Question Re: death

[vince-1961]

GRR! I did a "water change" by siphoning out as much cyano as I could (about 30 gallons worth). Took it a grand whopping 3 hours to re-cover a portion of the sand where I had vacuumed it out. Cut back on feeding a month or more ago, been doing these water changes by siphoning out cyano for over a month and just 3-4 days ago, put in some phosguard. Haven't feed for three days now! New membrane on the RO filter.
What makes it SO frustrating is that I did a mini-siphon on the cyano (15g) just day b4 yesterday.
Grrr. I'll beat this stuff ....eventually.
PS- I raised the Alk in the above 30 g to about 3.5 or 4 with baking soda. I won't add any to the next 30g as I do things s l o w l y .
.

 

[truperc]

If you want invert assistance on the cyano, you may want to consider purchasing Strombus Sp.
I have a Tiger Sand Conch, and when I had a little outbreak of cyano it took care of it.

 

[vince-1961]

I've already got 2 conchs burrowed in the sand bed which I haven't seen in a long time. I assume they are still alive. Have no clue what species they are, but the one you mentioned sounds interesting. The pics I found make them look like they are 2-3 inches long. How many would you suggest for a 72" x 24" tank?

 

[truperc]

I cannot claim to be an expert on these conch's but I added one to my tank which was plenty.
Your tank has 3X the floor mine does, so I would say 2-3 should be enough.
Mine was already 2.5 inches on purchase, so if you were to buy smaller ones the number may increase.

 

[vince-1961]

The cyano is receding! I'm beginning to suspect that something just died and rotted under the sand, thus providing "excess nutrients". (1 giant hermit crab, 2 large conchs, 2 peppermint shrimp and several fish have gone AWOL in the last few months - no carcasses ever found, although I did find then open shell of a clam.)
Still continue removing cynao manually via water siphon during weekly water change.
New testing results after turning CA reactor off several weeks ago:
Amm, nitrite, nitrate = 0
CA 400
Alk 2.0
Mg 1500 meql
pH 8.2