what to do about?

[bavass]

This stuff is growing on my overflows, power heads, and glass! I think its Dinoflagellates. Not sure where it is coming from. RO/DI is at 0TDS, Silicates in tank are at 0! Nitrates and Phosphates are at 0. I guess it could be eating them up before I can test them. Any suggestions on if its Dino's or not? I spent a long time getting rid of hair algae, green turf algae and nitrates at 160ppm and now I get this

 

[mr_X]

It looks like cyano to me.

 

[Mpfaff77]

Definite would say cyano. I hate that stuff. Took me 6 months to rid. I did a lot in that time to try to rid it and I can't say exactly what did it but here is the list.

Weekly water changes instead of bi-weekly.
Used chemi-pure
Switched from phosban to phos extract
Lessened light cycle and changed bulbs
Dosed magnesium
I siphoned out as much cyano as I could each water change.
Changed flow to increase in cyano areas

I also never showed any reading of phosphates. Had only 5 ppm nitrates. So I think it consumes faster than test reads like you said.

Do you have refugium? Direct sunlight? Old bulbs? Low magnesium? Phos reactor? Some questions to ask yourself. I hope this helps. Also nothing in my tank was effected by cyano. Was just matter of looking bad.

 

[bavass]

Definite would say cyano. I hate that stuff. Took me 6 months to rid. I did a lot in that time to try to rid it and I can't say exactly what did it but here is the list.

Weekly water changes instead of bi-weekly.
Used chemi-pure
Switched from phosban to phos extract
Lessened light cycle and changed bulbs
Dosed magnesium
I siphoned out as much cyano as I could each water change.
Changed flow to increase in cyano areas

I also never showed any reading of phosphates. Had only 5 ppm nitrates. So I think it consumes faster than test reads like you said.

Do you have refugium? Direct sunlight? Old bulbs? Low magnesium? Phos reactor? Some questions to ask yourself. I hope this helps. Also nothing in my tank was effected by cyano. Was just matter of looking bad.

I do not have a refugium I have mangroves growing along the back of the tank, no direct sunlight, T5HO's are 10 months old, Magnesium is at 1350. I have two phosban reactors. one is running ROX 0.8 and the other is running BioPellets. Havent had an issue with Phospahtes so stopped running GFO a year ago maybe. Its only at the top of my tank on my overflow, mangroves, and powerheads

 

[mr_X]

Mangroves aren't doing much to export nutrients. They are more of a conversation piece than filtration.
Water changes? Are you vacuuming that stuff out with each change?

 

[bavass]

Mangroves aren't doing much to export nutrients. They are more of a conversation piece than filtration.
Water changes? Are you vacuuming that stuff out with each change?

yes i am taking it out with each water change, I also take a toothbrush and srcub the powerheads with the vaccum by to suck as much out as possible. I have been doing 15g water changes once a week on a 55g. thinking about going to twice a week

 

[mr_X]

You can also use Boyd Chemi-Clean.
It will remove the cyanobacteria, but it will resurface if the source of the cyanobacteria isn't removed.
I've used it on various systems and it's safe if used as directed.

 

[bavass]

That stuff does work great I used it years ago to kick start getting rid of an algae problem that was a result of very high nitrates

 

[Starchar]

Doug, I just read an article tonight that said the exact same thing about mangroves being more of a conversation piece that a means of filtration.

Bavass what is your pH?

 

[bavass]

8.0-8.2 the last time I checked it s few weeks ago but my ph has never moved from that range. I keep my alkalinity at 11dKH