You say two packets of carbon, what brand is it? Unfortunately this is another area where you often get what you pay for. Cheap carbon, often that contains coconut shell, can leach phosphates.
Cyno bacteria, aka red slime, requires two major nutrients to grow, carbon and phosphates. You might want to look into lowing your phosphates as well with some phosphate absorbing media. I don’t think replacing your bulbs will help reduce your cyano outbreak at all.
Like I said the best plan for time being would be to check all your chemistry, adjust accordingly and carefully, do a ~20% water change and see how things go. If the issue gets worse when the chemistry is dead on then post and we’ll figure it out. If the issue remains after a month of dead on chemistry then perhaps we’ll consider a dip to remove a possible bacterial infections, but this will stress the coral so we’ll avoid it for now.
Regardless of what the other animals look like I would still urge you not to pick up any new animals till this is figured out. It is extremely unlikely you’ll come across an animal in an LFS you won’t see again.
Sounds great! I am going to test my water today and go out and get some more water to do my change. My tap water has trace nitrates in it and I cant afford a RODI unit so I use distilled… which I have heard much controversey about. What do you think? And is there any reason to use any type of conditioners? Quite frankly… the only thing negative in the tank right now is the Acan and the red slime, which just appeared 4 or 5 days ago.
Well, high nitrates and high phosphates will harm all of the animals in the tank. If you see cyano in the tank you have nitrates and phosphates.(and you also saw Nitrates show up in your tank) So while you think the slime and the acan are the only symptoms, the other animals aren’t super happy either. Also if you have don’t frequent water changes recently and still see Nitrates then there is a good chance something has to change with what is going on with your tank or you will have significant Nitrates in the future. Reducing the amount of food would be a good first place to start. What type of foods are you feeding?
I haven’t heard anything negative about distilled except for it’s finacial and environmental impact. The fincial impact may not be as significant for a small tank, but running my tanks I found quickly if I add up the costs of the water I was using I could afford an RO/DI. I had always found 0tds in my distilled water, so I wasn’t concerned about the quality of it, but then again I am not an expert on these things either. Have a link to any debates or articles talking about distilled?
Shouldn’t need to use any conditioners in your water.
Still see if you can get a video of the flow near the acan and maybe a full tank shot video of the flow as well in a second video.
Best of luck, I hope it turns around for ya. Hope to hear more from you on the board as well. How about some snap shots of dendro? I love those corals.
no conditioners if you change water. and use a decent salt.
why not buy a rodi on credit [or at least a ro unit as cheap as $107], rather than whatever you spend on distilled. over a year, it’s paid for at 2 dollars a week. don’t know how much water you change each time, but…
I am going to test my nitrates right now and I will get back to you in a few minutes on that. I am also doing a 30% change today as well.
I think I know what my nitrates are coming from. I stir up my sandbed for the first time in a year or so and there is ALOT of greenish smog that fills my tank. It stayed dirty for like 20 minutes and then settled back down. Before I did this, minimal slime, now that I’ve stirred it up… slime has perked up and expanded. I just put those two packs of Rena carbon into the filter and I’m about to do that water change.
I will get my phosphates checked out soon, hopefully they are not becoming a problem as well. The skimmer is doing okay. It is a Seaclone… I know some people have a big problem with them but mine does pull out a pretty black colored liquid so I am happy with it. It does not pull out much though, I may empty it once every two weeks or so and it will only be half full.
“I will get my phosphates checked out soon”. If the LFS uses chemicals tests to check your water ignore it if they tell you the Phosphates are 0. The only reliable way to test phophates is to test the water from your tank three times with a digital meter.
That being said there isn’t usually a reason to test for phosphates. If you have cyanobacteria you have phosphates. It simply will not grow without phosphates and nitrates in the water column.
Tell us a bit about your sand bed. Do you know what type of sand it is and what grain size? 1â€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ-2â€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ-3â€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ?
There are many different ways to maintain a sand bed. Regardless if it is an untouched deep sand bed or a vacuumed shallow sand bed, fighting conchs and both large and small nassarius snails will help keep it healthy and stirred slightly.(help, not necessarily fix any issue)
Regardless of what you read about any skimmer if you are getting the skimmate you want then it is working. That being said I think the cup should be filling a little more frequently. Though it may not be worth the investment to replace at this point especially when there are other things which can be changed that may significantly help.