gills Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 Hi there Cyanobacteria (blue/green algae), got rid of it before but its back with a vengeance again. The ph is 6.5-7, ammonia nil, phosphate nil. I add Flourish iron @ water change(1-2x week, 30-40%). I have a yeast co2 system operating, Soon to be pressurised. Tank is 2ft(600mm high) with two T5s for lighting. Filter- Eheim classic external. What am I doing wrong? Why is it back? Help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilknieval69 Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 How did you get rid of it before?? To realy get rid of it you usually need to use Erythomycin (sp?) which is a prescription only medicine. I would offer you some, but i have run out :lol: It is a pain of a thing to get rid of sometimes.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 S.A.T. works for me but have no fish in the tank so can't comment on safety for them. Antibiotics are getting harder to get, my vet thru a hissy when I asked a couple of weeks ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jude Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 What is SAT? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Day before SUN. and the one after FRI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidb Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 gosh Alan- Didn't your mother Say "If you Don't have anything worthwhile to say don't open your mouth!" Jude- Sat is a product made by TLC- from website- TLC Freshwater S.A.T. Biological Clarifier for freshwater aquariums. - Clarifies green water, solves hair algae problems - Beautifies in 2 to 4 weeks - Cleans rocks and gravel, dramatically reduces maintenance - Safe for all desirable freshwater animal and plant species - 100% Live bacteria - Not a chemical, non-toxic, non-pathogenic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jn Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 I had a bad case of cyanobacteria in a small tank. I put the fish into some temporary holding bins scraped down all the glass and wiped is as clean as possible. Cleaned the pump housing and filter tubes and the impeller, removed the worst affected plants (and treated the others with potassium permanganate) I threw out the worst affected gravel (top layer was compltely solid with the stuff.. like a gravel pancake). I then took all the gravel out and basically scrubbed it (rubbed it together) in a bucket with a mild bleach solution. Rinsed and repeated and rinsed several times with freshwater. I left my filter untouched so destroying any bacteria in the gravel wasn't a big deal. I put it back in, refilled the tank and let it run overnight before putting the fish back in. It hasn't come back (yet). That was in April. How did you get rid of it last time? I read somewhere that cyanobacteria thrives in zero nitrate conditions. What's your nitrate level? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HummingBird Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 I can vouch for that jn, I recently had a problem with cyanobacteria in one of my tanks, the nitrate was usually around 0. Since I've slacked off with water changes it's dropped down quite a bit. Still there though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gills Posted July 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Last time I got rid of it I sucked it all up while doing water change,increased amount of Flourish iron, started co2 system and treated tank with Wunder Tonic(yeah really...wunder tonic) for 2 weeks and increased temp to 28-29*C. Most of my Twisted Vallisneria died off with the remaining Cyano. It seems to be a little more stubborn this time. Can you get this S.A.T from any where in CHCH or is it just avaliable on the web site? Oh, and nitrate level is zero. And dont worry everyone it'll soon be SAT & SUN :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Rimbauer Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 I've had a couple of planted tanks get this now - in both cases nitrates were zero. I've read that cyanobacteria can fix and use atmospheric nitrogen dissolved in the water and use that to grow. I think this is true, as in both cases when I dosed with potassium nitrate to bring nitrates up to just under 5ppm, and held them there, the cyanobacteria has died back over a couple of weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gills Posted July 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Hi John Rimbauer So where did you get the potassium nitrate? At your LFS? Garden shop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jn Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 I bought some potassium nitrate from a garden shop after folks here recommended that to me. Sold as Stump Rotter. 550gm jar about $7 but someone in the private classifieds here was selling 'ingredients' for PMDD (home made complete tank fertilizer) so maybe you can get some off him. (I the classified also has the link to a good website to work out how to make a solution to suit your needs and how much to dose) It's also sold by www.hydroponics.co.nz. They only list 1kg but email them and ask for a smaller quantity and they'll get back to you quickly! In my case I added a couple of fish to my tank and also increased my water changes cause my tap water has about 10ppm Nitrate!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jn Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Here's that ad I was referring to: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/pmdd-1 ... 22660.