What I also wanted to fit was other than water changes.
I have been having a terrible time with cyano in my fowlr at work.
Here's the specs :
155g bowfront
30g sump
4 x 96w PC lights
ER 6-1
An assortment of a dozen fish ranging from two inches (clowns) to six inch Emperor Angel.
Now before anyone goes off on a tangent, I would like for this discussion to not be about brand A is better than brand B because of X
I have been battling cyano since last August.
Yes, we are using RO/DI and I do change the filters out every six months. Containers for the water are Brute 30 something trash cans for commercial use - in my case bright yellow.
At first I was having some success with Chemi-Clean, and it would slowly go away and then it would come back again. So I decided to add another protein skimmer (ER 8-2 - wasn't using it at the time), thinking two proteing skimmers were better than one. Again, it would slowly go away, and then it would come back again.
After three months of this. I decided to reduce the feedings down to every other day, and limit how much my sales staff would be allowed to feed on the weekend (they sometimes like feeding the feedng too much).
Well, that wasn't working either so I decided up the water changes to every other week (thirty gallons) from just once a month. That seemed to help, but it would invariably come back <sigh>.
I was talking to a fellow reefer about this and he suggested that it might be possible that the cyano has just simply developed an immunity to the chemi-clean and needed something more aggressive.
Oh, I should add I even tried ozone just to see any results in cyano. I tried this in combination with the skimmers and less feedings. The water got clearer and simply made the cyano more apparent.
So out of desparation I started wandering the dark meandering path of the Vodka method. I don't drink and was trying to figure out I was going to explain to my controller why I needed reimbursement for a bottle of Vodka for the fish tank....yeah....right.....like that was going to go over real well.
I started looking a little further and noticed that some people were having success with plain old c&h white sugar. Heh??? Hey, we have lots of that in the coffee room.
For those that do not know about the Vodka method. It is a way (no, not a be all end all solution) to control nutrients by providing bacteria the fuel to begin multiplying and consuming excess phosphates and nitrates. The inherent danger is if you fuel the bacteria population too much it will also consume the oxygen (as in all of the oxygen) in the tank as well - thereby asphyxiating your livestock.
Okay, so I started dosing the sugar with the food about a half teaspoon per day along with the food. That didn't do anything. So as of last week I upped it to a tablespoon, and then slightly increased to a two tablespoons every second day.
The cyano started dying back which is great. The water is cloudy so you know something is going on. I am back down to just the one skimmer (the bigger skimmer goes back to my tank at home), and cleaning it out every day. I have a total of two powerheads which add water movement, as well as a 500gph powerhead pointing at the water's surface from the bottom.
So what kind of methods are all of you using? Opinions and suggestions are welcome.
I have been having a terrible time with cyano in my fowlr at work.
Here's the specs :
155g bowfront
30g sump
4 x 96w PC lights
ER 6-1
An assortment of a dozen fish ranging from two inches (clowns) to six inch Emperor Angel.
Now before anyone goes off on a tangent, I would like for this discussion to not be about brand A is better than brand B because of X
I have been battling cyano since last August.
Yes, we are using RO/DI and I do change the filters out every six months. Containers for the water are Brute 30 something trash cans for commercial use - in my case bright yellow.
At first I was having some success with Chemi-Clean, and it would slowly go away and then it would come back again. So I decided to add another protein skimmer (ER 8-2 - wasn't using it at the time), thinking two proteing skimmers were better than one. Again, it would slowly go away, and then it would come back again.
After three months of this. I decided to reduce the feedings down to every other day, and limit how much my sales staff would be allowed to feed on the weekend (they sometimes like feeding the feedng too much).
Well, that wasn't working either so I decided up the water changes to every other week (thirty gallons) from just once a month. That seemed to help, but it would invariably come back <sigh>.
I was talking to a fellow reefer about this and he suggested that it might be possible that the cyano has just simply developed an immunity to the chemi-clean and needed something more aggressive.
Oh, I should add I even tried ozone just to see any results in cyano. I tried this in combination with the skimmers and less feedings. The water got clearer and simply made the cyano more apparent.
So out of desparation I started wandering the dark meandering path of the Vodka method. I don't drink and was trying to figure out I was going to explain to my controller why I needed reimbursement for a bottle of Vodka for the fish tank....yeah....right.....like that was going to go over real well.
I started looking a little further and noticed that some people were having success with plain old c&h white sugar. Heh??? Hey, we have lots of that in the coffee room.
For those that do not know about the Vodka method. It is a way (no, not a be all end all solution) to control nutrients by providing bacteria the fuel to begin multiplying and consuming excess phosphates and nitrates. The inherent danger is if you fuel the bacteria population too much it will also consume the oxygen (as in all of the oxygen) in the tank as well - thereby asphyxiating your livestock.
Okay, so I started dosing the sugar with the food about a half teaspoon per day along with the food. That didn't do anything. So as of last week I upped it to a tablespoon, and then slightly increased to a two tablespoons every second day.
The cyano started dying back which is great. The water is cloudy so you know something is going on. I am back down to just the one skimmer (the bigger skimmer goes back to my tank at home), and cleaning it out every day. I have a total of two powerheads which add water movement, as well as a 500gph powerhead pointing at the water's surface from the bottom.
So what kind of methods are all of you using? Opinions and suggestions are welcome.
Code:
:roll: