Cyanobacteria

[Formulator]

This thread blew up since our earlier discussion. You’ve gotten a lot of good advice and probably some info overload. I do take issue with some people promoting ultra low nutrients as that is not something I would ever recommend to a beginner, or someone with active dinos. Raising nitrate and phosphate should be your first step, and anyone who is a true expert on the subject will agree with me, I promise. Long term, for the softies you are keeping, I suggest continuing to keep nitrates at 10-20 ppm and phosphate at 0.1 ppm. These are the primary nutrient (food) source for your corals and soft corals are especially hungry for them. Yes, it is very different from FW. There is basically zero commonality between FW and reef keeping water chemistry. So throw all of that out the window. I highly recommend checking out the linked article on dino treatment I shared in my early response.

Ultra low nutrient systems (ULNS) were a fad in the last decade or so, but the hobby as a whole has learned better and moved on (for the most part). Yes, there are successful tanks that run ULN, but these are typically SPS dominant tanks 5+ years established, and even then it is ultra-low not zero. Those tanks often have pastel colored corals because they are essentially purposefully on the brink of starvation. Nitrates are a key component of many coral pigments and provide the deeper fluorescent colors most folks strive for. Nitrates also serve as food for other microorganisms in the tank biome that help outcompete the nuisances you have now.

 

[jonnymod]

 

[Dburr1014]

This thread blew up since our earlier discussion. You’ve gotten a lot of good advice and probably some info overload. I do take issue with some people promoting ultra low nutrients as that is not something I would ever recommend to a beginner, or someone with active dinos. Raising nitrate and phosphate should be your first step, and anyone who is a true expert on the subject will agree with me, I promise. Long term, for the softies you are keeping, I suggest continuing to keep nitrates at 10-20 ppm and phosphate at 0.1 ppm. These are the primary nutrient (food) source for your corals and soft corals are especially hungry for them. Yes, it is very different from FW. There is basically zero commonality between FW and reef keeping water chemistry. So throw all of that out the window. I highly recommend checking out the linked article on dino treatment I shared in my early response.

Ultra low nutrient systems (ULNS) were a fad in the last decade or so, but the hobby as a whole has learned better and moved on (for the most part). Yes, there are successful tanks that run ULN, but these are typically SPS dominant tanks 5+ years established, and even then it is ultra-low not zero. Those tanks often have pastel colored corals because they are essentially purposefully on the brink of starvation. Nitrates are a key component of many coral pigments and provide the deeper fluorescent colors most folks strive for. Nitrates also serve as food for other microorganisms in the tank biome that help outcompete the nuisances you have now.

I agree with all this until you get halfway thru the last paragraph.

100% get nitrates up and Phosphates up. Minimum 10ppm NO3 and 0.1 PO4.
This is the first step for the battle you are about to begin.

About my 1st comment;
It's getting better known coral can use nitrate but don't want to if there is ammonium. In the presents of both, nitrate will be ignored. It cost more energy to use it.
And I would love to see any papers or studies that say nitrates lead to pigments in coral. I don't think it's true.
If @Formulator can post it.

My tank has been running zero on my Hanna more times than not the past 1.5 years. View my build thread for pictures.

 

[Formulator]

Do the corals feed on nitrates? Surely they still need to be kept low though right? I'm pretty sure I read in the API test kit booklet phosphates should be at zero. I'm not doubting your information by any means, just informing you of what I was going off of. Do the corals also feed on phosphates?

Corals (and their symbiont zooxanthellae) consume both nitrate and phosphate, as do beneficial microbes and coralline algae. I wouldn’t follow API advice and I would suggest getting a salifert or hanna test kit for phosphate and nitrate. The reason API probably say zero is because the test doesn’t have the resolution to reliably measure the low target levels you need (0.05-0.1 ppm). Nitrate is not toxic to fish at any level one would achieve in an aquarium.

The media I have in the tidal is the standard sized to fit sponge on the bottom for mechanical and a bag of ceramic rings. Should I remove one, or both?

