Cyanobacteria

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nikki_kaiser

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
May 12, 2012
Messages
874
Location
Texas
So I went and looked at my neighbors tank today and he has had it for about a year now with no issues. He was recently having issues with nitrates as I had and looked online and found something called "The Vodka Method". He told me about it and to be honest, I was too scared to try it but he did. Now he has cyano starting to cover his live rock and some brown algae stuff growing as well. Could it be from this? He has a protein skimmer, and canister filtration. His water before he did it was good except the nitrates and like me was having issues getting them to zero. He uses RO water and tests it to make sure it's good before he uses it. I didn't know what to tell him because as far as system, water, etc...sounded all right. Any ideas?
 
Could be. The vodka increases bacterial growth which consumes nitrates and phosphates...... But could also be fueling cyano since it is a bacteria.
 
His sand bed isn't deep and he moves his live rocks around and rearranges them (I need to do this!) a lot. I just can't think of anything else as he charts all his readings when doing water changes (sighs, I also need to do this!) and all has been good. I read last night that overdosing can mess things up. Just don't know what to tell him. How do you get rid of it?
 
Water changes and if he has a sump or fuge throw some cheat algae in there that eats both nitrates and phosphates
 
He has a canister filtration system. I will tell him to do more water changes. How much and how often is safe?
 
Does he have bio balls in there that may be a problem they create a lot of that kind of stuff
 
Vodka dosing "carbon dosing" fuels bacterial growth which is not limited to cyanobacteria. Vodka dosing is risky done correctly. Done incorrectly it can be a nightmare.

Also unless you remove the source of nitrates/phosphates then you will always be dosing vodka. Long term its not a solution.

Nitrates can be caused by a few factors all stemming from food and fish. So either maintenance is lacking, tank is overfed and/or overstocked.
 
I'm not sure what he has in the canister. I can check. I AM SO GLAD I DID NOT TRY THIS WITH HIM!!! I had considered it but it I don't like adding stuff like that to my tank! Is there a way he can clean it off the live rock? If I had to guess, I bet he is overstocked.
 
Siphon it off the rocks take the rock out when water changeing and brush it off in the water that u siphoned out when doing the water changes and yes over stocking over feeding doesn't help at all I feed once every onther day to every 3 days how big is the tank and how many fish r in there
 
Just doing water changes will bring it down but it will come right back if he or she does not fix the problem at hand
 
His tank is bigger than mine and I have a 56 gallon so I'm going to guesstimate at about a 75 gallon. I'm unsure of his total stock. I will check out the article in the SW section and print it out for him. I may go over tonight and see if I can help him out. Thank you for all the great advice! I don't know much about cyanobacteria as I've not yet experienced it and hope not to! There's obviously and underlying issue and coupled with the vodka method deal it's escalated.
 
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