Cyanobacteria...

[Reptoreef]

If a newbie were to come to your mercy as a last step short of quitting the reef hobby, how would you explain the cause, effects, and elimination of cyano???

[dakar]

That would REALLY depend on the individual and what he had in the system.... if he really wanted to stay in the hobby, find the major contributing source, be it phosphates in the make up water, food, whatever, re-locate what could be in harms way, increase the clean up crew, water changes and time will resolve it.

But if he was as his very last straw, and ready to throw in the towel, if animals were in danger of being harmed and he's ready to bail completely, offer to buy him out to cut his losses and rescue the critters.

My very last resort would be to give him my thingy of chemi-clean, just after grabbing all his macros out of the system. That crap dang near totaled my chaeto, don't care what the bottle says its safe for, but it does eliminate most of the cyano, then multiple water changes, before re-populating the tank with macros or anything, and of course isolating/iliminating the as much of the cause as possible in the first place.

[jerryc]

I thank water is the cause of 85% of cyano so i believe i wood work to that
end first. If that don't work the buy out wood be next. or fish Numbers
probable 10% of the remaining 15 but that is indirect to the water quality

[Reptoreef]

k nice more input..

[Reef_Angel]

Be careful with overfeeding. Feed only what you fish and corals can consume within 5 minutes. Make sure you have a good clean up crew!

[Reptoreef]

So, what is determined to be the "main cause"?
A Lighting
B Nutrients
C Too much food
D All of the above

[Reptoreef]

Also, didn't see much of a recommended step to be better flow/circulation... any responses???

[jerryc]

Cause i thank over feeding , to Minnie fish , poor matinees , i suppose lighting might
cause it but I'm not convinced of it.

Recommendations i guess better flow less feeding Liss fish
more water changes and just over all better cleaning of tank such as blowing of
rock lightly blowing top of sand to get dieteries in water column.

[Reptoreef]

All in all... less phosphates!!! I agree.

[dakar]

One place that phosphates get introduced that is often overlooked is through feeding of flake foods, part of the production process actually add phosphates to the food (to make it bind together... at least i think thats why). They definately play a roll probably a significant one in allowing cyano to reproduce. I would have to guess silicates fall into this catagory as well.