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marchmaxima

marchmaxima

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jan 26, 2008
Messages
1,209
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Will check whether its slimey.... Never handled it so I'm not certain.

It does look cyan in colour.

FYI, I'm dosing with 1ml Seachem Flourish Comprehensive and 20ppm Potassium Sulphate per week. I do weekly 30% PWCs.
 
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That's some impressive growth! It looks very nice!

My guess is that's cyanobacteria too. I got a few bouts with that right at the front of my tank too. I don't think you have a low water flow :) but since the hygro are so large now, maybe they are using up all the nitrates. Cyano grows in low and bottomed-out nitrate environments. You may have to supplement nitrates. I don't know if this will help the cyano but I dose 1 ml of Flourish Comprehensive in my 10 gallon tanks twice a week. Your plants look like they don't need any extra encouragement, though!

The cyano should easily be removable by gravel vac. You can also "bury" it - put some substrate over it - and it will die off that way. That's like giving it a mini-blackout. If it persists, you may have to do a total tank blackout for 3-5 days.
 
It's been there for a while now. Not getting worse, just kinda being there. And you're right, I'm certainly not suffering from waterflow issues, but I might get rid of some of the hygro.

When I gravel vac, it doesn't come off. Neither does the diatoms for that matter but that might be cos I have sand, not gravel. Otos take care of most of the diatomsbut even they can'tget the ones on the sand.

Burying it might be a plan! I'dd do that to the grains of sand that are green. The stuff below the substrate's surface will be fun getting at it! :rolleyes:

Nitrates never anything but 10ppm.
 
hi,

the best way i can notice if i've got cyno in the tank (other then the direct sight identification) is the smell. the water has a distinct kinda pond or wet dog smell in my tanks with it present to any noticable level....

when it takes a real hold its the worst algae experience ive had slowly smothering my plants, stunting growth, killing some. even after aggressive cleaning of tank and plants once it had a real hold in the tank it never went away until i took big steps. 3 day blackout didnt quite work, 5 day blackout gave me a couple of weeks rest from excessive upkeep. eventually nailed it with a week of erithromycn coupled with initial 3 day blackout. but of course adressed the underlaying nutrient deficiency of low NO3. its never come back, thanks to advice from here.

tank looks healthy though so dont let me freak you out too much :D. i've just picked up my first hygro (red type) and its nice to see how it grows up.

Best Regards,

john
 
Hi John

Haven't noticed a smell of any kind.... yet ;)

Here's as close up as I could get.

cyan1.jpg


and a bit on the sand.
cyan2.jpg
 
Your tank is taking off like a rocket, excellent growth! I also believe that algea is cyano. I've had it twice. Vacum it out now, if it gets a good hold it is very nasty stuff that is very hard to get rid of. It can smother everything. As already mentioned, increased current and upping the N03 will eventually kill it off. It can still take awhile but keep at it, get it out of your tank, it's a ticking time bomb.
 
Well, there goes Sunday afternoon!

I can't vac it off cos I've tried that and it doesn't come off the sand, so I'll have to scoop out as much as green sand as I can.

Will boiling the sand remove it you think? I'd like to return the sand back to the tank.
 
Okay, well I took my own advice and took off the top layer of sand and boiled it on the stove.

(and once again, I got some strange looks from the husband. I think between boiling the driftwood and the sand, he thinks I'm crazy)

Anyway, the sand came up a treat! the only way I could scrape off the suspect-cyano was with my finger, and of course as I tried to bring it up, it got into the water column, so I'm sure that there's more there. But I got what I could.

Here's now things look now. Look! you can see the back of the tank! hahahaha.

post_cyan1.jpg


And the sand looks like it did when I first put it in! No green/brown stuff now.

post_cyan2.jpg



I couldn't get every grain of sand that had cyano on it out of the tank, but that sand got buried when I put the freshly-cleaned sand back in.

Do you think that this should be enough to help combat it? I'm not sure what else to do. The various articles I read suggested upping the water changes, but I'm already doing 30-40% weekly changes. Should I halve the flourish dose perhaps? Try and starve it...
 
Looks great. The Cyano will probably return in the same spots, you will have to repeat the steps you just took. Each time you do the Cyano will come back less and less. Eventually it will disapear completely. Setting up a planted tank and making it look good in the beginning is easy, I call it the honeymoon period. Keeping it looking good a couple of years from now, combating problems as they appear and keeping at it is where the real talent lies. By taking the time to boil your sand you show you have the determination to keep a beautiful planted tank. You will be rewarded for your hard work with a beautiful healthy tank. Excellent work!
I can just imagine the look you got when your husband saw you boiling sand! Yes, planted tank people are all a bit nuts I think, I know I am!:):)
 
hehehe, thanks Glen. As I've been doing this hobby successfully for the last 6 months (unsuccessfully prior to that) I'm still very much a newbie, but I'll do what ever is necessary to provide the bestest environment for my pets, whether it be the fish, my cats or my husband. If boiling sand will help, I'm quite happy to do that. If I'd twigged that it would have cleaned up the substrate like that I'd probabaly done it earlier, prurly for asthetic purposes, but I been just waiting for the diatoms to go away!

I've been doing some more reading on cyano and its triggers. Here is a summary of my thoughts.

First, being that I change 30% of the water weekly, and tank params are stable, I don't think it's cause is poor water quality. Also, based on what I have read, it really does seem that a low N:p ratio encourages cyanobacteria.

many roads seem to suggest that to be rid of it, I should reduce the intensity and/or duration of the lighting, and do what I can to raise that N:p ratio, such as cutting out any fertiliser that contains phosphate for a while or adding extra nitrate.

