FarmerTy Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 For those that run biopellets, have you ever had cyano and if so, what did you do about it? I ran into Innate and he had success dosing bacteria every 6 months to out compete the cyano. Any other tips? I've been running biopellets for almost 8 months now and just curious if anybody had little tricks to avoid cyano as well. I currently run my output from the reactor directly into my skimmer by modding the input to the skimmer. Let me know what tricks you got! Thanks! -Ty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 I used the Mr. Tim's Waste-away product to get rid of my cyano in my nano, and it did the job. Be very sensitive to the warning about providing extra aeration, after my second dose I did end up losing some fish due to what I believe was lack of oxygen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Bio)³ Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 I just used chemiclean to clear up my cyano. 2 days later and all cyano is dead and vacuumed out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 You think leaving my skimmer on would cover the aeration portion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Yeah, I've been reading that the cyano is outcompeting the bacteria in the tank from the biopellets. I was thinking of wiping out the cyano, then dosing beneficial bacteria so that it can get a foothold and hold off the cyano when it tries to return. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBMarlin Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Ya leaving your skimmer on will aerate the water, just take your collection cup off. When you’re finished with the treatment, if your skimmer is still freaking out (mine does), run some GAC in an up flow reactor for a day or two to remove the rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Cool, thanks for the heads up. I've never had a cyano problem until I ran the biopellets. I still think it's worth it to keep the ULN environment that my SPS love. My phosphate was reading 0.021 ppm the other day. Awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medi Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Good luck! I had cyano as long as I ran biopellets. I tried everything to get rid of it with no success. e.g. chemiclean, bacteria dosing, large water changes, increased flow, three days of darness. etc. and none of it worked. That is actually the reason I took my biopellets off line. After a couple of weeks with no bio pellets the cyano went away. My water tests were always better than perfect, but I never could get rid of the cyano with the biopellets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Biopellets are really good at reducing NO3 and not very good with PO4. My guess is the imbalance allows cyano to take a big hold ahead of bacteria. Running with GFO at the same time has cleared it up for me, but not a permanent solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Jestep, I was running GFO in conjunction but the cyano materialized anyway. I'm almost tempted to run the reactor with very minimal biopellets as my levels have stayed consistently low. Hopefully this, with the combination of removing the stronghold cyano has right now, will put my system back into more of a balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Kind of funny this is happening since biopellets were supposed to prevent this which is a really common problem with over vodka dosing. I've experienced the same issue with them as well but GFO definitely took it down for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 9, 2012 Author Share Posted March 9, 2012 Even with the little amount of biopellets I'm running, I think I'm going to go 1/4 of that even. I going to assume that in the same sense as when you overdose vodka and get a cyano bloom, the same may be happening to my system. I think the manufacturers grossly overcalculate how much biopellets you actually need to maintain a stable system. So, planning to treat cyano and remove what I can, then dose bacteria (the good stuff), and then run a lot less biopellets. I'll report what I conclude after trying it for a couple months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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