I would do away with the ceramic rings, but do it slowly over the course of a week or 2 to avoid shocking the biome. You can remove a portion of rings at a time every couple days and continue monitoring nitrate.

I'm always worried the flow is too strong for the fish.

This is a common fear, but it is irrational. Ocean currents and waves on a reef are tens or hundreds of times more powerful. The fish are stronger swimmers than you think. As long as you aren’t beating up the corals or splashing water out of the tank, feel free to crank it up. There are some exceptions, but I assume you aren’t keeping pipefish or seahorses in there.

Also do you suggest I get those chems and start dosing now, or wait a bit?

Considering your dino outbreak I would go for the chemicals to get your nutrients up to measurable levels ASAP.

 

[vetteguy53081]

So we've had our few sw tank setup for long over a year. Exactly how long, I'm not sure. Recently, we've had an abundance of red gunk covering our corals, rocks, the glass on the tank, hob filter, and sometimes even on the fish. From a little google research I believe it may be cyanobacteria. I will post a video with one of my lenses, so that everyone can see it before confirming it's cyanobacteria because I'm not positive.

Once I noticed this stuff forming, our pulsing xenia also stopped being as active and pulsing like it once did. I'm going to provide all the information I think is pertinent and let me know if there is anything I'm missing.

30g tank.

Equipment I'm running-
hygger mini wave maker 1600gph
seachem tidal 55
3x G5 aquastar 95w full spectrum lights (off amazon, smatfarm is brand I guess?...)

Light master is programmed sunrise 1000-1100, sunset 1900-2100.

sunlight 14000k cool white 0%, 450nm deep sea blue+457nm dark blue 80%, 430nm indigo blue 80%, 420nm purple 5%, 3000k warm white 5%, 500nm green 5%

moonlight 0% across the board

stock is an assorted cuc, 1 cc seastar, 1 blue damsel, 1 3 spot domino damsel, 1 clownfish, 1 royal gramma

substrate is crushed coral (honestly don't remember brand but it was some established in bag board at lfs name brand stuff

about 30lb of lr, lots of pulsing xenia, some gsp

water test from today are the following:

high range ph 8.0
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
calcium 340ppm
kh carbonate hardness 7dkh
phosphates 0
salinity 29ppt

So, I see the calcium is low from what I researched. I also see my salinity is a little low. I went a very long time without doing wc on this tank. Reason being, the nitrates always tested practically nothing. I'm not sure if that's abnormal for a sw tank. I'm well aware that wouldn't be normal for a fw because some sort of nitrates would have to be present to show a full completed cycle. Now in the last 3-4 days I have done 2 5g wc. I thought maybe it was time I started to get on the wc and that would help this cyano go away. The first wc I did I accidentally put enough salt in the batch for 4g and not 5g, so I'm assuming that's the low salinity. I did the proper measurement for the 2nd wc, and I have a third batch of water mixing now, and added a bit extra salt to balance the salinity.

I've also been using a turkey baster to try to remove the cyano from the rock and coral, but I feel like there is so much it's just suspending it into the water until it inevidably lands back where it started because it's more than the tidal could keep up with imo. Should I be doing something to increase the calcium?

The water perimeters don't seem bad at all to me from what I'm reading they should be. Maybe the pH needs to raise a touch, and the calcium needs to come up, the salinity a hair, and the kh maybe needs to come up a little? I'm starting to think it may have something to do with the light settings? Frankly, I have no clue what I'm doing with the light configuration and I tried figuring it out once a while back and it was practically impossible to find direct instructions on what it needed to be so I've kind of tweaked it based on what a lfs guy said a few years back, and it seemed to be okay so I've left it be for a while.