My tank:
PH - 6.4
Amm = 0, NitrITE = 0, NitrATE = 10
KH = 1d
GH = 1d (yup! that soft!)
Phosphates = 1ppm - and proven to be low thanks to a wee bit of GSA occuring in the left and right corners of the front of the tank

Incicently, phosphates registered 0ppm from the tap water.

So I think Glen is right.... If I don't change anything about the routine that I'm only going to see it reoccur. Now I'm happy to continue to remove substrate and boil it to remove it, but I'm also wanting to see if I can prevent it.

Here are my options as I see them.

1. I don't know much much less lighting I can have now wpg-wise (i'm only 1.2 wpg now), but I can drop the duration an hour.

2. Start dosing Nitrate - if this is a good idea, what PPM should I aim for?

3. Cut out any ferz with phosphate - I'm only using Florish Comprehensive, so will need a replacement if this contains Phosphates (but should I worry with only 1pm?

4. Continue as is and just remove cyano as needed as per Glen's suggestion.

Anything else??? Is my understanding of cyano correct? Any other suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Looking at the Flourish Comprehensive analysis on the Seachem site:

Flourish

the phosphates are an extremely low amount. Read the label on your fish food - that's where a lot of phosphates can come from.

I have read that low light encourages cyano, but all my tanks have been low light according to the lumens calculators (maybe the high side of low light or the low side of medium light). Once I fixed the water flow and the nutrients, while still using the same lighting, my cyano went away. It seems that all my new tanks went through a cyano phase, but that makes sense if you realize that it takes a bit of trial and error to establish a fertilization routine. How long are your lights on? 9 hours with the tank lights on seems to be a good duration for me. The room gets some indirect morning sun about two hours before lights on.

You can start dosing nitrate. You'll want to aim for about 20 ppm. Add gradually to let the fish acclimate to the new nitrate level. Take a few days to build up to 20 ppm level. After the initial adjustment period, you can dose the full amount two or three times a week. I dose twice a week since my light isn't high. You could try two times a week to start. People with higher light generally dose three times a week.

The plants will deplete the nitrate but by dosing nitrates steadily at or close to the the 20 ppm level, you will hopefully avoid "bottoming out", which would encourage the cyano. The 10 ppm that you reported is within the suggested range but it can be depleted rapidly if you're not dosing. It may have been fine one day and too low the next. Dosing on a schedule helps eliminate the low readings and nutrient swings.

You can continue with your Flourish Comprehensive. I use 1 ml twice a week in my 10 gallon tanks. I was using 1.5 ml twice a week but I noticed a large film on the water surface. When I decreased the Comprehensive dosing, the film mostly disappeared.

I remember that you had a nice, brisk waterflow from your filter. Try adjusting the outflow of the filter to aim at the front glass. I aimed a small powerhead at the front glass in one tank (not set up anymore) and that helped a great deal.

Have you read up on the Estimative Index, a popular method of fertilization? It may come in handy as you prepare for your higher light tank too. I followed this method when I had a low end of medium light tank, and now with my low-light tanks, I still follow it, but I dose twice a week instead of three times a week.

The Estimative Index of Dosing, or No Need for Test Kits - Aquarium Plants - Barr Report
EI light: for those less techy folks - Aquarium Plants - Barr Report
 
I'd probably keep your lighting as is and just start dosing Nitrates. Hobby grade test kits can be inaccurate under 20ppm, so it's possible your levels are even lower than 10ppm. I'd probably dose 10ppm after each water change, and then increase if needed.

No need to worry about your Phosphate levels, 1ppm really isn't high at all. Plants need Phosphates too. If you start to get green spot algae on the glass, that's actually a indicater that the Phosphate levels need to be increased.
 
EI is definitely one of those things on my list of things to read up on.

I do have some pretty serious flow coming out of the spraybar. My Jebo gives me 1000 lph of filtration which is a lot on my little tank.I'm pretty certain that the flow is set to go from back to the front, bit I might play a bit.

Lights are on for 10 hours on a timer... I will continue with that, continue with the Flourish, start dosing nitrate (slowly as you both suggest) and we will see what sort of changes I get.
 
That appears to be HC (Hemianthus Callitrichoides). Great little foreground plant that requires at least medium light and carbon supplementation (Flourish Excel or CO2 injection).
 
Joy knows her plants! I tried it, but it never took off. It didn't die, it just kinda did what you see in the above photo. Someone I know had success growing it in their lower light tank so I through i'd lose nothing in gicing it a whirl. I still have a bunch of it sitting on my kitchen windowsill. It's quite happy in that container. It's growing better there than in the tank!

If I get off my butt and get my little nano going, the rest will go in there.
 
<vent>

Nnnngggggrrrrghhhhhh. how annyoying. The cyano is back. It's now growing in a different spot on the top of the substrate over on the left side of the aquarium (left when looking at the tank, that is). So there's a green patch right in front of that peice of driftwood you can see.

And the diatoms are coming back. The otos can't seem to remove them from the sandy surface.

Sorry about the vent, but I just cleaned this up two weeks ago and I didn't think I'd need to do it again so quickly.

other changes to the tank.... Nitrates are higher. I'm trying to keep the nitrates at around 20ppm, (maybe a bit higher, before I do smaller water changes. I've also stopped vaccuming the substrate (to assist the mulm/nitrate accumulation). Phosphates are still low. Certainly low enough to give me a wee bit of GSA to go with my cyano. I also cut back the stem plants (you can see that above) to allow better water flow around the tank.

I realise its only been two weeks since my big clean out, and I need to be patient but I'm just a bit frustrated that it came roaring back so fast under the higher nitrate conditions!

without wanting to do too many changes to the tank too quickly, is there anything else I should be considering at this stage, or just stay on the current course of action and give the strategy more time to work?

</vent>
 
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