Extreme Water Clarity and Cyano Eradication, Made Easy!

[Mini colony]

Thank you Sunnyx
I have no more cyano and my tank water is extremely clear.

 

[Peair]

Edit 10/092023:

Note that I have tweaked the formula a bit. You can find an updated video here:




Coral Snow Link: Coral Snow

Hello all!

I have been reefing now for about 25 years, and over those many years I have picked up many tips, tricks, and best habits/practices. From a hobbyist and even a coral vendors perspective, I have gained quite a bit of valuable information. Many of you likely even have a coral that came from company, Pro Corals. The most popular of which being the PC Rainbow Acro.,

Over those years I attempted to pass on as much information and knowledge as possible. Now, I am compiling all the knowledge into one area and will be releasing articles and likely some YouTube guides on a weekly basis.

This is a great hobby and what makes it great is the wonderful community of reefers. Almost all are extremely helpful and it is our duty to aid one another and when we can, impart the little knowledge that we pickup along the way to aid others in their journey. We, and myself included, can easily forget what it was like entering the hobby. Its a minefield and much livestock and funds can be wasted. For someone like myself, books and online forums were my only sanctuary as I did not have any local hobbyist to gather knowledge from. There were many issues, losses and way too much money needlessly spent. Hopefully this series of guides will help those just entering the hobby and perhaps even help some reefing veterans to polish up their game.

The articles will be posted on my blog and right here on Reef2Reef. I am slowly building up my online presence through FB, Instagram and YouTube. If you'd like to follow along and receive the most up to date information please feel free to follow. I will try and keep the articles and video brief. We all have busy lives so I will attempt to post only the cliff notes.

www.ReefSite.com
Instagram: @Reefsite
Fb: @ReefSites
Twitter: @RimlessReef
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SonnyM63



Now, enough yammering. Onto the article!


Extreme Water Clarity and Cyano Eradication, Made Easy!

One of the most frequent questions I receive is how do I have such amazing water clarity and an overall clean looking setup. Well, it quite simple and you can easily do the same while also helping rid yourself of cyano or and the very least not allowing it to gain a foothold in your system. While this is not a cure-all, it will help you achieve your goals and help maintain a healthy aquarium.


For a number of years I had purchased branded products of Coral Snow to help achieve water clarity. That is, until I asked around and found that you can simply make you own Coral Snow solution, saving you hundreds of dollars.

What is Coral Snow?

At its simplest, Coral Snow is a Flocculant.

Flocculant’s work by binding small particles together into a larger mass that can be easily removed via filter socks or a proteins skimmer. The Coral Snow can also help to removal yellowing compounds such as phenols while at the same time helping neutralizes some undesirable chemicals in the system.

Personally, I use this powder Coral Snow and one jar should last you years. Creating the solution couldn't be any simpler.

• Select a clean container, one that is resealable and able to be shaken. I use an old creatine bottle.(Yes, I am on the GAIN TRAIN)
• For 500ML of solution, add 10 level tablespoons of powder to roughly 425-450ML of RO/DI water.
• Shake the bottle up, and let it sit for two hours. After which, it will be ready to use.
• Now, I don’t believe that you can overdose with this product, but a good recommended dose is 5ml per 50gl of aquarium volume.
• Be sure to shake up the bottle prior to each use as the powder can settle.

The best time to add the solution to you aquarium is after conducting maintenance such as blowing off the rocks, cleaning the glass, siphoning the sand or conducting a water change. Ideally, you should be doing all of the aforementioned maintenance items during a water change, but that discussion is for another time.

Now, on to my personal favorite use of the product: preventing and getting rid of Cyano!

Cyano Solution

Cyano, in all its forms, has been the bane of many a reefers existence. Nothing can upset or ruin the appearance of an aquarium display like that nasty, slimy cyano! The algae is present in all systems, and dates back to the dawn of planet but you can keep it from taking over your aquarium and causing you heartache.

Ideally, you want to be taking preventative measures to ensure that cyano does not gain any real estate in your reef. Prevention is always easier than treatment, but if you can always treat it too.

