I am dealing with a problem of cyanobacteria in my 55 gallon aquarium with live plants and driftwood. I've had this tank for about a year and its fully cycled. But, every week when I do my water change, I have to scrape off and remove a bunch of this algae. I usually remove about 40% to 50% of the water with a vacuum and replace it with fresh water. It is not overstocked or having any other problems. Has anyone else dealt with this cyanobacteria and any ideas how to get rid of it?
Blue-Green Algae/Cyanobacteria
- Thread starter stlouiscards8
- Start date
I had the same problem. Erythromycin will kill it, as will lengthy tank blackouts, but it always managed to come back. Eventually it seemed to just burn itself out in my tanks and I only see very small bits of it on tips of plants occasionally.
Perhaps erythromycin and a week-long tank blackout simultaneously would do the job. It's some tough stuff.
Perhaps erythromycin and a week-long tank blackout simultaneously would do the job. It's some tough stuff.
I would try increasing water changes. cyanobacteria is present because of too many nutrients. you maybe fertilizing to much
They make products products like chemiclean or red slime remover which will safely kill it, but if you don't fix the cause it will probably just be replaced with other types of algae.
They make products products like chemiclean or red slime remover which will safely kill it, but if you don't fix the cause it will probably just be replaced with other types of algae.
Yeah, if you're dosing plant fertilizers, cut down. Especially if you're adding phosphorous. Here's an in depth article about cyanobacteria. http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/algae/cyano.shtml
V1xIII;4078778; said:
I'm familiar with that article, it's a good one . . . the best piece of advice I took from it was to increase water circulation/aeration . . . it seems like the cyanobacteria thrives in the dead-spots in low circulation tanks
when I've improved circulation/aeration, it has eventually eliminated the cyanobacteria . . . I'd certainly try that before using any chemicals
stlouiscards8;4078726; said:
I suffered with cyano problems for a while in my discus/community tank (45 gal). It was a situation similar to what you described in your tank. The thing that finally worked for me was to dose my tank. It is my understanding that the cyano can deal with insufficient or unbalanced macronutrients and this leads to them out competing the plants. My plants seemed weak and cyano blanketed everything within a few days of me cleaning it. It was difficult for me to add nitrogen when my life has always focused on reducing nitrates but I've been adding Brightwell Aquatics for the last two months and I no longer have cyanobacteria and the plants are growing nicely. I use their Florin-K (potassium), FlorinAxis (carbon), and FlorinGro (nitrogen). I use aprox. 20 drops a day of the potassium and nitrogen and 10 drops of the carbon. In some ways I wish I was able to just try one at a time to see what is making the difference but after a lot of reading, I felt I needed all of them. Even with the additional nitrogen, my readings for nitrates are 0... maybe I need to add even more since the plants are using it up! The BrightwellAquatics website has a lot of information. As a science teacher, I get a kick out of reading their descriptions... when my students start complaining that they will never need to know about the Krebs cycle in the real world I can whip out the bottle of FlorinAxis and show them how this product mentions it at least three times on the label! Best of luck with destroying that smelly slime.