Cyanobacteria Outbreak

Rconner15 · May 23, 2017

Hi all! I'm having a Cyanobacteria bloom in my display tank.

About a month ago, I had a marine velvet outbreak. I'm now in the process of running my tank without fish. The bloom started after 2.5 to 3 weeks of being empty. My LFS thought that it could be due to the lack of bioload. Basically, the good bacteria is dying off a bit and allowing the bad bacteria to take over. Does that theory make sense?

I've tried syphoning to get rid of it with little success. Seems to come right back the next day. I'm thinking treating with chemi clean or similar product is my best option at this point. I currently have a encrusting monti, a war coral, some zoas, a flame torch, a hammer coral, and some mushrooms in the tank. Also have a fire shrimp and various snails. Chemi clean safe for all of this? I've read that you can wrap your tank for a few days, but I think chemi clean would be a safer bet for the corals.

Shaddow_wolf169 · May 23, 2017

Chemiclean is safe after 2 days do a 25% water change then run your skimmer till it stops over flowing my skimmer on the lowest setting pulled out 2 gallon till it stopped.

Rconner15 · May 24, 2017

Thanks for the reply! I'll give the chemi clean a try

Rconner15 · May 26, 2017

Another question. In my attempt to get rid of the Cyanobacteria, I siphoned out a good cup or so of substrate. It's now dried out, sitting in a bucket. Is it ok to re-add the substrate into my tank?

Shaddow_wolf169 · May 26, 2017

Yeah no harm

hybridazn · May 26, 2017

I used blue life red cyano rx on my tank and it worked wonders. I documented the process in my build thread you can find here.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hybridazns-180-gallon-build.189795/page-46

It's been maybe a month or so since and no signs of any cyano growing back.

Shaddow_wolf169 · May 26, 2017

Also I documented the h2o and chemiclean on my you tube channel
DEW REEFING. If you care to see how it worked.

Rconner15 · May 31, 2017

Thank you for the replies. I'm 24 hours into chemi clean treatment. Fingers crossed it works!

Waters · May 31, 2017

I have used it multiple times with 100% success. Usually takes the full 48 hours. Afterwards, I normally run my skimmer overflow directly into a HOB filter cartridge.....skimmer normally starts producing normally within a couple of hours.

MJH01 · May 31, 2017

If you are interested I took two samples, placed one on the rim of the tank as a reference, place the other in a zero light environment. My sample had died after three days and never recovered once returned to light, where the lit sample was growing up the sides of the container and spreading. I did have a friend analyze it under a scope and it was Cyano (the strange thing was it showed no reaction to the peroxide test so should have been Spirulina). I did a three day black out with no feeding on a 100G system while running activated carbon, the cyano disappeared along with a continuous rise of both Nitrates and Phosphates as they were released from the decaying bacteria. Every tank if different but this worked perfectly for me. The only slight down side was the red monte lost some color but recovered after two weeks.

KeithLessner · Aug 10, 2017

how did this work for you? I'm having the same issue.

Rconner15 · Aug 10, 2017

Chemiclean worked great. Did take the full 48 hours to clear up though. My hammer and flame torch corals didn't open fully during treatment, but came back within a day of water change.