Help Me Get Rid of Cyanobacteria

[Mashiro]

I need some help getting rid of this Cyanobacteria or I'm just going to tear down my 10 gallon and have to spend a bunch more money on new plants.

Since I don't feel like doing that, I'm asking you guys, please, what can I do to get rid of this BGA that's covering absolutely everything? I've tried increasing the flow, manually vacuuming it off, it just comes back.

My substrate is Eco-Complete and I've got 2x 10w 6500k fluorescent bulbs in the hood.

This tank houses a betta, 10+ ghost shrimp, 4 blue mystery snails, and 1 nerite snail.

 

[wildroseofky]

The only way I got rid of it was with erythromycin, an antibiotic. The name of the stuff I bought was Mardel Marocyn from Petcarerx.com. I searched on Amazon and bought the cheapest I could find and it was from that company. A lot of people will tell you it kills your beneficial bacteria but it won't if used as directed. The beneficial bacteria and cyno bacteria are two different types and the erythromycin will only kill the cyno. My tank has plants, ghost shrimp, apple snails, and mollies. None were harmed. All the cyno is gone. Nothing else worked for me and I tried everything suggested.

 

[bigbanker]

How old is the tank and what is your water change schedule like? Are you finding it in areas of low flow?

 

[Mashiro]

The tank is about a year old.

I change 50% of water every 2 weeks.

And yes, it's mostly in the corner where my Java Moss clump is.

 

[AquaAussie]

I think you use Maracyn 2 for Cyanobacteria. At least I think that's what I used and it worked. Along with reducing the light time and add a co2 pump

 

[aqua_chem]

It's Maracyn. Maracyn Two may very well damage your beneficial bacteria. You should definitely increase your flow long term though. The problem with BGA is that you need to both get rid of what's in there now (antibiotics) and change whatever caused it (poor circulation, too much light, low nitrates, etc). I'm not sure that this is something that would be solved by CO2 either.

 

[Mashiro]

It's Maracyn. Maracyn Two may very well damage your beneficial bacteria. You should definitely increase your flow long term though. The problem with BGA is that you need to both get rid of what's in there now (antibiotics) and change whatever caused it (poor circulation, too much light, low nitrates, etc). I'm not sure that this is something that would be solved by CO2 either.

The problem with increasing my flow is that I have a betta. My particular betta's fins are quite large and he is a slow swimmer to begin with.

Any current at all just sloshes him around.

 

[AquaAussie]

Yes maracyn. sorry about the betta. Not sure what you could do unless rehouse him