Any input is greatly appreciated. My Tank

Your video suggests dino in lieu of cyano but remedy below will work for both. Its biological deficiencies that are causing the dino structure and Its important though to identify the type of dino for most effective battle.
No light is first key followed by the addition of bacteria to overcome the bad bacteria allowing them to thrive
Prepare by starting by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10% IF you have light dependant corals such as SPS) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights which works as an oxidizer. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED AMINO OR ADD NOPOX which is food for dinos, however you can feed coral, food which will help no3 and po4 to increase. If increasing nutrients, try to keep no3 to about 5 until you are done battling these cells.
Doing a daily siphoning will help greatly But . . . . . Siphoning will reduce nutrients , so siphon the water into/through a filter sock and save the water and return it back to tank. Obviously clean the filter sock each time.
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Corals (and their symbiont zooxanthellae) consume both nitrate and phosphate

Correction: corals consume both phosphorus and nitrogen. As mentioned, nitrate is not the most efficient form of nitrogen for them to use.

 

[Formulator]

And I would love to see any papers or studies that say nitrates lead to pigments in coral. I don't think it's true.

I will look around. You caught me postulating - based on the structure of the chromophores and GFP molecules being high in nitrogen, I assume that nitrogen would come from whatever they are metabolizing (ammonia or nitrate). Also, just based on experience I have gotten a color pop almost overnight after dosing nitrate at times in the past when I have let my nutrients get too low or zero.

Corals do metabolize nitrate though.

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...l-Acropora-pulchra-and-Porites-cylindrica.pdf

 

[CopperPotReefs]

Your video suggests dino in lieu of cyano but remedy below will work for both. Its biological deficiencies that are causing the dino structure and Its important though to identify the type of dino for most effective battle.
No light is first key followed by the addition of bacteria to overcome the bad bacteria allowing them to thrive
Prepare by starting by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10% IF you have light dependant corals such as SPS) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights which works as an oxidizer. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED AMINO OR ADD NOPOX which is food for dinos, however you can feed coral, food which will help no3 and po4 to increase. If increasing nutrients, try to keep no3 to about 5 until you are done battling these cells.
Doing a daily siphoning will help greatly But . . . . . Siphoning will reduce nutrients , so siphon the water into/through a filter sock and save the water and return it back to tank. Obviously clean the filter sock each time.
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

This totally worked for me too but I also wanted to say a lot of my SPS lost their coloring during this period but it came back quickly after. I didn't do a blackout but did dose H2O2 and siphoning.

 

[Formulator]

Correction: corals consume both phosphorus and nitrogen. As mentioned, nitrate is not the most efficient form of nitrogen for them to use.

If you really want to get into the weeds, that is incorrect also. They do not directly consume elemental nitrogen or phosphorus. They (and/or their symbionts) consume ammonium and nitrate, and phosphate. They metabolize those into nitrogen and phosphorus.

You are correct that ammonium is more efficiently metabolized and some published work shows that ammonium may inhibit nitrate uptake, but in our tanks nitrate is often more practical to keep at sufficient levels in the water column.

 

[Formulator]

@Dburr1014 , I found one . I’m not crazy!

 

[Dburr1014]

I don't see that your article says no3 colors up coral. It does however say dissolved inorganic nitrogen + inorganic nitrogen + phosphorus does. Maybe I missed it.

This article does describe how higher nitrates does cause mortality, in lower seawater and normal seawater.

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I guess there is more than one way to reef.

 

[Formulator]

I don't see that your article says no3 colors up coral. It does however say dissolved inorganic nitrogen + inorganic nitrogen + phosphorus does. Maybe I missed it.

This article does describe how higher nitrates does cause mortality, in lower seawater and normal seawater.

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I guess there is more than one way to reef.

I don’t think we really disagree on anything at the core of it. I’m not challenging any way of reefing. Just that I’ve observed colors improve after raising nitrates from near zero. Nitrogen is needed for pigment production. It made sense to me that the source of that nitrogen could be from environmental sources such as nitrate or ammonium. I don’t think its such a huge leap. And inorganic nitrogen includes nitrate.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

If you really want to get into the weeds, that is incorrect also. They do not directly consume elemental nitrogen or phosphorus. They (and/or their symbionts) consume ammonium and nitrate, and phosphate. They metabolize those into nitrogen and phosphorus.

