Too Much Coraline

cillam

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Definitely looks like cyano, as others have said you will need to fix the underlaying issue causing the outbreak.

The fastest way of "getting rid of it" would be to siphon out as much as possible and use chemiclean. This will kill the cyano but can cause other issues like dinos if your nutrients bottom out. Also if the underlying nutrient or flow issue is not taken care of the cyano will return in a month or two. At least thats been my experience.

If you do go the chemiclean route you will need to add extra aeration to the tank.
 

rhitee93

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@vetteguy53081 - I'm curious about the phrase nutrient imbalance. I've seen it used a lot in relation to cyano, but I'm not sure what it means. Are we talking nitrate and/or phosphate levels are simply too high, or that one is out of whack compared to the other?

The back story:
I've been fighting a cyano outbreak for a few weeks now. I'm not sure what all the causes are in my situation, but I believe the last straw was that I let me gyres impellers get dirty reducing the flow. That has been fixed, and the gyres get disassembled and cleaned monthly now. I've also bumped the flow through the return pump up a bit just for good measure.

I'm still pulling quite a bit of cyano out of the tank, but everything else seems pretty good. My nitrates are usually 10-20ppm and my phosphates are usually 0.15-0.2ppm. I've been slowly lowering phosphates since they are a bit higher than "generally recommended", but at this point I am guessing.
 

vetteguy53081

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@vetteguy53081 - I'm curious about the phrase nutrient imbalance. I've seen it used a lot in relation to cyano, but I'm not sure what it means. Are we talking nitrate and/or phosphate levels are simply too high, or that one is out of whack compared to the other?

The back story:
I've been fighting a cyano outbreak for a few weeks now. I'm not sure what all the causes are in my situation, but I believe the last straw was that I let me gyres impellers get dirty reducing the flow. That has been fixed, and the gyres get disassembled and cleaned monthly now. I've also bumped the flow through the return pump up a bit just for good measure.

I'm still pulling quite a bit of cyano out of the tank, but everything else seems pretty good. My nitrates are usually 10-20ppm and my phosphates are usually 0.15-0.2ppm. I've been slowly lowering phosphates since they are a bit higher than "generally recommended", but at this point I am guessing.
Yes nitrate and phos elevated but ive seen Cyano even with the numbers low. The biggest cause I see is lack of water flow, overfeeding and excess use of powdered coral foods
 

Lavey29

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@vetteguy53081 - I'm curious about the phrase nutrient imbalance. I've seen it used a lot in relation to cyano, but I'm not sure what it means. Are we talking nitrate and/or phosphate levels are simply too high, or that one is out of whack compared to the other?

The back story:
I've been fighting a cyano outbreak for a few weeks now. I'm not sure what all the causes are in my situation, but I believe the last straw was that I let me gyres impellers get dirty reducing the flow. That has been fixed, and the gyres get disassembled and cleaned monthly now. I've also bumped the flow through the return pump up a bit just for good measure.

I'm still pulling quite a bit of cyano out of the tank, but everything else seems pretty good. My nitrates are usually 10-20ppm and my phosphates are usually 0.15-0.2ppm. I've been slowly lowering phosphates since they are a bit higher than "generally recommended", but at this point I am guessing.
To much white light and lack of flow dead spots in the tank result in cyano outbreaks.
 

rhitee93

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To much white light and lack of flow dead spots in the tank result in cyano outbreaks.
Thanks. I turned the white lights off today as an experiment. The flow should be good now. I'll keep vacuuming and run under blues for a while to see what happens.
 

Formulator

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@vetteguy53081 - I'm curious about the phrase nutrient imbalance. I've seen it used a lot in relation to cyano, but I'm not sure what it means. Are we talking nitrate and/or phosphate levels are simply too high, or that one is out of whack compared to the other?

The back story:
I've been fighting a cyano outbreak for a few weeks now. I'm not sure what all the causes are in my situation, but I believe the last straw was that I let me gyres impellers get dirty reducing the flow. That has been fixed, and the gyres get disassembled and cleaned monthly now. I've also bumped the flow through the return pump up a bit just for good measure.

I'm still pulling quite a bit of cyano out of the tank, but everything else seems pretty good. My nitrates are usually 10-20ppm and my phosphates are usually 0.15-0.2ppm. I've been slowly lowering phosphates since they are a bit higher than "generally recommended", but at this point I am guessing.
In my experience cyano seems to come with rapid changes in nutrients. So a spike or a dip. I’m not sure if imbalance is the right word, but its another way to say nutrient instability. Since it doesn’t seem to matter whether it is too high or too low with cyano, we just say “imbalance”.
 

BristleWormHater

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Definitely looks like cyano, as others have said you will need to fix the underlaying issue causing the outbreak.

The fastest way of "getting rid of it" would be to siphon out as much as possible and use chemiclean. This will kill the cyano but can cause other issues like dinos if your nutrients bottom out. Also if the underlying nutrient or flow issue is not taken care of the cyano will return in a month or two. At least thats been my experience.

If you do go the chemiclean route you will need to add extra aeration to the tank.
Chemiclean is not needed in this situation. Especially in a new tank it will only cause more problems Only necessary when nothing else works.
 

Lavey29

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IS YOUR REEF AUTOMATED? WHY OR WHY NOT?

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  • Yes, but I have very little automation in my tank.

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