Excess Alkalinity to inhibit Cyanobacteria growth?

I'm trying to find information to either validate or debunk a claim that alkalinity levels in the range of 12-14 dKh may work to inhibit the growth of cyanobacteria without adverse effects on the system or it's inhabitants. Everything I've found seems to indicate otherwise. In Fact, the only clear ties between Alkalinity levels and Cyano control that I can establish is that Calcium and Alkalinity In the upper range of acceptable will help promote the growth of Coralline algae, which should out-compete the Cyanobacteria for nutrient uptake.

Allegedly, this means of Cyanobacteria control has been commonplace in the Cincinnati area for over 10 years.


So any thoughts, input, suggestions, or links to information on this topic would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

trust me.you don't want your alkalinity,calcium.magnesiun,and ph off of wack by experimenting.if its balanced now,don't change anything

 

Oh I dont plan to. My levels are all precisely where i want them. Well, except for the magnesium which tested at 1860, but i attribute that to user error as this was my first attempt at the Sera Mg test kit... The Salifert kit tested it in the area of 1360 only a few weeks ago. Ive got a few minor spots of Cyano, but nothing I would go messing with my parameters to cure.

But back to the topic, I'm quite sceptical of this claim, So I would like to see if there's any information or experiences with it. On the same token, The Gent who provided me with this claim is a good guy, and I'd love to be able to give him some validation to his claim if it does exist.

 

I find that higher ALK and Ca levels help to ward off most alga's high Alk or DKH means harder water and most all alga's prefer softer ,more acidic water.. High PH can be used to burn out many alga's I have found . But I run mine at 12 to 14 DH anyways and Ca around 450 to 500 and Magnesium at 1400 to 1500 never I have never had any cyano issues Tried the keep Ph at 9.00 for a few weeks in an effort to burn out some Bryopsis Penneta did nothing to that but sure killed off the refugium alga's . Why would you be skeptical of this ? High Carbonates have been used for yrs to control many algae issues . Also just boosting the Ph up will burn out many alga's Sometimes you have to put the books down and find out on your own or you will only no what you are told to no . By reading repeaters who had just read the same article

 

i agree with tangster, i used to have a really bad cyno problem, but i removed what i could and now have my levels at...Mg 1450, dkh 12, Ca 450 and now it's done to a bare minimum at best. I am trying to raise them a little further too to try to get rid of the bryopsis i have, although as tangster said, it prob. what do anything but i will experiment

 

And ... low salinity will help to ward off parasites.

I personally believe in setting up conditions that are optimal for what I want. Then ensure a low nutirent water chemistry that starves out the nasty things on the bottom of the food chain that I don't.

Over the last 20 years I've seen many proposed deviations from what's in the ocean. Yet, I feel that the ocean a around a pristine reef still presents a pretty optimal set of conditions.

Not that I'm any good at it. Just sayin.

 

Be careful, coral likes a little higher salinity...

 

Because everything I've found (documented studies) seem to suggest that Cyanobacterias are extraordinarily adaptable. In fact, some of these studies indicate that blue-green algaes are able to thrive in much higher PH conditions where other algaes die off.

I'm not the type of person to just jump into trying something new because a few folks say it works. I'd like to believe that it does. And if it does work, then there must be some reasoning behind it. I'd like to see if I can get a bit of insight on that reasoning