Do I restart my tank?

[Chris_Noles]

Your mixed salt water is going to show TDS somewhere between 300 and ERROR in most TDS meters... Salt is a dissolved solid after all.


And green cyano too! Kinda neat. Usually that stuff is red.


There's lots of good advice in this thread but, you really can't starve out cyano. Even after you've fixed all the problems causing it to grow in the first place, it can be near impossible to kill it. A blackout won't work if you've got coral - the coral will die first; and ambient light from the room is enough to grow this stuff. It's a very resilient and efficient organism. So that said, you really needn't be afraid of a chemical solution. You still need to do the right things to keep it gone but something like Chemiclean will kill it (but will take multiple treatments) and you don't seem to have anything that would be sensitive to it. Peroxide doesn't seem to do anything to cyano. High flow will stop it from attaching to the substrate and forming mats, which in theory lets something like a UV sterilizer kill it - but I've got a ton of the red variety in my little tank and it has survived all attempts to kill it save chemical; the tank is all zoas and anemones and thus is kept incredibly dirty and I'm not willing to risk the BTAs with chemiclean so I live with it.

Yeah so I have basically no coral and might give Chemiclean a try, I haven't used it yet. I also put in a UV a while ago and it did nothing.

 

[Chris_Noles]

Good photos!

Yes, I think weekly 20% water changes will go a long way.

Good luck!
Dom

Yup, I am going to do water changes each week religiously and see if that helps. Might nuke the substrate with Chemiclean since there is a lot of cyano on the substrate.

 

[Dom]

Yup, I am going to do water changes each week religiously and see if that helps. Might nuke the substrate with Chemiclean since there is a lot of cyano on the substrate.

I don't recommend doing anything other than water changes to start.

If after 6-8 weeks, there is no improvement, then you can try Chemiclean.

Make one change at a time otherwise, you won't know which of the changes were effective.

Please be careful with Chemiclean; it depletes oxygen in the tank. Supplementing oxygen via ayirstone is important.

 

[blecki]

Yeah so I have basically no coral and might give Chemiclean a try, I haven't used it yet. I also put in a UV a while ago and it did nothing.

UV won't do anything for Cyano if it's on the rocks and substrate. It can only kill what passes through it. The UV might help with dinos (IIRC they become free floating at night and would go through the filter) but can only help with cyano if you have enough flow to keep it from settling and forming mats.

Might nuke the substrate with Chemiclean since there is a lot of cyano on the substrate.

Okay, so, the easiest way to 'nuke your substrate' is to suck it all out into a bucket and just - rinse it in rodi water. Seriously. It's why the cyano in my nano tank is all on the back wall and the sand is sparkling clean.

 

[Chris_Noles]

I don't recommend doing anything other than water changes to start.

If after 6-8 weeks, there is no improvement, then you can try Chemiclean.

Make one change at a time otherwise, you won't know which of the changes were effective.

Please be careful with Chemiclean; it depletes oxygen in the tank. Supplementing oxygen via ayirstone is important.

Agreed, I will give the water changes a try (even though I should be doing this anyways...)

 

[Chris_Noles]

UV won't do anything for Cyano if it's on the rocks and substrate. It can only kill what passes through it. The UV might help with dinos (IIRC they become free floating at night and would go through the filter) but can only help with cyano if you have enough flow to keep it from settling and forming mats.

Okay, so, the easiest way to 'nuke your substrate' is to suck it all out into a bucket and just - rinse it in rodi water. Seriously. It's why the cyano in my nano tank is all on the back wall and the sand is sparkling clean.

I've done that with my substrate before and I might do it again. Only reason I hate doing this is my royal gramma decides to jump out of the tank anything is moved....