My First Saltwater Tank

in dire circumstances chemiclean does work - but phosphates are what feed cyano - are you running any phosphate remover or a GFO reactor??

Where do your Phosphates test at??

try not to stir it all up. You want to siphon it out. As much as you can. I was taking 10-15 gallons out a night when I had it bad. They can grow like crazy even if your tests come back good. I would imagine it's coming from either overfeeding or lack of filtering. I've also heard of people turning their lights off for 3 days completely and it being gone when they turn them back on.

Originally Posted by kimon201

I will update my pics in the morning . My tank is starting to really come a long. I just have one problem, Cyano, and lots of it. My CUC consists of a long spined urchin, 50 hermits, 40 snails, and bristle worms. I get the cyano on the LR and on the sand but it mats all over the sand. I try sturring everything up, I turkey baste it all, but 12 hours later is is all grown back It is pretty crazy. What would you guys suggest?

Where are those updated pics

The best thing for cyano is to siphon it out. Blowing it around will only help it spread. If you siphon it out when ever you see it its like harvesting macro algae from a fuge. You're using the cyano as a nutrient export and removing the cyano along with the nutrients its grabbed.

Ok. So my mom still hasn't sent me the pics even though I have asked a her a few times, I will try again.

Well I am sure this isn't the first time this has happened, so hopefully you guys can help out. I went on vacation for the last 10 days (Famous last words) anyway, I had someone feed the fish, I had them portioned out so she didn't over feed, but I didn't think about adding FW. Anyway tons of water evaporated, salinity went high. I got home today, and the return to the DT was shooting micro bubbles, all over and I couldn't see anything. I added FW, and then noticed TONS of hair algae. I am using an API test kit and it says I have 0 phosphates, I also have an Api phosphate remover... Anyway I tried getting as much of it out as I could in a 2 hour span. And i felt pretty bad about the meager handful I got out. Everything seems healthy, except for a branching acropora coral I have that is bleaching. By this I mean that the front half has gone completely white or his just a super light brown about to be white. The other half is still orange. Is there any way to reverse this? I read some where that I should frag parts of it, but there is a lot of conflicting info. At least there is less cyano from when I left .

BTW I attribute the bleaching towards the high salinity, does that sound right?

is the flesh still on the acro?? if not, and its loosing tissue, the best way to stop it from progressing is to put a good bead of superglue around the leading edge of where the live tissue starts - dead/missing tissue begins... otherwise, it will keep peeling back, much like when you get your finger hold under some take and start peeling it back

likely, it is loosing color due to stress - I'd attribute the salinity swing, especially if you don't normally have them occuring because you are a good reefkeeper

did you test the salinity? How high did it go???

Has the coral gotten any better?