re-Fresh OR red slime remover but in either case you're going to need to start with waste-away afterwards to start dealing with the nutrient problem.

Waste-Away will solve the problem by competing for the nutrient but it take time and patience. You're basically setting up a competition for nutrient between the waste-away bacteria and the cyanobacteria. Waste-away bacteria will multiple converting the nutrients into bacteria and your skimmer will remove those bacteria thereby removing the nutrients from the system and slowly starving the cyanobacteria.

Cheers

DrTim

 

Dr.Tim,

Thank you.

Looking at the current condition I will need a quick fix for sure as I just can not stand looking at my tank !

Re fresh is on the way.

Will keep every one updated with photos on the progress.

 

I just wanted to say as a side note that from my experience the red slime remover it worked and it worked long term.

It took a little work but once it was in the tank and doing it's job it was great. The last time I had a red slime issue was over eight months ago and nothing since....I am far from an expert in any of this but from experience the red slime remover worked and did it's job and the red slime has stayed away.

 

Dear Dr.Tim,

Its been a while since I updated this thread and the reason for that was I wanted to make sure that I am not dreaming !

After the 3rd dose of waste away as per your advise, Cyano was 90% gone . I could not believe my eyes after all the time and work I went through to clear the problem.

What has really impressed me is how crystal clear the water is...Simply unbelievable. After 10 days of your regimen I had one sps coral on the top starting to bleach from the side facing the light due to this sudden change in water clarity.Really amazing.I reduced my lighting period to 6.5 Hrs from 8 due to this.

I will definitely post pics to show the difference. Now after Cyano is gone i still have this greenish blackish hair algea which I think is daing off slowly.

I have not done any thing different as I really wanted to know if this thing actually works or not. I even bought a bottle of MB7 in case this one failed. I also used to siphon the gravel to get rid of cyano. Since I start dosing Waste away I stopped doing that. I might start disturbing the gravel once in a while to get it cleaned by the bacteria.

Thank you for a product that actually works as advertised.

stay toned for the photos

Regards

 

You're welcome! Looking forward to seeing the before and after pics!