Bingo and a big +1

This thread IMHO has taken the classic how to fight cyano path.

Yet the solution was as simple as killing your lights.

IMHO what happens is everything goes fine for months. Nitrates finally drop. corals look great, fish happy etc etc etc.

then all the sudden and very very quickly here comes the cyano.

Cyano can get its nitrogen from the nitrogen gas in the tank vrs the nitrates which feed the macro algaes and anaerobic bacteria in the sand.

So what happens at some point nitrates drop down and starve the macros. they slow down and consume less phosphates.

then at the sand bed, rock surfaces you have carbon dioxide, low nitrogen, and phosphates.------ the perfect conditions for cyano.

the cyano spreads further starving the macros and algae (even corraline).

so the tank rapidly switched from a coral/algae dominated tank to a cyano dominated tank.

But when you kill the lights the cyano dies off much faster then the algae and orders of magnetude faster then the corals. As the cyano dies off it returns nitrates to the tank which gives the algae the upper hand again.

You may have to do the lights out more then once. Or even have to have a blackout every month or so. But the blackout will rebalance the tank. And keep the cyano at bay.

But then whoever thought this cyano problem could be solved by simply killing the lights. that just has to be too easy.



but it is.


Just my ramblings

Worth at most .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden