What is this and..

[JoeA]

What kinda algae is this and how can I get rid of it?

 

[fishfreek]

Looks like cyano. This is acutally a form of bactera that can grow based on a few circimstances.

1. ) excess nutrients
2. ) poor water flow
3. ) poor water quality

YOu should be able to syphon it out of the tank but it might return if you dont take care of the cause. Depending on where you find it you might just need to increase the water flow to those areas or you may want to consiter feeding less, doing more frequent water changes or cutting back on the livestock.

 

[grimlock3000]

I had some of that stuff (cyanobacteria), though not nearly that bad 8O 8O 8O

Mine cleared up over time but never seemed to fully go away. When I added a protein skimmer to my tank, it ALL was gone in a few days. You are going to want to siphon that mess out daily while doing a water change, start using RO/DI water, and get more flow into that area of your tank. Nothing is really going to eat that, except maybe a Conch. How old if you tank anyway? That type of thing is common in new tanks, but usually not that bad.

 

[JG]

Ohhhh.. yech ! I had this same problem in my daughter's nano. Finally I bought chemi-clean. Wow...really did the job and didn't hurt anything else.

 

[SeriousDude5]

What type of chemi-clean did you use I have that all over my crushed coral and my live rock its horrible really doesnt look good lol.

 

[grimlock3000]

Chemi-Clean is the acutal name of the stuff. it does fix up cyano nicely from most accounts, however I would reccomend you look into why you have that much cyano in the first place, and deal with the root cause of the problem.

 

[JG]

I have two tanks - both use same water source only one has cyano. The only difference between the twotanks is the substrate. the one without cyano has crushed dolomite substrate. The one with cyano issue was started with live sand. I suspect the bacteria came in with the live sand.

 

[lando]

Yup...bad old cyno outbreak. You can do a search a search on this site for threads about it. Basically, it is the result of too much nutrients in the water. Ussually it is a PO4 issue. The first step should be getting a PO4 test kit and testing both your aquarium water and the water you do top-offs and changes with (source water). What is your souce water? You have two goals here...1) to identify and eliminate the souce of cycno and 2) get rid of the exsisitng cyno from your tank. You should begin doing water changes using high quality RO/DI water. You can try to vaccum up as much of the cyno as you can. Be careful not to break it up too much as it can spread. Check the age of your bulbs, as they get older they loose some spectrum and this can be a cause. Evalute your feeding and lighting schedules. Cut back on both. Add more flow to your tank. Cyno tends to get a hold in places of little or no water movement. Adding one or two more PH will help this. Chemi-clean by Boyd Enterprises, INC is a great product. It will remove any exsisitng cyno from your tank but it will NOT keep it from coming back. This is why it is so important to identify the cause of your outbreak. Good luck...Lando

 

[JoeA]

Ok...so I siphoned all the red crudd up and seemed to come up easy. I also did about a 30% water change too. I added another powerhead and moved my original PH flow direction so now the tank is moving some serious water

Hope this will help, I think the majority of my problem was poor flow. Have to wait and see.

Thanks for all your input!

 

[RMPD109]

The flow ma help it from establishing but there is still an underlying problem. Cyano is fed by excess nutrients so the water movement may stop the problem. But you still have a problem with excess nutrients to deal with(phosphates most likely). As stated earlier check your source water or possibly your feeding habits.

 

[SeriousDude5]

I just got rid of that stuff in my tank I was leaving my lights on for 14 hours a day which was TOO LONG so I turned them off for a day and now I have cut my lights down to 8 hours a day and it is all gone and my tank is clear as can be also I added another power head to increase the water flow and that seemed to help.