# Beating Cyanobacteria



## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Erythromycin will definitely knock it out. Then follow with water changes to remove and keep up with water changes, clean water and low organics in the tank to prevent it's return.


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

What are the chances that I have a hard crash in my nitrifying bacteria after treating with erythromycin?


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## discuspaul (Jul 27, 2010)

Can you post up a photo of it to see how intrusive it is through your tank ?
That should provide some insight into the treatment that may be effectively used to do the job.
While you're at it, please list the type & numbers of your livestock in the tank.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

Is this a new tank?
Your lights are pretty strong even with a shorted light cycle. You can lift it up a foot or two.
Yeah, I beat it with cleaning it out every time I do a water change. Your problem won't go away with band-aid cures like antibiotics.


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

Yeah, I can post pictures tonight. I cleaned out about 95% of it over the weekend though so it's only left in some spots. It was very prominent on my substrate and hardscape, laying a thick blanket over everything. The plants were hit less hard (probably because they were all growing while it was). I ended up removing the rocks which were really problematic.

Stock list is 4 German Blue Rams, 12 rasboras, and 5 cories. 

I'm sure there's some imbalance I'm not finding though, and I would much rather correct that than have to clean this crap off my baby tears and sword leaves every time i do a WC.


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## micheljq (Oct 24, 2012)

Hello, cyanobacteria is able to fix nitrogen from sources plants cannot use. They can fix the nitrogen from the atmosphere, stopping ferts won't do anything to them, on the contrary it will give them an edge against plants.

Better continue with full fertilisation, water changes, keep the tank and filter clean. Remove by hand what you can.

Michel.


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

I've seen in a few places that removing organics can help a lot, and I happen to have a bunch of extra purigen lying around. Would that make sense to help remove the food source? I'm still dosing enough nitrogen for the plants without any other sources.


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## thedood (May 30, 2015)

nyskiffie said:


> I've seen in a few places that removing organics can help a lot, and I happen to have a bunch of extra purigen lying around. Would that make sense to help remove the food source? I'm still dosing enough nitrogen for the plants without any other sources.


Do you have a phosphate test kit?


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

I don't, but I might be able to bother my roommate for one. 

I do see high phosphates often listed as reasons for this, but I doubt that my levels are high at all since I don't dose it and I feed my fish a homemade mixture of beefheart/spinach/shrimp/spirulina/etc. Not many added phosphates since it's all quite natural.


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## thedood (May 30, 2015)

I have read quite a few things suggesting high phos. levels as a contributing factor. I would check it and I am curious what the levels are.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

From my experience this is almost always an organic thing. Too much light in combination with the level of organics. Reason I mentioned the Erythromycin is that you said your were "at wits end" and the Erythro is the most direct way to get rid of it. I never noticed a problem with the bio-filter after use. Important to change water to get rid of it after treatment. After that you need to keep the tank exceptionally clean via water change, good growing plants things like purigen will help and correcting light if too strong.


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## bereninga (Mar 18, 2006)

Erythromycin is the fastest way, but won't be the long term solution. It will most likely come back. Try cleaning out manually as much as possible. Increase flow, oxygenation via air stone or surface turbulence, and lower the temp closer to 76 degrees. Do water changes every 3 days or so.

A combination of these have helped me keep it at a much more manageable level. The biggest help was the lower temperature though.


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## lksdrinker (Feb 12, 2014)

How old are your light bulbs? How much of that beefheart are you feeding and whats your routine at feeding time? (in that do you do immediate water changes and clean out the uneaten stuff?) I dont see any need for such a "dirty" food like homemade beefheart with what you listed as being in that tank. A little bit of uneaten beefheart in a planted tank (or any tank for that matter) will make a mess of things quickly! I cant say for sure if that will lead to cyano but that jumps out as a potential problem going forward if not now.


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## pdela (Aug 9, 2012)

I had it, did a 3 day blackout which completely killed it off and haven't seen it come back in over 3 weeks. Nothing other than covering up the tank and leaving my lights off did the trick.