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 It is a bacteria that acts symbiotically with an algae as I understand. Also can be red (my friend had a large growth over the top of his giant goldfish pond and it floated on the top during the day and disappeared at night---I assume because of it producing gas during daylight hours). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 The lack of nitrate may be a factor. I have it in one tank with no fish where an element went mad and cooked the plants so there would have been a lot of dead organics. I have removed all I can and treated with S.A.T. and it seems to be working. Have also treated a tank with killies (sensitive wee darlings) which was grossly overun with plants and when emptied out a bit found the blue/green smellies. The fish are all right at the moment ---will let you know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Rimbauer Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 It's also sold by www.hydroponics.co.nz. They only list 1kg but email them and ask for a smaller quantity and they'll get back to you quickly! jn nailed it. I bought some from Stocker Hydroponics. I had used chemicals from the local garden centre, but I wasn't very happy with the purity of them after I poisoned my snail and daphnia tank. The chemicals I got from Stocker are top notch, I've had no problems since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Rimbauer Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 A second thought, I never had any cyanobacteria problem until a few weeks after I set up DIY CO2. This is only a theory, but I think that the rapid plant growth stripped all the nitrates out of the tank and gravel. This might have left a gap for the cyanobacteria to grow, as the ratio of phosphate to nitrate in the water was too high. It would be interesting to see if anyone else has had that happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jn Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 My cyanobacteria went crazy when I started dosing with flourish excel to try to treat what I thought was brush algae at the time. My nitrates were at 0 but my plants were also not respondong to the flourish cause they were too coated with algae! I'm not chemist but I wondered if it was thriving due to the extra carbon available. (it fixes carbon and nitrogen doesn't it?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Rimbauer Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 I think that's more or less it. If you have phosphates and carbon available, but little or no nitrate, cyanobacteria seems to go nuts. It gets much MUCH worse if there are high phosphates. Low carbon, low phosphates and high light seems fine, as long as the nitrates are around 5ppm. Both the bad outbreaks I've had have been in well planted tanks with no detectable nitrate (one with pressurised CO2, one without). In each case, dosing nitrate up to 5ppm has caused the cyanobacteria slime to slowly start disintegrating. I reckon that normally plants can out-compete the cyano, but if the plants get nitrate limited then the cyano starts to grow. Anyone got a tank they want to test drive this theory in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gills Posted July 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 I think that's more or less it. If you have phosphates and carbon available, but little or no nitrate, cyanobacteria seems to go nuts. It gets much MUCH worse if there are high phosphates. Low carbon, low phosphates and high light seems fine, as long as the nitrates are around 5ppm. That sounds about right,but in my original post I said that my phosphate was nil. Maybe it's able to thrive on carbon and co2?? All the cyanobacteria is up near the top of the tank, on the highest plants and the highest areas of bogwood near the light and in the current by the spray bar. Non or very little on the subsrtate Everything i've read about this evil stuff says that it prefers low water movement and low light. I don't like to resort to chemicals but, has anyone tried Furan-2 on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidb Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 phosphate reading would be nill because the cyano would be using the phosphates so the wouldn't be any in the water column (thats my reasoning anyway.) Most phosphate kits are too crap to pick up phosphates unless they are way high Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 I understand that they are nitrogen fixers. I assume the bacteria fix it and the algae uses it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purplecatfish Posted July 21, 2007 Report Share Posted July 21, 2007 From Botany 101: Cyanobacteria are one of 5 groups of photosynthetic bacteria and are not a symbiotic bacteria/algae. They have chlorophyll a (the same as all photosynthetic eukaryotes), carotenoids (the yellow and red pigments in autumn leaves), phycocyanin (a blue photosynthetic pigment), and generally phycoerythrin (a red photosynthetic pigment). Cyanobacteria are different to other photosynthetic eukaryotes in that they don't have chloroplasts. The other pigments allow the cyanobacteria to utilise other wavelenths of light. Eukaryotes are organisms who have cells with a membrane bound nucleus e.g. plants, animals and fungi. Prokaryotes are bacterium. source: Biology of Plants by Raven, Evert and Eichorn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 21, 2007 Report Share Posted July 21, 2007 Thanks for that info. Goes to show--- I learn something every day here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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