Got Cyano, and Can't Get it to Stay Away?

Cyanobacteria or red slime algae is something virtually every reefer will have to deal with at least once in their reefing career. Its unsightly and corals absolutely hate it! 

So you come down one morning or afternoon and take a peak at your reef, and notice the dreaded red slime!? What do you do? The first reaction of a large number of reefers is to reach in the cabinet for some chemicals, dose, and prepare for a water change. Some may even check their RO filters if they have been down this road before to see if their media has exhausted and needs to be changed. What if instead of reaching into the cabinet, you reached into the fridge for some live phytoplankton? There are a number of diatom species of phytoplankton that feed on silicates, a few (Chaeto, Thal) even require it to form their cells and live! 

First let’s check your nutrient levels. Cyano tends to show up when these are out of ratio with one really or high or low compared to the other. We recommend 1:100 between nitrates and phosphates. If one is too low we need to dose it up to bring it back into ratio. If one is too high we need to think through what could be causing the spike? Have you changed gfo or carbon recently?

Cyano tends to develop in areas of detritus and algae making removal of those a top priority when trying to beat cyano. Live copepods that feed on detritus and algae are a great way to help keep things more manageable over the long term. Species like Apocalypse and Tisbe that crawl on rocks and glass are great additions for this clean up. If you have a lot of suspend particles in your water Tigriopus would be a great candidate to help clean the water column (Apocalypse also swim and clean the water column).

If you find yourself in a situation most reefers have or will find themselves in don't panic! First check your RO filters and see when they were last changed. If it’s been a while get those replaced as that is your most likely your source of silicates that's helping to increase the cyano problem. Next lets stop what's fueling it, remove excess detritus and algae (the cyano is likely growing over top of both of these). Manual removal for the immediate, but we recommend adding copepods to keep these at bay long term. Then, let’s add something to help reduce the silicate level of the system with live phytoplankton. More specifically we would recommend a diatom based blend that feed on silicates to help reduce the silicate levels of the system. The diatom blend will also outcompete the cyano for nutrients and effectively starve it out! Lastly, grab yourself some good bacteria like biodigest. The more good bacteria in your system the better. The microbiome of your system could be depleted of good bacteria allowing bad stuff like cyano to get a foothold.

Here is an easy guide to beating this red slime nasty:

1. What are your nitrate and phos levels? If they are way off ratio, is usually when cyano shows up.
2. Check your RO filters, when were they last changed? Do you have a silicabuster stage? If not add one! Silicates building up fuels cyano
3. Increase flow in areas of cyano.
4. Live phytoplankton dosed daily. A blend of diatom strains will outcompete the cyano. And to the extent you have excess silicates the phyto specifically diatom strains will use that as well. They have to have silicates to build their cell walls.
5. Pods! Will eat detritus and the phyto (which exports the phyto and nutrients it used in photosynthesis). Sometime excess detritus built up in certain low flow areas can fuel cyano as well.
6. Add beneficial bacteria like biodigest

If you are dealing with cyano please reach out to us, we would love to help!