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

Thanks for all the help everyone! I will be doing a phosphate test ASAP to see if that helps. I'm also going to up my WC schedule to see if this helps.

The reason I'm still feeding the beef heart is mainly because I still have a bit of it left (I bought it for my discus which i sold) and wanted to run through it. I am pretty careful though to make sure it gets eaten... cleanly? I thaw it completely and break it up as i'm feeding them so it's all easily eaten in one bite. I also feed them slowly, over the course of 5-10 minutes so the rasboras have time to come through and clean up all the little particles.

The light and bulbs are almost brand new, less than 6 weeks old.

I'm also going to add the purigen to try and clean out some organics. I'll check the phosphate levels before I do that.


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## discuspaul (Jul 27, 2010)

If you've been removing it manually for a while, and you've managed to remove sufficient that you just have a modest amount left on the substrate &/or near the bottom, here's a quick easy way to eradicate it overnite. It worked well for me on 2 separate occasions in different tanks, and never returned.

Turn off your filtration & siphon out a sufficient amount of tank water so that you're easily able to reach the affected areas by hand.
Using a plastic syringe, or test kit pipette, dose plain household hydrogen peroxide (H202) at full strength, directly & at close range on to the affected areas. You'll quickly see a build-up of bubbles (oxygen) adhering to the cyano, and which will eventually begin to bubble up to the water surface as time goes on. Leave the filtration off for at least 1/2 hour so that there is no water flow in the tank to remove the dosed H202 from the cyano surface.

It's a near guarantee that if dosed well, the cyano will have completely disappeared by the following morning. The hydrogen peroxide dissipates very quickly into the water column and therefore will not harm your fish, nor will it adversely affect your nitrifying bacteria.

In order to ensure it doesn't return, you'll need to maintain a good tank cleansing routine with substrate vacuuming,
regular water changes, and most importantly, improve the water circulation in the tank, particularly at the bottom near the substrate & lower levels where there is very little oxygen (a factor initiating & facilitating the development of cyano). This can be done in a number of ways - by power bar/spray, pump with airstones, and even more effectively with a water circulation pump properly positioned near the tank bottom (A Hydor Koralia pump works very well for this).
Try it - takes but 15-30 minutes depending on how much dosing you need to do, and it works !


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

Well I tested my phosphates last night and they're at almost 0. 

So I removed one bulb from my fixture, I'm going to start there. I'll be adding purigen tonight to try and remove some of the organics, as well as treating what is left in the tank with h2o2. Any other tips worth trying?


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## thedudeabides (Feb 29, 2012)

When I had it I changed out the gravel (was going to do this anyway) and planted heavily. Not sure how heavily planted your tank is and how established but that's what got rid of mine.


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## Natasha (Nov 22, 2015)

Beat mine (which, admittedly, wasn't as bad as yours sounds) with increasing flow and regular macro ferts (my nitrates were previously 0). My nitrates now stay around 10, the fish don't mind the extra flow, and the cyano was gone within a week, without manual removal.


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

Yeah, I had stopped dosing in a misguided attempt to stop it. I've now turned my dosing pump back on, so my no3 should be staying around 10-15 now, consistently. Hopefully this in conjunction with the lower light will stop it's growth. 

Would running my UV sterilizer be a worthwhile way to minimize growth? I imagine it wouldn't be able to spread as well if I'm eliminating it when it's free floating.


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## MaroMan (Jan 6, 2010)

UV Sterilizers from what I know only kill single celled bacteria in the water column, as in they can control green water, but cyano would not be effected as I have developed cyano and have a uv sterilizer on my tank. Good luck with the removal! get those ferts in check, I am hoping that will help me with my issue as well.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

MaroMan said:


> UV Sterilizers from what I know only kill single celled bacteria in the water column, as in they can control green water, but cyano would not be effected as I have developed cyano and have a uv sterilizer on my tank. Good luck with the removal! get those ferts in check, I am hoping that will help me with my issue as well.


