Cyano and gha issues

[mattrob]

Hi all,

so I've had my tank setup for 5 months now, a couple of months ago I had a green cyano issue Which I got rid of with chemi clean.

This then led to a gha outbreak, it covered everything , and I mean covered! I tried everything including taking all the rock out and scrubbing it (fish were really not happy) but tank looked brill. 1 week later it's back same as before. I caved and used flux rx. Excellent, all dying, siphoned it and scrubbed.

Now red cyano!!!

Any advice?

Tank is a 3ft, 250l
Sump is filter floss carbon and rowaphos in media cup
Reef octo 110sss skimmer
A full box of bio balls

2 AI hydra 32hds running about 60%

funktion return pump 5000lph running at 40%
2 x jebao sow-4 wavemakers running 1 at 100% 1 at about 75%

Livestock:

1 valentini puffer
3 chromis
1 royal gramma
1 firefighter
1 mandarin
1 tuxedo urchin

A few coral frags, zoas, lepto, months

I feed about 1/3rd cube of frozen per day, at night, live pods / fresh baby artemia in the day.

Just tested:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.1
Ph 8
Ca 450
Alk 7.3
Mag 1320

Doing 40l waterchange every weekend using NYOS pure salt

Any suggestions on stopping these issues?

Thanks

 

[splunty]

You'll generally receive advice from the wise reefers here to avoid dosing chemicals if at all possible. Bacteria and algae growth is normal. In tanks your age, outbreaks are the norm, not the exception.

In any age tank, taming bacteria and algae is best done by keeping your nutrients balanced and stable. Allowing any nuisance growth to take over the tank, then wiping it all out at once (chemically or otherwise) will almost necessarily make your nutrients unstable. It's that instability that will fuel sudden outbreaks of cyanobacteria, hair algae, bryposis, dinos, etc.

What that means is not trying to remove all nuisance growth, but instead keeping it at bay and not letting it take over the tank. That typically starts with your clean up crew (CUC). Your post doesn't mention any CUC other than the tuxedo, which would primarily want to snack on hair algae I think. A tank that size would need many (dozens) snails and other inverts to munch away at the nuisance growth for you.

Your job then becomes taking care of excessive growth that the CUC doesn't get to, swapping filters, cleaning the glass (the CUC will never make the glass sparkle) and keeping nutrients as stable as possible.

My apologies for the long, rambling response. The short version is to get a CUC appropriate for your tank and clean more often if the CUC is coming up short. Eventually your wanted growth (corals, "good" algae like coralline, etc.) will be exporting nutrients so fast that you won't have these issues anymore.

That doesn't happen in 5 months.

 

[moretor1]

my sea hare keeps my hair algae trimmed down nicely

Just make sure to keep it fed when the algae starts to run low, i use plain nori sheets from an asian market

 

[Garf]

Hi all,

so I've had my tank setup for 5 months now, a couple of months ago I had a green cyano issue Which I got rid of with chemi clean.

This then led to a gha outbreak, it covered everything , and I mean covered! I tried everything including taking all the rock out and scrubbing it (fish were really not happy) but tank looked brill. 1 week later it's back same as before. I caved and used flux rx. Excellent, all dying, siphoned it and scrubbed.

Now red cyano!!!

Any advice?

Tank is a 3ft, 250l
Sump is filter floss carbon and rowaphos in media cup
Reef octo 110sss skimmer
A full box of bio balls

2 AI hydra 32hds running about 60%

funktion return pump 5000lph running at 40%
2 x jebao sow-4 wavemakers running 1 at 100% 1 at about 75%

Livestock:

1 valentini puffer
3 chromis
1 royal gramma
1 firefighter
1 mandarin
1 tuxedo urchin

A few coral frags, zoas, lepto, months

I feed about 1/3rd cube of frozen per day, at night, live pods / fresh baby artemia in the day.

Just tested:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.1
Ph 8
Ca 450
Alk 7.3
Mag 1320

Doing 40l waterchange every weekend using NYOS pure salt

Any suggestions on stopping these issues?

Thanks

We all love photos of the tank in question.

 

[jcmjoe]

Are you using RODI water when you top off and do your water changes? Your water that you’re using may be high in silicates or other stuff that may be fueling your issue. Just an idea

 

[mattrob]

Thanks everyone for your replies

@splunty there are 3 orange conches, 5 or 6 snails in there and did have 5 anassarius snails but not seen in a while. I'm going to grab some more today and hope the puffer leaves them alone a bit.

@moretor1 Thanks ill have a look into a hare

@Garf i'll get some photos on in a sec

@jcmjoe i do use RODI that i make myself always 0tds

 

[slingfox]

At 5 months you are at a common time to start the war with the uglies. What kind of rock and sand do you use to setup the tank?

 

[exnisstech]

Which I got rid of with chemi clean.

This then led to a gha outbreak, it covered everything , and I mean covered! I tried everything including taking all the rock out and scrubbing it (fish were really not happy) but tank looked brill. 1 week later it's back same as before. I caved and used flux rx. Excellent, all dying, siphoned it and scrubbed.

Now red cyano!!!

Been there done that. 14 months later I'm still struggling. I knew better but went the chem route anyway. IME adding chems to a young tank to prevent the natural progression of things creates more problems than it cures.

EDIT : I don't agree with running gfo on a young tank either. Let PO4 go and see where it settles. This tank is 7 months old and PO4 runs 0.25-0.45 and I'm fine with that. IMO your trying to control things that should be left to nature. JMO

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Can we see some tank pics? Algae at 5 months is normal.... Your parameters are in line and your not overfeeding, so need some visual clue's.