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Does having Cyanobacteria but not having any Algae tell you anything?

Cat

Cat

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Joined
24 Jan 2013
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116
Location
Cambridge
Hello,

I have my first aquascape going for a couple of months now and I am having issues with cyano but as I said I don't have any algae problems. Does the presence of one and not the other tell you anything about the setup, if you know what I mean?

I would love to add fish, particularly Dwarf Puffers, but I don't want to do anything until everything is stable as they are very sensitive fish. It is a big tank, 405 litres and has homemade L.E.D lights and fire extinguisher CO2 and Ei Ferts and virtually all the plants are in the 'easy' category. Oh and a variety of substrate half or more being Ada. I have a carpet of eleocharis and it mainly likes to sit on that. We went ballistic with the filtration pump/ spray bar system as I was worried about the co2 not getting everywhere it was needed and judging by the mist I can see moving about it looks ok but I haven't got any experience with planted tanks. I don't have a clue what Cyan is an indication of? I've read too much phosphate, or not enough nitrate or not good enough biological filter ( I have a fluidised bed ). I have also read that home testing kits are almost pointless anyway.

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Righto. Thank you for your responses. I'll try and get some pictures sorted today/tonight.

Also I didn't realise you could test for Silicates?
I'm going the to my LFS this afternoon anyway so I'll see what they have.

I'll have a read of that article too.

Thank you!!
 
The bizarre thing is I am finding that the day after my weekly 50% water change the Ciano is much much worse. It was actually why I thought I'd write the post because It just baffles me.

I am assuming if my lack of algal growth is down to the plant growth being vigorous enough to use up the nutrients in the water column ( not that it seems that vigorous to me ). I suspect my filter isn't being a good enough biofilter, its just I'm surprised that after two months it hasn't cycled enough yet. I used to keep Discus and generally it took about three weeks to cycle a filter with household ammonia?

I read the article that Troi suggested I presume a total blackout would harm the plants?
 
EdwinK said:
Ciano is not so simple. I would say it is a bacterial outbreak due to 'new tank syndrome' and ADA substrate. Just try to siphon all you can get, do a minimum of 50 percent water change and add beneficial bacteria. Then wait. If that wont help you can start testing your water.
Click to expand...

He said the tank has a couple of months. Assuming our friend follow water changes recomendations concerning ADA substrate this shouldn´t be happening from the substrate. ;) And IMHO cyano doesn´t came from ADA substrate. That´s a mith..
In my previous two assemblings (one of them with ADA substrate and the other with full Tropica set substrates) i didn´t have Cyanos.
In the assembling with Tropica, i started with osmosis water and zero cyanos. 4 months after i started to mix tap water with osmosis (50% each) and in one week i got Cyanos. So i did backwards to 100% osmosis and the cyano disappear.
In the Ada assembling with ADA soil never had cyano.

This is my experience. So very sorry but tanks "Syndrome" or else or blaming the tank for being new is a mith.

Cyano in my opinion is due to some chemical in tap water. And that is Silicates. Maybe in combination with something else to. I don´t really know. Silicates plus something making a reaction that sort out in cyano.

And if it comes from the tap water the more water changes you make the more difficult to get rid of them. This was something i also experiment.
If you do not make WC for some weeks or reduce it largely (20% a week) you´ll notice cyanos disapearing.

And why? Cause you reduce silicate. Cyano feeds from silicate. By the time there isn´t any silicate or in minimal amount cyano will go away.

This was all due to my own testing and experience as i said before.

Many thanks.
 
Doing syphoning with ADA soil is not so recomendable..IMHO.

If you are a little careless you´ll be realeasing amounts of amonia to the water column. And then you´ll see the results of that. If your filter is well positioned and has enough power that isn´t necessary cause it will be sucking all organics or waste material.

Ada is very delicate ;)
 
In my limited experience, I get cyano worst where:
- flow is lowest
- sunlight may be brightest (not shining on the tank, but at the front)
- waste may be building up
- my filter may be due a clean

Putting card at substrate level to block excess light can help to reduce it (I think this is a George Farmer top tip which works for me). It produces energy by photosynthesis, so if you block light, you can reduce its source of energy.

If it gets really bad, a 3 day blackout killed it off for me, but this isn't a permanent solution.

Increased air at night may help bacteria burn off excess organics. I had a Venturi running at night pointing in the worst affected area and the increased flow and oxygen may have helped.

Water changes (gravel vac) may help get rid of the waste the bacteria is feeding on.
 
