Siphon out cayno??

Silly question, but how do you siphon cayno out of your tanks?? We tried siphoning it out of the sand bed last night and it just broke up
Into chunks and went back into the sand bed, its a pretty small siphon, do I need a larger one? Is there another way to get cayno out? It just started and I don't want It to spread anywhere else. Please help me =]

 

when I was battling mine, I used to turn off my powerheads and carefully use a turkey baster to suck clumps out. It's impossible not to have some break up and float away but do the best you can. I also used some reef tongs to get some of the clumps out.

Ultimately once you can pinpoint the source of the excess nutrient that is fueling the cyano, you will start beating it. It can be frustrating but hopefully the forum has given you lots of tips on what it may be.

 

When I had that problem, I took the head off a gravel-vac and just used the hose to vacuum it out while draining water for a water change. Approach the cyano slowly, though, to prevent losing too much sand.

 

I am going to be doing that this weekend as well...It looks so ugly

 

Algae problems are usually caused by aquarium water with excess nutrients like phosphate, nitrates etc. You can try and siphon out what you can to remove the algae in the short term. In the long term you may have to examine how you care for your tank. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. Also using RO/DI water and a high quality salt with little if any NO3, phosphates etc like Tropic Marin will really help too. Adding a phosphate remover and increasing flow in your tank may help too.

 

Thanks for the tips, but why does it matter if you rinse frozen food?

 

excess nutrients

 

My method of removal was completely different. It worked for me but that only represents a single result. My method is in no way "tried and true".

I used latex gloves to grind the cyano into a dust between my fingers. I really get into the sand and try to get every last little piece that I can see. I have a filter sock over the line going into my sump, which captures any free floating objects pretty well. I use(d) a turkey baster to make sure that none of the cyano settles and that it makes it's way into the filter sock. After all that I usually do a water change (optional), and then of course clean the filter sock (required).

It's a long, tedious process that you'll have to keep doing as the cyano reappears. The filter sock will never filter out the microscopic cyano particles, and inevitably some of the cyano will settle back down to the bottom. In the end, when there are no nitrates for the cyano to consume, and it's lost it's hold in your tank, it will disappear. My tank always looked super clean just a short time after doing all this too.

Keep in mind that I implemented a solution to reduce the nitrate level in my tank before going after the cyano physically. I'm not going to get into how to reduce nitrates, because one could write an entire essay on that alone, but in my case bio-pellets combined with increased water flow and nutrient producing livestock reduction were the ticket.

The siphon method is flawed in my opinion because your only getting bits and pieces at a time. Imagine your cleaning mold off something but you don't do a thorough job, it will just grow back. The idea is to not leave any bits of the cyano anywhere on the substrate and to keep it suspended in the water column, so that it is forced to reattach itself. When you lower the nitrate level, the cyano doesn't have enough energy to reattach itself, whereas it requires much less energy to simply spread from a pre-attached source.

Doing water changes is obviously important to any system but there is no need to do excess water changes when trying to fight cyano or any other algae. The only way a water change would be effective is if you changed %100 of the water. Even when trying to reduce nitrates I feel that excess water changes alone are of little consequence.

Long story short: Reduce nitrate levels, then do whatever you can to disrupt the cyano. Let a filter sock do the removal.

-Instead of "removal", think "disruption" and "starvation".


Note: I'm not fully educated on the biology of cyanobacteria so I cannot say with certainty that I am correct, it's simply my opinion based on intuition and observation. My tank has been pest algae/bacteria free for months now.

 

Thanks! I think the cayno bloom is the result of my cycle ending. Is a very small amount and only in one corner of my tank, so it may be as simple as getting flow into that corner.

 

Your welcome. The simplest solutions are usually the best.