ridding cyanobacteria w/o chemicals?

Well I'm not turning the last 2 bulbs on lately and that is making a world of difference in how much cyano there is. I'm starting to see the cyano leave, giving way to green hair algae. I went to the lfs and upped my blue legged hermit crap count from 4 to 29. I also added 3 turbos for s*'s and grins. Ahh yes, I added another 40lb bag of aragonite a few days ago. I opt for a DSB setup not trying to solve the cyano prob by adding more substrate tho I haven't done a water change yet, I don't use RO water so I'll wait another week or two for that.

 

BINGO!

Lake Michigan water is full of phosphates! Water changes just resupply the Cyno with grow juice. Been there done that.

Either get RODI from your LFS or buy an good RODI unit off of Ebay for $100ish and end the problem. The water coming into my house has DOC in the 475ppm range. The water coming off my110gpd RODI is in the 5-7ppm range.

Don't use tap water! It will make a world of difference along with the other changes.

 

I go with Blade. He is right. Cyano is being fed by excess nutrients and weak flow.
Take out the nutrients and cyano will be gone. Heavy skimming, water change, examine your filtration system and good light source will beat your cyano blues (or reds!). Good reefing!

 

By DOC, you mean Dissolved Organic Compounds? If so, damn those are high levels.

 

Yep, that's what I mean. I was stunned once I put a meter on my RODI unit. Good old Lake Michigan muni water has tons of crud in it. I forgot what the phosphate levels were when I tested my tap water, but it was high.