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cyanobacteria

Roediger

Roediger

Member
Joined
15 Jan 2017
Messages
176
Location
PA
whats up folks. i have a small patch of cyanobacteria. what causes this?
 
"Often caused by very low nitrates" I dose EI so it cant be this. It is fairly common to have it growing in the substrate against the front glass from where it can spread. Sometimes it appears with new setups that have had.

"Sometimes it appears with new setups that have had light and ammonia present at some point" this is possible, was testing flow by puting fish food on subtrate and seeing if current is strong enough to pick it up.

"Dirty substrates and filters may also bring it on" subtrate dirty yes. filter no i clean it every other week.

"Poor water circulation is another possible cause" maybe but i doubt it as it's a small 10 gal with a fluval 106, but who knows lol

Thanks a lot Edvet
 
Is you water RO ?

I have heard people having persistant cyano issues due to poor quality/poorly remineralised RO water.
 
Cyanobacteria have phycocyanin and some have phycoerythrin. Both are pigments that help to extract energy from green and red (shorter wavelength than chlorophyll red absorption peak) light, so light with a higher colour temperature could give cyanobacteria a competitive edge. But there can be many other causes. Also some cyanobacteria can fix N2 from air, especially in high-light environments so they are likely the ones that pop up at very limiting nitrate/ammonia levels. But others can't fix N2. Also quite a few algae have CO2 Concentrating Mechanisms (CCMs) that may give them an edge in tanks with to great CO2 depletion towards the end of the photoperiod.
 
Last year I set up a plastic tub. I put no substrate. I put a couple of planted jars with stem plants, some anubias, a cycled filter that had run for years in other tanks, and since there were no critters bar snails and some hitchhiker shrimp, I dosed a ton of ferts, including KNO3 scooping it dry with my bare hand... When I was finished with the ferts, the water had yellowish colour, I had overdosed quite a bit.....Next time I look in the tank....I see a huge cyano outbreak..... Everything got covered in cyano....even the filter.... On a positive note for the first time I noticed ramshorn snails actually love eating the stuff. They grew huge while the outbreak lasted.....

Possible culprits for my cyano....Its got to be the excess ferts I dosed....If you think of anything else reading the above, let me know....The cyano lasted 2-3 months and then completely disappeared. The snails helped greatly in keeping it under control and subsequently eradicating it all when the cyano started diminishing. I did not clean any of it(since it was just a plastic tub) and the tub has been spotless for months.

If you only have a small patch of cyano, and you don't mind snails, get yourself some red ramshorn snails. Apart from cyano, they also eat black brush algae. They're my favourite snails and don't normally multiply fast, unless in a cyano ridden tank :lol:
 
only ever had it when i've been lazy with water changes and keeping substrate clean, even then only in small patches.
 
My personal experience is that light is a relevant factor. A tank that ran on 100% daylight on an east facing windowsill was moved to a room with very little ambient light and an Led added. A quite serious cyano problem disappeared very quickly with no other changes.

In a second tank i have also tried dosing KNO3, if I'm regular with it it does seem to reduce it. But i can't eradicate it, especially on growth which is right at the water surface close to the light.
 
I sometimes see small patches of Cyano such as OP describes and pluck it off hard scape or substrate areas where it might appear.
If it grows back,i repeat process.
If however the stuff begins to appear all over,then bigger issues are at play me thinks.
I run relatively low light and cooler temps than some, so I do not have to deal with it much.(it seems)
Agree with too much light or for too long ,along with lapse filter maint,water changes if applicable.
I have used peroxide in the past after removing filter media to buckets of dechlorinated water and letting the filter's circulate the peroxide for maybe 20 to 30 min.
Procedure was described over at planted tank forum "one two punch" as it was described.
Method also involved the use of Seachem Excel but I only used the peroxide.
Worked fairly well ,and my apologies for not being able to readily provide a link that describes the method in detail.
I believe it must be mentioned that if condition's that allow the stuff to become a bigger issue than a small patch(as OP describes) is not corrected,,then mileage will vary with attempts to eradicate it via chemical's.IME
 
