What is feeding my CYANO!!!!

[slider101]

I have been battling what I guess is cyano for about 2 months. I have to vac and clean the rocks off about every 2 days. I feed once a day no more than they eat in 5 min, my ammonia, trites, and trates are all at 0. Ph is 8.0, sg is 1.024, temp around 77-79. That is all the test kits I have. I have 265 watts of pc lighting that I run about 7-8 hours a day. I have tried to leave them off for almost 2 days and no change. I am running a protein skimmer and marineland emperor 400 with biowheel. This is a 55 gal FOWLR right now and a CC and sand bed, mostly sand now. In the last month to month and a half I have done 2, half water changes and of course when i vac I have to add about 5 gals. The tank started out with tap water in November and since then I have only used RO water. I am going crazy trying to stop this and want to add some zoos and frags but not going to do anything till this is resolved. Please someone point me in the right direction.
I should also say that I don't have alot of money right now so I can't start adding a refugium or other equipment.

 

[bill109]

do more frequent water changes.
how old is are the bulbs?
do you feed alot? can you see more left over food on the bottom after feeding? how big/small is ur CUC?

 

[slider101]

My light kit was new in November. I feed once a day and they eat it all in 5 min and I usually see nothing left.
I only have a cleaner shrimp and 8 red leg hermits.

 

[fatcats]

first off id get rid of the wheel part of the bio wheel
they only harbor bad bacteria and nitrates
second do 20% water change and leave the lights out for two days and dont feed them either, they should be fine
turn the lights back on for a few hours a day for a week or two
next clean the rocks with a turkey baster and than get some more powerheads
finally do another 20% water change after 10-14 days
repeat if neccesary

 

[fatcats]

oh and always use ro/di water that has been freshly brewed

 

[meowzer]

I had a cyano prob a few weeks ago, What I did was...I cleaned out my filter really good, added a phospure pad, water change with ro/di, and cut down the amount of time my lights are on, rinsed frozen food, and siphoned the algae out with a baster...oh yeah...added an airline, and a little more flow. It is 80% gone in 2 weeks.

 

[ilovemytank]

Cyno is a bacteria. alot of people suggest water changes, flow, less lighting, less food but you can battle cyno forever with those and if its already out of control you probably will never win the battle against it. Its important to know why or how you got the cyno so that you can correct the problem in the future. Now that it sounds like you have it bad there is a simple solution. The only thing I would ever suggest medicating your tank for is this. Its an easy fix thats harless to all fish, inverts and corals. Use red slime remover or chemiclean red slime remover. Your skimmer will go nuts for a few days but the cyno will be gone within 24-48 hours. ( completely ) Follow the directions and do a water change after 48 hours. Good luck !

 

[kas2247]

I've been battling cyano off and on since i started my tank almost 2 years ago. Once I switched to RO/DI water, everything has gotten much better. But so far, the best success I've had is adding 10 turbo snails that I got from this site. They've been in there about 3 weeks and there's still some cyano, but there are huuuuuuuge clean spots on my rocks and most of my glass has stayed clean. They're even cleaning my powerheads. The last time I had them they didn't touch a thing, but this time they're just going to town. Could be worth a try! I prefer snails over hermits anyday. My hermits stay in the sump.