To amplify the Coral Snow, you will need a bacterial solution. Most will do, but I like Microbacter7 by Brightwell Aquatics. What we are doing here is mixing the bacteria with the Coral Snow, allowing it to bond and adhere to the surface of sand and rock. Basically, we’re trying to eliminate land for the cyano to stake its claim. While most of the Coral Snow will be removed via filtration, there will be a bit that coats you aquariums surfaces, in this case with bacteria that will out compete algae.

The Mix

Take your measured solution of Coral Snow and add it to a small container.

• A plastic or glass cup will suffice.
• Next, add 10 drops of Microbacter7 per 5ML of Coral Snow.
• Allow 5 minutes for the solution to sit and then dose into your aquarium.

Note that Coral Snow will cloud your aquarium for at least two hours. Filter socks and Protein Skimmer(s) should be left on.

Application

I use a DIY mixture of Calcium Carbonate to clarify the water. The solution acts as a flocculant, helping to export tiny free floating matter.

Now, you could just stop right there, and use this solution simply for water clarity, but, you would be missing out on some of the greatest benefits that the complete formula has to offer.

Combining the Coral Snow with bacteria has an outsized effect on undesirable things such as Cyano slime.

• To get the full effect, you’re going to want to take a turkey baster and manually remove or blow off all cyano and other desirable organisms off of the rockwork and sand.

• If you’re able to, run some filter socks in the sump to help capture any large free floating waste.

Now, your going to want to add the Coral Snow solution in a cup and then add the bacteria. You can go a little on the bacteria, slightly more than the manufacturers recommendation.

• Allow the solution to sit for five minutes and then administer it to the aquarium.

• For the full effect, I will turn off the main system pump and allow the solution to have time to coat the surfaces of the aquarium. Generally, I will let process play out for an hour before turning on my main pump and filtration.

• After the hour is up, the main pump is turned on, filter socks setup, and skimmer turned on. The skimmer is going to play a key roll here in helping to remove the particles that have bonded to the coral snow.

Enhancing Coral Snow to Feed Corals

After some weeks, and the system is clean and clear you can then move on to some more advanced methods and mixtures.

I like to add bacteria, Zeofood, and Selcon to my mix.

The Coral Snow will help to distribute the nutrition directly to the corals. When dosed correctly, you should see a feeding response from corals, especially SPS who will extend feeding tentacles.

Now, not all corals will immediately go into feeding mode during the day. It will take some time but eventually they will be conditioned to do so. All things considered, the feeding mix has done very to aid with growth of corals in my system.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you find this Coral Snow solution to be advantageous. I have used it for years with great results. My aquariums are devoid of cyano and nuisance algae. The fish look like their floating in mid air and the true colors of the corals are allowed to shine through.

I dose once a week but there is no issue dosing it daily if you are dealing with a particularly bad breakout of cyano. For best results, siphon out as much cyano as possible before dosing Coral Snow.

Good luck and if you need any additional help please feel free to reach out.

Sonny [email protected]

Sounds and looks interesting.

 

[SunnyX]

Thank you Sunnyx
I have no more cyano and my tank water is extremely clear.

I am very happy to hear that. We all do better when our knowledge is spread amongst us. Beautiful setup.

-Sonny

 

[e34stx]

hi there, just reading through this thread and i will no doubt try this at some point when required. can i ask as this is a form of export, why are people adding the caco3 after water changes. would it not make sense to add the snow then after a few hours remove the bound caco3 during a water change?
just wondered why people are changing water before?

 

[TARHEEL78]

hi there, just reading through this thread and i will no doubt try this at some point when required. can i ask as this is a form of export, why are people adding the caco3 after water changes. would it not make sense to add the snow then after a few hours remove the bound caco3 during a water change?
just wondered why people are changing water before?

I'd guess it's because a lot of stuff gets knocked lose and pushed in to the water column after doing the water change.

 

[Troylee]

hi there, just reading through this thread and i will no doubt try this at some point when required. can i ask as this is a form of export, why are people adding the caco3 after water changes. would it not make sense to add the snow then after a few hours remove the bound caco3 during a water change?
just wondered why people are changing water before?

Cause it’s good to blow the rocks off and stir up the sand bed while changing water and getting rid of the bulk of the garbage in the water change… then add new water and the caco powder to help bind the rest and let your mechanical filtration take care of the rest. I can’t say most but myself add bacteria in it so that also helps keep the population of bacteria up after doing a hefty water change and taking out a great amount out.

