cyano bad!

Definitely stop adding phyto - all that is doing at this point is adding to your nutrient problem. What foods do you feed, and what is your water change schedule? Do you use RO/DI water?

 

how long are your lights on during the day and what kind of flow do you have in your tank?

 

also when you switched lighting was it new lights or used... could possible contribute if they are bad bulbs, are you running a skimmer on your tank? just trying to get all info so we can find out how to fix your problem hth

 

right... but contributing, so if its not one particular problem but a culmination of multiple things it could also be a cause... do you have a fuge which may help compete for nutrients in the water or do you run any carbon or have you tried that route yet? did you notice a difference in the phos reading when you did the 20% h20 change as compared to the 10%? I have a 55g and had a really bad outbreak on my old 40 which i fought for a while but finally cleared up after trying everything in the book to increased water changes, new bulbs, increased flow, added a fuge, started running carbon etc...

 

Get some turbo snails.  I got these big *** mexican ones and they eat all kinds of nusiance algae.

I went from this....


To something like this in just mere days

Tust me, that pvc was not white before those tubos came along

 

I would say try the activated carbon route, keep doing water changes maybe do a couple more 15-20% changes for a couple weeks and try to suck as much of the red stuff out as possible... i dont want to say to try the chemical route yet cause thats just masking the problem, but if you did you can always go with a phospate remover... do you have a pretty good clean up crew in there? ive increased the size of mine they have helped clean up alot of the left over food etc... anyone else with some ideas?

 

If you have exausted all other methods try chemiclean. I had cyano bad in my frag tank a while back and tryed to get rid of it with water changes and cuting the light cycle way down but nothing worked so I got fed up and tryed chemiclean and that stuff totaly killed the cyano within 24 houres and it has not been a problem sence then. If you use it make sure you add more ait to your tank with a power head because it depleates oxegen and shutdown your skimmer for 24 houres because it makes it overflow like crazy other than that just make sure you do a 25% water change after.

 

if you don't have a clean up crew, add some turbo snails and some blue leg crabs. The huge snails can be troublesome, as they bulldoze coral. After they did their job I removed about half of them.....mainly because they bulldoze corals.

That being said, I don't know if this will work, but if I ever get a huge outbreak I am going to try it.....you can buy a micro cleaning kit for your shop vac at Lowe's. It has all the attachments/reducers to hook a smaller shop vac. The pic on the front of the package shows it cleaning a keyboard. But I bet with a few of the attachments that it could really suck up problem algae without sucking up a lot of water.

 

I think that accepting it as just fate is bad advice.

I have had a tank up for a year and I never got the seven month algae bloom blues. I'm just sayin'.

GFO/Carbon, snails, crabs, water change.

FWIW, I have a Precision Marine phosphate reactor and a eheim pump....plug and play. I would sell it for $80 free shipping.

 

its tall, probably 24" tall. you can view it at precisionmarine.com it is considered a media reactor.

It sits outside the sump though. The pump sits in the sump. The pump is about 8" x 8" x 8"

 

I know chemicals sounds like a bad idea I totaly agree but it worked for me. My frag tank is loded with sps and it did not hurt a thing but it is your tank and up to you what you do good luck I hope your problem is resolved soon.

 

If it helps, I also had a bad Cyano outbreak.
I also used Chemiclean and as bill stated It all disappeared not in 24 hours as bill for me it was more like 72.
Just make sure you follow the directions and do a minimum of 20% water change in the 48 hour period as specified in the directions.
Also should note that I did not lose a single coral or fish through the process.

 

My tank about 8 months old and I've done been through all the stages of outbreaks a long time ago. So it being a "new" tank isn't justified.

I went the natural way to get rid of the algae until I exhausted all forms and then would have tried chemicals. I've tried the hermit crabs, emerald crabs, other sorts of snails, and the main reason I bought my two blue hippo tangs. None of that worked and I was left with two options, Mexican Turbo snails and lawnmower blennies then I would have gone to a chemical remedy. Lets just say I didn't even have to get a lawnmower blenny.