# Cyanobacteria update...



## Lifer374 (Dec 5, 2003)

I finally decided to go ahead and black out my aquarium by covering it with a towel and allowing no light to kill off this blue algea. I've been doing water changes every few days for some time to keep it from growing out of control hoping it would eventually subside...Its not working, and now with a new baby in the house there is no way I can do the maintenence I've done in the past (weekly will be the best I can do).

Shut off the lights and covered all the glass with two towels last night. Thursday I will be getting the lighting going again.

I'm wondering if I should keep dosing my ferts during this time?

Low light set up with swords, cryps, and Narrow leaf chain swords.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

If you have low light, you shouldn't need to dose too many ferts even when it is up and running fine.
You should make sure you have about 15-20ppm nitrates in the tank b4 a blackout. (or somewhere around there)

That green stinky stuff is hard to deal with.. I had it when I used pool filter sand as a substrate..I didn't rinse it 500x before duping it in.. 
Hope the blackout works for you. 
There are some other methods of dealing with it as well, like using this anti-bacterial stuff in your tank, I forget the name of it..
I'm sure someone knows the name of it here and will chime in soon


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## upgradepc (Jan 30, 2009)

that sucks man. did it just pop up out of nowhere?


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

I feel your pain tango. Ive been dealing with that crap for 2 months now. In my case it happened fast one day my tank was perfect next day I had a carpet of that crap and have had it since. I thought about totally blackn out my tank but Im afraid of killing off my plants. I have some medium high light plants I dont want to loose. I pick that crap out just about every other day to keep it from gettign everywhere but you leave one microscopic piece and its all back the next day. Im moving this fall and if I havnt got rid of it by then Im totally redoing my tank when I move. Its jsut an eye sore and gets all over my plants and I hate it. Had my tank for 2 years absolutley no problems then bam this stuff comes out of no where. Did blacking out the tank do anything for you?


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## RedneckR0nin (Nov 5, 2008)

Blacking out your tank works really welll for that green crap, I had a bunch in my 40 gallon cause it was not kept up for awhile due to not beening used by fish. I flip the light on to get ready to house cichlid feeders and it was everywhere. I blacked out the tank for about four to five days with two 25% water changes and some scrubbing and more scrubbing. Also added kombamba don't know if that helped or not but it was under control in a week and gone within two.


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

Anyone ever use this? http://www.algone.com/ Im thinking of blacking out my tank but like I said hate to loose other plants in the process. Seems like a good cure for people with high nitrite and nitrate levels too.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

Plants can get expen$ive!

I wouldn't use that quick algea remedy because not only could you loose your plants, but you won't cure the reason why you have algea in the first place.

Tango, did you cure your problem? What's the word?


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## Lifer374 (Dec 5, 2003)

Ibanez247 said:


> Tango, did you cure your problem? What's the word?


Sorry, been pretty busy lately.

I held off feeding for about a week, then did a good cleaning being sure to get out as much of the slime as possible. I then covered all areas of the tank where light could get inside with a towel, completely blacking it out. I left it like this for just over three days, however I wanted to go slightly longer but we had company coming over and my wife didn't like the idea of having a big tank covered by a towel in the living room. 
It killed 99.9% of the slime, leaving very little on the bottum of the front pane of glass at the gravel level. In a few days time this little bit has multiplied some, but nowhere near what it was like prior to the blackout. 
In short, the blackout failed to kill everything. But I feel that had I left the tank covered with the lights off for another day or two it would of killed it off 100% so its not a complete failure. 
Within the next few days I'll be going for it again and try to get it all. Now the question is...will it stay gone???

2 years Ibanez and then it developed? Hmm. Did you go with a different spectrum of lighting prior to getting the slime?


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## Lifer374 (Dec 5, 2003)

Here's my update on the whole crappy situation....

It was a HARD lesson learned that a blackout is not going to resolve a problem with cyanobacteria (blue algae).

Like the first attempt, pretty much 99.9% of slime was eradicated with the second blackout. 
Differing from the first attempt though, is that with this blackout being a day and a half longer, it definitely took its tole on my plants. Alot of withering leaves that will definitely be a loss. So thats pretty sweet.....dead plants.

Along with that, after days of waiting, when I could finally unwrap the tank and turn the lights back on....My rhom spazzed (even though I only turned on one side at a time to prevent this) and pinned himself in between the glass and heater. So thats pretty sweet....huge heater burn.

Just as the first time...the blue/green algae returned and began to multiply only after a few days of clarity which led me to realize that the act of even preforming a blackout or adding any kind of medication (or any other chemical for that matter) is only a temporary fix and is not going to solve the real problem. In order to kill a weed, you have to get to the root.

This is where I kind of screwed up. With my research on what causes an outbreak of slime algae (which mainly consists of the same information of the LINK put up by Ibanez247 in his thread) I ended up doing a few changes to my water and got good results. Had I focused on one change at a time, I would have a better idea of what one particular thing I did to get the good results. Instead I'm left guessing....what did the trick?

Prior to the outbreak, I had been lighting my tank with two 6,500K and two 10,000K T5 bulbs in two 30" fixtures. These fixtures were set staggered on top of the tank. I then added a single tube 48" T8 fixture with a 5,000K bulb to give me more watts. 
As many of you know, this tank is a new one having upgraded from a 55 gallon of which I had no problems with cyanobacteria. During the change over, I lost alot of plants. Most of which were narrow leaf chain swords and quickly sprouted new leaves. For some reason or another I neglected to trim the dead leafs. 
Most of my gravel was changed out, opting to go with the inexpensive Soilmaster Select. PH dropped (but not to dangerous levels) from 8.0 to 6.8 which is from my understanding quite common for keepers going with this gravel. GH and KH are another issue completely. While my GH lowered slightly, my KH dropped to zero (being about 4 dkh out of the tap). I'm unsure if this is one of the reasons for the slime algae....but my plant growth has pretty much stopped completely which is a whole other thread....
To be sure that my GH and KH test readings were correct, I brought a sample into my LFS and had them test it. Also having them tested for Phosphates as well. Low and behold, they were high.

First thing that was done was a complete stop of dosing phosphorus. 
Water changes were increased from one to two 50% wc's per week... Which I'm hoping will get my KH back up, however I'm pretty positive that the Soilmaster is the real culprit there and will need to be swapped out.
5,000K T8 bulb was changed out for a 6,500K for the different light spectrum.
As much dead and decaying plant matter was removed.

Of these four things....something is right. 
After the first blackout, the algae waited a few days and then came back RAGING. As soon as the second blackout began showing the same outcome, I began making these changes and am happy with what I'm seeing. I believe that this is not something that just up and disappears...it takes time and effort. Every day I see more and more progress.


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

I finally got rid of my cynobacteria Tango







My problem, not enough filtration. I had 2 eheim 2217 on my 125 but took one off and put it on my 55 for when I got my rhom. It was shortly after that I had this problem. A week ago I purchased another 2217 and within a week it has totally disappeared. I even went a whole week without a water change. I had tried daily water changes and taking that crap out with my hands everyday. I never tried ther black out option in fear of lossing my plants. I did cut my light in half but nothing did anything until I added another filter. I also stopped dosing but not the excel. I'm not sure if filtration is your problem or what. I had my 125 setup for years and zero issues until I removed that filter. I dont know why that never dawned on me before but I think filtration was my problem in my case. Cynobacteria is a major pain and hope I never have to deal with it again. Have you changed your filters lately? MAybe they got clogged up and thats causing the high phosphate levels. Mine are around 2ppm.


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