Cyano outbreak

[Ezjp326]

Hi all, this is my first post here and I am sure there will be many more. So now to my tank. I have a 16g innovative marine with a hang on fuge with mud,cheato,some mangroves and LR rubble. I am running a GFO media reactor in one chamber, two media baskets with chemi, and filter floss. I also have another chamber filled with LR rubble. I have not had any issues with parameters or anything else in the tank since I started it about two years ago. The tank is stocked with zoos, Xenia, recorded and other softies. corals and I have 2 clowns, royal gramma, and Watchman goby paired up with a pistol shrimp. About 6 moths ago I had a bad cyano outbreak and my LFS sold me live bacteria and said I should vacuum the cyano out. So, I did that and it took about 5 months to get it completely removed. In the vacuum process I lost about 3/4 of my 2 inch sand bed and that's when I noticed my nitrates going up. I am currently at 30 ppm and it's not budging over the past month. I have thrown 10 20 and even close to 50 % water changes and nitrates come down a bit but they go right back to 30. Could the loss of sand bed be causing this issue.

Sorry for the long post, but this has been driving me crazy. lol.

I also have a hefty clean up crew and I feed every two to three days.

 

[Ezjp326]

Sorry, one more question. Can I and should I replace the live sand?

 

[1guydude]

How often do u change your media and clean ur media basket or aio sump area?

Did your cyano go away? Sounds like your tank is shifting...you need to shift it back in the right direction.

Hang on back protein skimmer or wc wc wc. Try and keep the scheduled and not random.

You can replace sand but do it with clean new sand....
D

 

[Ezjp326]

I Change out filter floss weekly and chemi pure every two months. Media baskets are cleaned along with chemi change.

Cyan has been gone for about a month. I do a 2 gallon water change every week.

I purchased Carib sea live sand today and I'm going to slowly add it to the tank over the next week. I am guessing if this does not help my issue it might be time for a skimmer.


Hoping this does not stress my livestock too much.

 

[1guydude]

Sounds like your set up is pretty tuned in. How old is it or your water?

You answered your own question or knew the answer before you asked lol.

You can up your wcs to like 3-4gal weekly but most likely it's just your bio load build up.
Get a good hob skimmer and u should be able feed once a day or every other day with a skimmer... More flow might help out a Lil idk.

D

 

[Ezjp326]

water and tank is about 2 years old. I lost my old tank because of Sandy. I did answer my own question, guess I was looking for some reassurance lol. I have two hydor 225's that alternate between night and day. I am researching a skimmer now. I will definitely update after sand is in and hopefully everything stabilizes.......