Technically, Cyano is single cell. They form colonies where it's good for them like some place with lots of light and little circulation.


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## Pattern8 (Dec 9, 2015)

Are you battling green water algae (turns water green) or blue/green algae (slimy and covers surfaces)?


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

Blue/Green algae. I've fought the green water stuff before... it's not hard to beat once you add a UV sterilizer.


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## Pattern8 (Dec 9, 2015)

nyskiffie said:


> Blue/Green algae. I've fought the green water stuff before... it's not hard to beat once you add a UV sterilizer.


Ah! Recently came across more on blue/green algae in a book titled A New History of Life. Interesting stuff, thought to be the first form of life on earth. However, also thought to be responsible for what's called the "boring billion" in which no other life existed for a billon years because of the stuff. 

It thrives under and contributes to toxic conditions. It can produce its own source of nitrate as mentioned earlier but does need a source of phosphate. It's possible that the "ultimate fix" of water changes may not apply here as often times tap water can contain phosphates and doing a water change will only replenish this element. It is however intolerant of oxygen. 

All that said I would suspect that you may have high organics but perhaps of more concern "dead zones" in which there is not enough water flow in the tank and thus creating an environment in which the bacteria thrives. 
I would try increasing your water flow and/or circulation through your filter as well as using a product like Purigen to absorb excess organics.

Also, just remembered this is a discus tank and thus running under high temp. Since higher temps mean less dissolved oxygen I would definitely suspect poor water flow as the main culprit


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

This isn't a discus tank at the moment, just running a bunch of gear and stuff from my old discus tank (where I also struggled with cyano... not sure why I thought it wouldn't follow me). 

The tank is at about 76* as of this morning. I'm trying to bring it down slowly. 

I also removed 1 bulb from the light fixture. So now I'm running 1x39W T5HO. Brand new 6500K bulbs.

I've also cleaned out my filter floss and put in some purigen to reduce organics. I turned up my nitrogen dosing as well (I'm using seachem nitrogen... does anyone know if the purigen is removing the nitrates I'm adding??). I've also added a UV sterilizer and it's making plenty (if not too much) flow in the part of the tank where cyano was really exploding.

Unfortunately, I can still see it spreading even with all this. I put some new wood in the other day and I can already see the cyano growing on it. I'm going to hold everything like this for a week and see if the spread continues.


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## nyskiffie (Mar 23, 2016)

So, quick update.

I think I've finally beaten this. Here is what I did:

First, I started doing daily ~30-40% WCs. I've been doing this for 10 days now and it seems to be helping immensely in fighting the green hair algae which was starting to pop up as I beat and removed the cyano. 

Erythromycin seems to have really done a number on the cyano. I did a half dose last Friday (after a 50% WC), then another WC Saturday with a full dose. Sunday i did my WC but did not dose erthromycin. Yesterday, I did another WC and did another half dose. At this point, the only place in the tank I can still see the cyano is on the back wall where it was thick, but it is falling off and looks like it's dying. Everywhere else it is gone. I was also running a UV sterilizer during this time so that any cyano which detached from the walls/hardscape wouldn't be able to survive. I'm not sure if it was needed, but I was not taking any chances.

I also realized I was doing my nitrate testing wrong (not shaking bottle #2) and that my nitrates were sky high for quite a while. They're now much more controlled, I've turned the dosing back to about 1/2 of what it was, and with the current WC schedule I'm looking like a pretty steady 20ppm. I'm going to turn the dosing back even a little more once I stop doing daily WCs.

During all this, I ended up paying way more attention than usual to my water params and found out that my phosphates were actually about 0, and after I started dosing them it seems my plants are much happier, and the algae is definitely not growing very fast. My iron is still low but that is a matter for another thread.

In the end, just wanted to thank everyone for your help! I think I'm finally out the other side of this one.


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