Dino or cyano..can you tell

Ok. I thought I had my problems solved but I did a water change Sunday and my algae issue is back. Worse this time.

I can't tell if its diatoms, or cyano.
Its not very thick, nor are there bubbles in it.

I add nothing to my tank besides my regular water changes
I vacuum my sand weekly
Use Ro/di only
Change floss weekly
Feed 1x a day and a small amount
Lights 10hrs

My nitrates are 5, phos 0

I just don't know what it is or how to control it.
I also have a lot of speghetti worms.

 

It's cyano, dino looks like long slim, snotty and produces a lot of bubble.

Increase flow dramatically. What are you feeding and how often?

 

cyano

 

I figured that was the culprit.

I feed once a day, i fluctuate between
Omega one pellet and new life spectrum

1 a week mysis

I notice when lights out my sand is clean. So far its only on the sand

So add another powerhead to the tank to get rid of it? Anything else?

 

It isnt an easy task getting rid of this stuff. You need to figure out where the source is.

-Increase water changes to mutiple smaller more frequent changes.
-Increase flow
-Decrease feeding
-Decrease light period.

 

if your system is still young its normal to see cyano. decreasing feeding does help, but it shoud not be done at the expense of the animals health. what are your nitrate readings? powerheads will help but its not tackling the source of the problem (probably high nitrates and or phosphates). as your tank matures the bacteria will be able to process organics faster and "starving" the cyano before it gets a chance to feed on it.

 

whoops, read the post this morning and forgot the info was there when I replied later. in my opinion if you have an efficient nutrient export (w.c, macro algae etc.) you should see it go away on its own. reducing lighting helps too but again its not solving the core issue.

 

Thats where my issue is. What is the source?


I don't over feed, the food is gone in seconds.

Change my floss weekly

I do water changes every week

Added surface skimmer

Changed my water source from distilled to ro/di (thought it helped...only for 1 water change though)

Test weekly

I am just at a loss. The tank is 3mnths old. I have never battled cyano before in any other tanks I've had.

I know my tank is 15g and 2 clowns and a blenny is pushing the limit but I am really good with maintenance.

Is there anything I can do or add to lower my nitrates? I have no sump.

 

when did you switch to ro/di? if your lighting period is on over 12h that can influence too.... this is why they say "eliminate one variable at a time" to determine what the source of the problem is. imo, 3 months is still a young tank and that's your issue, your bacteria haven't developed enough to tackle the bio-load so cyano gets to free surf on the excess waste, but im no cyano expert. your nitrates values are good for such a young tank. you should see these values decrease over time, and with them the cyano as well