cyano and lights

[rbarb1111]

I have a dark brown/orange stuff all over my sand bed. On the rock it is bright red. It seems to go away(get lighter in color) at night and then reappear after the lights are on for awhile. I have tried chemi-clean and it gets rid of the red on the rock for a couple of days but comes right back. It does nothing for the brown-orange color. I have remove the brown with water changes but it comes back in a couple of days. It is driving me nuts!!! any suggestions?? Is this something that is light sensitive?? I have been running phosphate remover in my skimmer basket but that does not help. Nitrates test at 0. I have 96 watt 50/50 pc lights and the tank is about 7 months old.

Thanks
Richard

 

[malkore]

what are your phosphate levels at?
What make/model of skimmer (kinda sounds like a Prizm, since you mentioned a media basket)?

cyano is usually caused by phosphates, not nitrates, so I'm not surprised you have 0ppm nitrate but still have cyano.

 

[rbarb1111]

It is a prizm and i have not tested for phosphates

 

[rbarb1111]

went out and bought a phosphate test kit. Phosphates test at .1 is this high???

Thanks

 

[indy]

Sounds like you're dealing with the same thing I am, mystery cyano. Low low nitrates and no phosphate and still getting a cyano bloom. Right now all my water flow is at top layer and nothing down low so mine is a flow problem at the sandbed level. Not really a mystery, but I'm lazy and calling it mystery is more fun. Although I do think some tanks will go through a cyano outbreak just like diatome outbreaks after cycling. Other than that, what is your tank setup?