 

[SunnyX]

hi there, just reading through this thread and i will no doubt try this at some point when required. can i ask as this is a form of export, why are people adding the caco3 after water changes. would it not make sense to add the snow then after a few hours remove the bound caco3 during a water change?
just wondered why people are changing water before?

Hello,

Many times I will reuse the water in my display tank for my smaller system. Ill remove 40 gallons from the display tank, and replace that with fresh saltwater.

The discarded saltwater from my main display will be used for water changes on my smaller systems. This allows me get by without dosing on the smaller systems, and run them without a skimmer or special filtration. The smaller systems remain simple to operate and benefit from the water in my main display.

In general, you want the snow to stay in the system so that it can land on surfaces and deliver the bacteria or food to its intended target. While Coral Snow is an effective water clarifier, it also is great at reducing cyano slime and feeding corals.

My advice for dosing the snow is to do it once a week, on a day where you will be replacing your filter socks/media and cleaning the skimmer. This way, the snow particles can be bound up in he filtration and when replaced later on that day, the fresh filter socks/media and skimmer will pickup anything that's left.

-Sonny

 

[BOYERZ]

3/3/2024

In a battle with cyano, only on sand bed.

I think the diamond goby is compounding the problem.

This is after dosing 1/4 tsp caco3, 100 ml ro, and a capful of mb7.

32-35 gallon water volume

Next dose I think I'll try 1/2 tsp caco3 as the water cleared pretty quickly.

Thanks Sonny!

 

[tiendungnguyen]

Great, thank you!

 

[Kershaw]

Has anyone noticed any negative side affect to feather dusters?

 

[saltienewb]

Ground control to Major Tom, your circuits dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me Major Tom?
(Major Tom pictured bottom right)

 

[BOYERZ]

Has anyone noticed any negative side affect to feather dusters?

No issues here.

 

[rennjidk]

No.

Many things will bind to the surface of bare calcium carbonate, including alkalinity (carbonate) calcium, magnesium, organics, phosphate, and trace elements, but there's no possibility that 100 ppm of magnesium can be bound without much larger amounts of alkalinity and calcium also being bound and accreting a new layer of calcium carbonate.

Given that it is able to bind with a lot of elements, is an overdose possible (within reason) of using methods like this one?

Obviously, something like a dosing pump malfunction is going to be vastly different, but if someone were to add 5-10x Sunny's original dose, would you foresee any noticable impact on parameters?

 

[Kershaw]

No issues here.

Thanks.

 

[BOYERZ]

Given that it is able to bind with a lot of elements, is an overdose possible (within reason) of using methods like this one?

Obviously, something like a dosing pump malfunction is going to be vastly different, but if someone were to add 5-10x Sunny's original dose, would you foresee any noticable impact on parameters?

Just dose weekly, gives the system to adjust if you over do it.

Imo: water should clear in 6 hours max.

A little goes a long way!

 

[slingfox]

No issues here.

Same. The coral snow didn't not seem to disturb the feather dusters I had.

 

[Troylee]

Has anyone noticed any negative side affect to feather dusters?

Nope! I have thousands lol

 

[Troylee]

Given that it is able to bind with a lot of elements, is an overdose possible (within reason) of using methods like this one?

Obviously, something like a dosing pump malfunction is going to be vastly different, but if someone were to add 5-10x Sunny's original dose, would you foresee any noticable impact on parameters?

Can’t overdose it… you could, cloud up your tank for awhile but it’s just chalk basically! It doesn’t change any parameters or chemistry.

 

[Kershaw]

Nope! I have thousands lol

Had a dozen or so. Now they are gone. Could be lots of things but figured I’d ask.

 

[Jobu183]

Just wanted to check in- I was super excited to try this Coral Snow, specifically to hopefully clear up all the loose sediment that is in my water column. I found a 94% food grade Calcium Carbonate on Amazon and have mixed 1/4 tsp with 8ml RODI to dose into my 32g BioCube. I've used my biocube protein skimmer (not the best skimmer, but it kind of works) and a super fine mechinical filtration pad while dose twice over the last three days.

I'm still seeing plenty of loose sediment within my water column. Everyone else seems to have amazing results, so just wondering if anyone else had my experience and what solved it?

Thanks