Calcium Dosing/Coraline Algae..

meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
Do you have a pic yet?
Get a phosphate kit as soon as you can....high phosphates are one of the leading contributors to cyano...along with many other factors like low flow...excessive nutrients
Can you take your water somewhere to have it tested for phosphates? You may need to add a phospure pad, or some other phosphate remover.
Do not stir sand up...Just siphon off the top, and continue to do water changes....this is not something that has an overnite fix...BELIEVE ME...I am also dealing with it
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
you never answered the amino question, but i think it is because you do not know, and you said you are just following LFS advice.
most experienced hobbyists will tell you two bits of advice,
A) in this hobbyist try to be a minimalist, use only what you need
and more importantly:
B) ONLY EVER DOSE WHAT YOU CAN AND DO TEST.
not caps as in yelling, but more for emphasis of importance. i never even heard of amino acid dosing, but that is nutrients, and they are not being consumed by anything, so the cyano is thriving on it.
lastly, ask yourself, "self, why do i want corraline? "
corraline is just a visual measure to the hobbyists that the tank MAY be ready to house some calcareaous organisms.
it also helps keep nuiscance algae at bay.
thats about it.
when you get more experienced and your params are all right, the algae will come, and it will come hard. you will regret wishing for it when you are scraping that stuff 2-3 times a week.
edit - cyano comes in a huge variety of colors. the name cyano is latin for "blue-green" which is the color it is often found in. in our tanks it is more commonly reddish brown / maroon.
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
Originally Posted by meowzer
http:///forum/post/3012929
Do you have a pic yet?
Get a phosphate kit as soon as you can....high phosphates are one of the leading contributors to cyano...along with many other factors like low flow...excessive nutrients
Can you take your water somewhere to have it tested for phosphates? You may need to add a phospure pad, or some other phosphate remover.
Do not stir sand up...Just siphon off the top, and continue to do water changes....this is not something that has an overnite fix...BELIEVE ME...I am also dealing with it
I will get a picture tonight. It stinks because I don't get off until 7pm and all the stores close at 7. But good thing the weekend is almost here!
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
http:///forum/post/3012931
you never answered the amino question, but i think it is because you do not know, and you said you are just following LFS advice.
most experienced hobbyists will tell you two bits of advice,
A) in this hobbyist try to be a minimalist, use only what you need
and more importantly:
B) ONLY EVER DOSE WHAT YOU CAN AND DO TEST.
not caps as in yelling, but more for emphasis of importance. i never even heard of amino acid dosing, but that is nutrients, and they are not being consumed by anything, so the cyano is thriving on it.
lastly, ask yourself, "self, why do i want corraline? "
corraline is just a visual measure to the hobbyists that the tank MAY be ready to house some calcareaous organisms.
it also helps keep nuiscance algae at bay.
thats about it.
when you get more experienced and your params are all right, the algae will come, and it will come hard. you will regret wishing for it when you are scraping that stuff 2-3 times a week.
edit - cyano comes in a huge variety of colors. the name cyano is latin for "blue-green" which is the color it is often found in. in our tanks it is more commonly reddish brown / maroon.
Thats okay...I know you weren't yelling. I never add anything to my tank dose wise except for this. And I've learned my lesson. Like I said before...I promise to get you guys a photo tonight or tomorrow. It is really a dark dark almost black color that is stringy.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Mindy2577
http:///forum/post/3012902
I clean my canister every two weeks. This is including dumping out everything and washing it by hand. I also buy a new sponge pad to replace it. I have cut down on feeding to every 3 days. But everything is just spinning out of control.
If you are doing this, it is why your nitrates are high all the time. You are killing off the good bacteria as well as the bad. Rinse your pad with saltwater and put it back in.
Clean your canister and replace only the filament (angel hair stuff) everything else rinse in saltwater and put it back in.
In fact it is best if you can do only half, and do the other half the next time. I use two canisters I clean one (rinse the pads as I said) and alternate.
You need the good bacteria, when you clean everything too well you have to wait for the bio to catch up, and according to your schedule, your cleaning it as soon as it does.
 
oceansidefish

oceansidefish

Active Member
This is what I would do and how I effectively nixed my cyano.
Use RO/DI water and do a good water change every week, get up as much cyano as possible.
Cut back feeding to every other day and feed only using pellets that do not contain phosphates (frozen foods often leave extra waste in the water)
on a daily basis try to pick up any large sheets of cyano
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
IMO flow is the single biggest factor in killing off cyano.
everything else is also worthy of noting and controlling.
 
stanlalee

stanlalee

Active Member
the amino acids arent helping for sure. If you have ANY excessive nutrients do not even think about putting in amino's. That was VERY bad advice from the LFS. They are of no use for a new tank. Cyno loves to proliferate off amino additives. I dont have cyno but I can overdose aminos and start a few patches at wil. making it go away is as simple as cutting back the aminos.
 
