[gramma royale]

Heya folks,

MY substrate is now caked with cyano. I've got to get rid of it. I've tried everything from water changes to not feeding my fish for a week and a half. My last resort is to shut the lights. I didn't want to do this, I'm afraid my photosynthetic corals may die. I have a bubble coral, mushrooms, and an open green brain. How long can these corals last without light? Please let me know, I'm planning on starting the process tomorrow. Thanks u.

PS. Does cyano grow on LR too?

[Firefish]

Hang in there GR, looks like your tank has only been up for about 2 months? If this is the case you are probably cycling through a cyno stage. Are your lights the right specs. and do you have good water flow around the tank? I remember when I first started I had cyno off and on for the first few months. I wouldn't kill the lights all day, just shorten the lighting cycle a few hours for about a week. Stick with the water changes and make sure the new water you're using is a high quality water.

[Reinhold]

After a two month battle with cyanobacter, I finally gave in and treated my tank with UltraLife Red Slime Remover. I had tried every other measure to remove the cyano without success.

I'm aware of all the reservations about treating a tank with chemicals, but the RSR really worked well. The cyano disappeared completely, and there were no side effects as far as I can see.

Make sure and turn off your skimmer, remove carbon, etc. if you do use it.

[srgtkoons]

Dont kill the lights, remove as much as you can manually while siphoning water for water changes. I had a nasty outbreak when a huge colony of xenia died. I did 10% change every other day for about two weeks. Just hang in there with the water changes reduced feeding and removal.

[GregD]

Agree with the points made by both Firefish and Reinhold.

Couple of points I would mention...

- If this is a new tank you may have outbreaks like this from time to time as the tank matures and becomes established

- Turning off the lights for an extended amount of time will not cause the original cause of the cyano to go away....probabaly will just wind up killing your corals in the process.

- Look for the original cause of the problem and fix it....for me I see cyano outbreaks in tanks if the light bulbs are old and need to be replaced (lost their spectrum), there is a lack of circulation or there is a high amount of nitrates in the tank.

- In the short term, I have used the same product as Reinhold (ultralife red slime remover) and it seems to work well without harming the bio filter or any sensitive corals.

HTH,
Greg D

[GregD]

....almost forgot....you may also want to take a look at the links to some helpful articles on cyano that Joaco keeps on his site....

http://www.wyx.com/iheo/tank/cyanobacteria.htm

Greg D