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Roediger said:
Can algae fix help me out with this?
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Rather go the natural way.. :) Clean out the biomass the bacteria lives off, eutrophication is believed the main accelerator of many algae blooms including Cyano bacteria. Even with enough water changes you still can have eutrophic zones in the substrate where bioload accumulates. Adding humic substances, alder cones or almond leaves etc. seems to help a lot as natural algicide/herbicide, the tanin colored water does not only filter the light, the tanin/humic substances also contain antibacterial substances preventing excessive bacterial growth.

Based on their chemical nature as compounds with specific functional groups, humic substances have the ability to interfere in the photosynthetic electron chain. This means, they act as weak herbicides and may structure the primary producer community in brown water lakes.
A recent comparison of the development of a coccal green algal and a coccal cyanobacterial species up exposure to various humic substances revealed that the prokaryote appears to be much more sensitive the eukaryote. This agrees well with field findings: In eutrophicated humic substances rich water bodies, cyanobacteria rarely dominate. Hence, we are trying to apply humic substances as a kind of natural mean to combat cyanobacterial development
Click to expand...


Doesn't mean that you need a tea colored tank till the end of days. But temporary adding enough to color the water dark, will definitively help to get you over the top if you suffer from an algae breakout. Especialy in premature tanks this helps a lot. And while the tank slowly matures, slowly decrease the amount of tanins to a desired water color. But definitively keep it in there. :) A fully healthy and stable biologicaly matured tank rarely suffers from excessive algae growth.
 
thanks for all your advice guys. tank was fine for a while. maybe it was the fish food idk... just crazy how one minute its ok and then few days it has a green patch.
 
Bart Hazes said:
Cyanobacteria have phycocyanin and some have phycoerythrin. Both are pigments that help to extract energy from green and red (shorter wavelength than chlorophyll red absorption peak) light, so light with a higher colour temperature could give cyanobacteria a competitive edge.
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Hi,
There is no advantage in this sense. Plants also have phycobiliproteins as well as other auxiliary pigments. So light with higher or lower color temperatures is not an issue. What is an issue is that light with high PAR does more damage to plants as their structures are more complex and they must expend energy to repair the radiation damage. The simpler structures of cyanobacteria and of other algae are much less affected by higher energy levels.

The OP should ensure filters are cleaned, that water changes are kept up and that KNO3 dosing is correct. If the dosing is determined to be correct and if BGA still appears, then flow/distribution as well as lighting levels should be reviewed.

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
Hi,
There is no advantage in this sense. Plants also have phycobiliproteins as well as other auxiliary pigments. So light with higher or lower color temperatures is not an issue. What is an issue is that light with high PAR does more damage to plants as their structures are more complex and they must expend energy to repair the radiation damage. The simpler structures of cyanobacteria and of other algae are much less affected by higher energy levels.

The OP should ensure filters are cleaned, that water changes are kept up and that KNO3 dosing is correct. If the dosing is determined to be correct and if BGA still appears, then flow/distribution as well as lighting levels should be reviewed.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
Clive!! thanks for dropping in =)

I clean my filter every other water change. also i know you don't like to hear this but!! does cyanobacteria have anything to do with high fert lvls. Also!! i did raise light since i been learning from you guys =) so light is raised and we see in a few weeks. its a 10 gal and light is raised 7inche above water serface.
 
Hi Roedigger
Cyanobacteria is very difficult to get rid off
Once in your tank, even if you do everything right they will not go.
The only thing that works 100% is a product called chemiclean
It is not cheap but will kill your Cyanobacteria
Not many people know about that product but it’s definitely worth having some handy
JM
 
Napoleon said:
Cyanobacteria is very difficult to get rid off
Click to expand...
No it's not, a 3 day blackout and extra NO3 will remove it. Start with a 50% waterchange and a tank clean
If the cause isn't handled it will reappear though.
 
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