natclanwy

natclanwy

Active Member
Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3012984
If you are doing this, it is why your nitrates are high all the time. You are killing off the good bacteria as well as the bad. Rinse your pad with saltwater and put it back in.
Clean your canister and replace only the filament (angel hair stuff) everything else rinse in saltwater and put it back in.
In fact it is best if you can do only half, and do the other half the next time. I use two canisters I clean one (rinse the pads as I said) and alternate.
You need the good bacteria, when you clean everything too well you have to wait for the bio to catch up, and according to your schedule, your cleaning it as soon as it does.
This isn't entirely correct, canister filters do not process nitrates, they only help to process ammonia and nitrite. Cleaning the filter helps to reduce nitrate by removing organic material before they are broken down into ammonia.
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
Originally Posted by natclanwy
http:///forum/post/3013254
This isn't entirely correct, canister filters do not process nitrates, they only help to process ammonia and nitrite. Cleaning the filter helps to reduce nitrate by removing organic material before they are broken down into ammonia.
So cleaning my filter every two weeks isn't bad then?
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
http:///forum/post/3013026
IMO flow is the single biggest factor in killing off cyano.
everything else is also worthy of noting and controlling.
My lights have been off for about two days and last night I pointed my powerhead down towards the sand. It seems to be helping because when I woke up this morning most of it was gone. Im totally amazed.
Sorry the picture is so big. Im at work and it won't let me resize it on photobucket.
But this is as of this morning...

Also....just imagine that black stuff alot more stringy and everywhere. That would be what my tank looked like 4 days ago.
 
stanlalee

stanlalee

Active Member
Originally Posted by Mindy2577
http:///forum/post/3013891
So cleaning my filter every two weeks isn't bad then?
its preferable. it only becomes a problem if you are using it for biological filtration which is when you run into problems with canisters because you remove a significant portion of your biological filtration everytime you clean it. As strictly mechanical filtration with liverock providing the biological filtration the more you clean it the better.
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
Originally Posted by Stanlalee
http:///forum/post/3013917
its preferable. it only becomes a problem if you are using it for biological filtration which is when you run into problems with canisters because you remove a significant portion of your biological filtration everytime you clean it. As strictly mechanical filtration with liverock providing the biological filtration the more you clean it the better.
When I clean out my canister, I make sure to wash the white round things, the carbon bags, the bioballs, the foam things at the very bottom and I change out the top filter screen. I never dump the water out that is inside though.
So what I be removing to much biological filtration then?
 
ca161406

ca161406

Member
Originally Posted by Mindy2577
http:///forum/post/3014052
When I clean out my canister, I make sure to wash the white round things, the carbon bags, the bioballs, the foam things at the very bottom and I change out the top filter screen. I never dump the water out that is inside though.
So what I be removing to much biological filtration then?
make sure you're washing everything in the old saltwater from your tank. if not the fresh will kill all the good bacteria. also instead of rinsing out the carbon bags just change it out completely. it shouldn't be left for more than a few days with out a change because it will release the stuff it took out back into the water. one more thing, try putting some phosban in the bags instead of carbon for a few weeks and see if it helps with the cyno
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
This might be a dumb question..but I shouldn't leave my carbon bags in there for more then a couple days? Because I haven't taken them out once since I have had it set up.
 
natclanwy

natclanwy

Active Member
Cleaning your canister often is a good thing, and you should change your carbon every couple of weeks. If you have a fair amount of LR it won't make much difference if you rinse the pads in fresh or saltwater and go ahead and dump the water out of the canister when you clean it too. There is a fair amount of organic waste that settles in the bottom your canister so while your cleaning you may as well get rid of it too.
Cyano is sometimes difficult to control, flow is probably the most important factor. Cyano has the ability to utilize the nitrogen gas dissolved in the water column as a nutrient source so you can have zero nitrate and phosphate and still get a cyano outbreak (although not as likely). See what you can do to increase the flow across the sand bed, by either redirecting your K3 or outflow from your canister or add another power head or two. A 44g hex is going to be somewhat difficult to get good flow from top to bottom and around the rock but with some experimentation with PH location you should be able to get there.
 
wilsonreef

wilsonreef

Member
If your phosphates are still high you may want to invest in a phosphate reactor. They typically run in the $40 range. I use one all the time and use the GFO granules. I use these because the other phosphate media has aluminum in it which gives my corals a fit. For the money, the phosphate reactor is perfect....
 
mindy2577

mindy2577

Member
Originally Posted by ca161406
http:///forum/post/3014129
make sure you're washing everything in the old saltwater from your tank. if not the fresh will kill all the good bacteria. also instead of rinsing out the carbon bags just change it out completely. it shouldn't be left for more than a few days with out a change because it will release the stuff it took out back into the water. one more thing, try putting some phosban in the bags instead of carbon for a few weeks and see if it helps with the cyno
AH HA!! See...when I am cleaning out the items I just dump them into the bathtub and hand rinse everything. So do you believe this could be whats stemming my cyano problem?
I have had the powerhead directly on the sand and most of it has gone away. However there are areas where I can't get the powerhead to hit. So I tried using a baster to get some of it out. But using the baster is difficult.
However I was thinking over the weekend about things that I had done to the tank prior to this happening. And I remembered when I was using my gravel vacuum to do a water change and had it down in the sand and the sand was mixing all up. Could I be releasing stuff in the sand out into the water and this could have also started the Cyano problem?
 
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