You are correct that ammonium is more efficiently metabolized and some published work shows that ammonium may inhibit nitrate uptake, but in our tanks nitrate is often more practical to keep at sufficient levels in the water column.

 

[Dburr1014]

Sorry OP for derailing your thread.

Information overload.

 

[Dburr1014]

I would do away with the ceramic rings, but do it slowly over the course of a week or 2 to avoid shocking the biome. You can remove a portion of rings at a time every couple days and continue monitoring nitrate.

Considering your dino outbreak I would go for the chemicals to get your nutrients up to measurable levels ASAP.

Reading this post is contradictory. I'm sorry Formulator, I really not picking on you, this is for discussion purposes.
Ceramic rings are considered a nitrate factory. They house bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite then to nitrate but cannot convert nitrates to a gas to leave the system. So nitrates rise in the aquarium.
If the OP leaves them in, why dose nitrates? Why take them out?
Is it because it takes to long for them to rise?

 

[jonnymod]

Sorry OP for derailing your thread.

Information overload.

Lol, no worries. So just to keep everyone in the loop I'm increasing flow, dosing to increase phosphates and nitrates, and physically blowing the Dino off. I'm gonna start with this and we'll tweak the next step as needed once I see results.

 

[Formulator]

Reading this post is contradictory. I'm sorry Formulator, I really not picking on you, this is for discussion purposes.
Ceramic rings are considered a nitrate factory. They house bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite then to nitrate but cannot convert nitrates to a gas to leave the system. So nitrates rise in the aquarium.
If the OP leaves them in, why dose nitrates? Why take them out?
Is it because it takes to long for them to rise?

I don’t have a rebuttal. I’ll let myself out.

 

[Formulator]

I dono who you think you are or why you think you know more than everyone else in this and other threads I’ve seen you in, but its not a good look. Please, elaborate on your GIF. Nothing I said is incorrect.

Signed, a biochemist.

 

[GatorGreg]

I dono who you think you are or why you think you know more than everyone else in this and other threads I’ve seen you in, but its not a good look. Please, elaborate on your GIF. Nothing I said is incorrect.

Signed, a biochemist.

While I agree that she contributed nothing to the conversation by posting that GIF. Go take a look at her tank. It’s pretty nice……

You do come off as a know it all in most threads. You tend to get super scientific and throw around words most reefers don’t know, won’t know and most of all don’t care to know.

You don’t have to be a biochemist to have a nice reef tank. Trust me I’ve seen some super simple tanks by some super simple people that would blow your mind.

I think sometimes the smarter and more scientific people in this hobby WAY over complicate things and a some of the times don’t have very nice tanks to show for it. Just some food for thought.


Go look at her tank. It’s pretty nice.

 

[Formulator]

While I agree that she contributed nothing to the conversation by posting that GIF. Go take a look at her tank. It’s pretty nice……

You do come off as a know it all in most threads. You tend to get super scientific and throw around words most reefers don’t know, won’t know and most of all don’t care to know.

You don’t have to be a biochemist to have a nice reef tank. Trust me I’ve seen some super simple tanks by some super simple people that would blow your mind.

I think sometimes the smarter and more scientific people in this hobby WAY over complicate things and a some of the times don’t have very nice tanks to show for it. Just some food for thought.


Go look at her tank. It’s pretty nice.

She has a beautiful tank and she contributes a lot to the community. I just don’t like to be insulted. Sorry, I will try to use less confusing language in the future. I am aware of my pedantic nature and that I can come off as a know-it-all. Thanks for the nudge. I need to work on it more. I tend to clash with people that have a similar nature, sometimes irrationally. There you have it - now we have my personality flaws out to dry!

I don’t think you need to be a scientist to have a successful reef tank. I mentioned my profession because we were arguing over the details of nutrient metabolism and to me that GIF was: “this idiot has no idea what he’s talking about”. In, fact I do know a thing or 2 about biochemistry, which at its core is a lot about the study of metabolism. And I think my tank looks pretty nice these days for only being 6 months into a reboot…