Cyanobacteria

D

DennisF

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I am having a minor red slime problem on the sand surface in my reef tank. How long can my clams go without light before they are impacted? I would like to leave the lights off for at least a day or so.
 
I wouldn't risk turning off the lights since the clam depends on the light. The red slime you have, you may want to direct more water flow in that direction. That should resolve your issue.
 
Your clams can handle extended periods without light with little to no negative effect, however, this probably won't help with the cyanobacteria. Try and remove as much of it by hand (or baster) as possible and check your nitrate and/or phosphate levels. Often times, increasing the amount of flow across the area where it's growing can help keep it in check.

Worse case, you could resort to something like Chemi-Clean, but I would use that as a last resort.

Good luck and keep us posted. :D

EDIT: Tri beat me to it! :lol:
 
My nitrates and phosphates test at 0 but the phosphate test may be lying in that there are enough to support the cyano. I plan on adding phosban to my carbon reactor this weekend and see if that helps too. I have been manually breaking up the slime this week. I might try moving two MJ's around to see if it helps, but my frogspawn and hammers don't like a lot of flow and they are on the bottom of the tank.
 
If you start using the phosban, watch your alkalinity closely, it causes the alkalinity to drop when you start using it. Also the lights out thing can work in some cases. But two things, having the lights out for a few days can cause the Ph to drop in the tank, which causes problems. And even if it does go away temporarily because of no light, it will just come back when the lights come back on unless you get rid of the excess nutrient problem.
 
i have not had a problem since i started shutting of main pump for feeding (food was getting into sump) and got a bigger skimmer. cross your fingers. Casey
 
Can you give us some info on your tank set up...water parameters, equipment set up including the lights and the last time the bulbs were changed and K rating, feeding routine and what you feed, tank mates, are you using RO/DI water, etc...

Also remove as much of the cyno as you can and then a few hours later after the "harvesting" take a phosphate reading and see what you come up with.
 
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