cyanobacteria

Anyone know anything about cyanobacteria. I seem to have a covering on my sand. I have found one comment on Welcome to XtalWorld saying it is bad but cannot find anything else

 

Here you go.

Cyano, Cyanos, Cyanobacteria, Blue-Green Algae, Algae, Red slime Algae, Slime Algae, Slime, Undesirable algae

And yes it is undesirable.

 

Thanks for the article blade_runner.

 

Increase the water movement inside the tank. Thats the major cause of the bacteria. What you see in mass and think is the cyano is really just a protective slime film covering to allow the bacteria it live in a anaerobic area. A safety covering that the bacteria produces . Oxygen is its worst enemy. Like sometimes with a cut or boo boo on our body its better to remove a bandage and air the cut out to promote healing. I had a huge tank a few weeks ago that was set up and in less then 5 weeks the bottom looked like a red carpet. I was asked to redesign the plumbing and in two days it was crystal clear and totally void of the red cyano. Guy just called me yesterday to say Thanks again. That tank was 5ft deep.
I'd also sugguest that you cut out feeding for a few days and if using frozen nitrate rich stuff to maybe cut that out also and then if you do use it again rinse it well in R/O water to wash the PO4 and NO2 and NO3 from it.. Cyano's will convert these nasties ro a food supply also..

 

Thanks for the info blade runner and tangster!!!!!!
Karma dudes!!!

 

Here is what i've observed with cyanobacteria.. Pics Included

My tank is a 20-Gallon Nano, it has heavy skimming going on, intense lights, and low nutrients. The temperature is approximately between 78 - 80 degrees. Anyway the cyanobacteria seems to appear with intense lights and the longer the photo-period is with this intensity, the more dense the growth is. The following pictures were taken one hour after the lights were on and three hours later. Before the lights were turned on, there were no indications of cyanobacteria on the rock in question. What i've noticed is that the cyano does not seem to be present anywhere else in the tank except this single rock. The process can be duplicated everytime and the cyano will show up. I believe it may be some form of nutrient leaking from within this rock that may be the catalyst that triggers off the cyano. I've taken a portion of new mixed water and tested it for any forms of phosphate, ammonia, nitrate, nitrate, etc, etc and the water was sterile. I removed the rock from the tank and used some hand towels to remove the water from it and placed the rock into the sterile water. I then placed the rock under the intense lights and the same process occured. Over the weekend I constantly poured off the water each day and refilled it with new water and the cyano still came back on time, every time. This proved to me that something on or within the rock was creating the triggering of the cyanobacteria. The picture on the left was taken 1 hour after the lights were on and the picture on the right was taken 3 hours later. If you notice the mushrooms on the left are just starting to expand as the lights come on and on the right side they are almost fully expanded. However, the forming of the cayno is causing them to either move away or shrink as they are getting covered.

 

I really don't see any cyan on the rock..It could be just the picture and cyano a covering it just doe not pop in and out. If it was a live rock it could be any thing seems to me if it was dipped in freshwater all of it would be dead now.. ? Maybe it is saturated with PO4s ad the stuff you are seeing a algae of some type but not cyano as light has no effect on true cyano's ...Its bacteria not an algae

 

Vacuum up what you can...then do some serious back to back water changes.

Always worked for me.

As I recall I had a few cycles of it after tank first started up.

Have not seen sign of for years now....:-/

 

Mikemangue, in the picture it looks more like corraline algae on your rock than cyano. Try rubbing it off. If it feels quite hard and does not easily come off, it's most likely corraline and not cyano.

 

After I turned my actinics on for the first time I had cyano coming on strong for the first week, then I got a maxijet 1200 with the 2100 gph upgrade kit and it went away within days, with no reoccurance since. Flow seems to have done the trick!! I have around 2300gph flowing through my 55 now.