Paulo Soares said:
He said the tank has a couple of months. Assuming our friend follow water changes recomendations concerning ADA substrate this shouldn´t be happening from the substrate. ;) And IMHO cyano doesn´t came from ADA substrate. That´s a mith..
In my previous two assemblings (one of them with ADA substrate and the other with full Tropica set substrates) i didn´t have Cyanos.
In the assembling with Tropica, i started with osmosis water and zero cyanos. 4 months after i started to mix tap water with osmosis (50% each) and in one week i got Cyanos. So i did backwards to 100% osmosis and the cyano disappear.
In the Ada assembling with ADA soil never had cyano.

This is my experience. So very sorry but tanks "Syndrome" or else or blaming the tank for being new is a mith.

Cyano in my opinion is due to some chemical in tap water. And that is Silicates. Maybe in combination with something else to. I don´t really know. Silicates plus something making a reaction that sort out in cyano.

And if it comes from the tap water the more water changes you make the more difficult to get rid of them. This was something i also experiment.
If you do not make WC for some weeks or reduce it largely (20% a week) you´ll notice cyanos disappearing.

And why? Cause you reduce silicate. Cyano feeds from silicate. By the time there isn´t any silicate or in minimal amount cyano will go away.

This was all due to my own testing and experience as i said before.

Many thanks.
Click to expand...

My water isn't RO but it is filtered through separate chloramine, sediment and activated carbon (coconut) canisters. I live in Cambridge which has pretty awful water. It is pretty hard and as far as I am aware has the highest legal limits of nitrates allowed (from farming apparently). I had an ancient test kit so I gave it ago, no idea if any of it is viable but according to it I have no ammonia, no nitrites and 10mg/l nitrates, I also have a Hanna pen which reads - ph - 7.93 (drop checker is green for co2 though), ppm - 376 and uS- 751? If that helps ? Are fluidised bed is made with Silica sand though hmmm
 
AndyMcD said:
In my limited experience, I get cyano worst where:
- flow is lowest
- sunlight may be brightest (not shining on the tank, but at the front)
- waste may be building up
- my filter may be due a clean

Putting card at substrate level to block excess light can help to reduce it (I think this is a George Farmer top tip which works for me). It produces energy by photosynthesis, so if you block light, you can reduce its source of energy.

If it gets really bad, a 3 day blackout killed it off for me, but this isn't a permanent solution.

Increased air at night may help bacteria burn off excess organics. I had a Venturi running at night pointing in the worst affected area and the increased flow and oxygen may have helped.

Water changes (gravel vac) may help get rid of the waste the bacteria is feeding on.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm hoping its not flow but it does strike me that it is worse on the grass than anywhere else. The tank is over 2 metres long but when we built the setup we made the calculations for the flow rate with our expected back pressure from the pipe work, we aimed for 10 times the volume of the tank an hour. You can see the mist flowing in a circular pattern and the grass waving with it. We feed the spray bar from both ends to avoid a large pressure drop. There is a patch where the sun can hit the tank at the later half of the day but the Cyano doesn't seem to favour it. Also our fluidised bed is by its own nature self cleaning. I have to syphon the decaying stuff out as it would have to be pretty small to get through our intakes and so it never reaches the fluidised bed anyway. SO complicated!
 
Ah well I had big issues with cyano on a filtered rain water supplied tank and more water changes only made it worse and worse but more KNO3 cleared it up. But with another tank this approach didnt help at all and reducing ferts was beneficial so for my experience there was no clear single answer...but certainly always worst in low flow debris collecting areas.
 
Paulo Soares said:
cyano doesn´t came from ADA substrate. That´s a mith..
Click to expand...
Of course it does not come from substrate. Substrate realises some elements that help ciano to develop.
Paulo Soares said:
This is my experience. So very sorry but tanks "Syndrome" or else or blaming the tank for being new is a mith.
Click to expand...
So this is your experience. If a thing never happened to you, you call it a myth? I never had cancer but I know it is not a myth. Aquarium eco system is so difficult that only very naive person could call it 'simple'. I'm not blaming anything but saying that such possibility exists.
Paulo Soares said:
Doing syphoning with ADA soil is not so recomendable
Click to expand...
You need to syphon out the bacteria not the substrate itself.
 
Any pics?

If you can't be bothered with doing various experiments, I reckon erythromycin will cure it. Of course use it with care and usually precautions.
 
I could upload other photos but they all look like this one anyway! I might try taking some pictures at night because there are reflections everywhere. The tank has a black back and one side that is near a window.

If I did use erythromycin where would I get it? I managed to get some antibiotics for my Discus fish years ago but I can't remember where from just somewhere on the internet.

I ok with doing experiments if you have any suggestions, its just that there are so many variables I'm not sure how much it could tell you?
cyano.JPG
 
I've heard of someone who spot treats with kno3. Worth a try I guess.
 
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