• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Cyanobacteria and reusing plants.

Nick potts

Member
Joined
25 Sep 2014
Messages
1,050
Location
Torbay
As per the title really.

The cyano in my tank finally has me beat and I am going to strip it down and redo it with new soil, bleach all hardscape etc.

My problem is plants, normally I would chuck them and get new, but with the current lack of availability there isn't much around. So my question is, is there anything I can treat the plants with or do to them that will guarantee I won't transfer it to the new setup?

I have a feeling the answer is going to be no, but best to check.

Tia
 
If the plant is healthy with none on it id use them.

In the new scape think about flow, oxygen and how you do the maintenance. Unless you change them it’ll just come back........
 
Have you tried upping the phosphates and blacking out your tank for a week or two? I'm sure your plants are fine, give them a bleach bath if your worried

ben.
 
If the plant is healthy with none on it id use them.

In the new scape think about flow, oxygen and how you do the maintenance. Unless you change them it’ll just come back........
Thanks @Siege.

The plants as they currently are, appear healthy enough to me (I am rather new to plants), I get very good growth and have to cut back weekly on the hr'a and MC, butmost leaves/plants do have traces of cyano, some worse than others.

Bit of info on the tank and my routine.

35x28x30 cm tank 27l volume before hardscape and substrate
14w APS led light (was 28w but have cut it back), this is running 6hr a day
Tropica soil substrate
500LPH filter, the water is returned via a spray bar
Pressurised Co2, lime green drop checker before lights on
The aquascaper ferts at 4ml a day

Plants a mostly H'ra, MC, and wallichii, I also have some salvinia and frogbit as floaters.

No fish currently, just a few amano shrimp

Before the cyano i was doing a 50-60% WC every week, but have been doing 80% every couple of days to try and deal with it. I scrub the hardscape and clean the carpet and plants every time.

Thanks
 
Have you tried upping the phosphates and blacking out your tank for a week or two? I'm sure your plants are fine, give them a bleach bath if your worried

ben.
Not tried a blackout, i was hoping to get to the root cause but no luck with that so far, just when I think it is abating it comes back with a vengeance. I have upped my ferts a little but don't really check the levels.

Wouldn't bleach kill the plant also?
 
Not tried a blackout, i was hoping to get to the root cause but no luck with that so far, just when I think it is abating it comes back with a vengeance. I have upped my ferts a little but don't really check the levels.

Wouldn't bleach kill the plant also?
It's probably worth finding what your levels of ferts are, I've not had cyano in a while but I'm sure a cause was something to do with low phosphates, maybe increase your phosphates when dosing, as for the bleach bath, bleach is fine in a small dose, think you dilute it to 5%, bathe the plants, and rinse them several times after with conditioned 'non bleach' water and you're a gooden

ben.
 
22 degrees temp.

bigger and more often water changes. On your sized tank 2 X 80% water changes, one after the other. Daily on a new set up.

Blast the substrate with a turkey baster at the same time as syphoning out. Attach this to the syphon tubing with cable ties.

spray bar under the water pointing slightly up to give a good water ripple.

Lack of oxygen, low plant mass and build up of waste is probably the main cause.
 
I've made a mistake here in my posts, it wasnt phosphates I dosed. I dosed an increase of nitrates, and then blacked out the tank for 10 days. Sorry for the mix up, was a considerable time ago that I dealt with it

ben.
 
22 degrees temp.

bigger and more often water changes. On your sized tank 2 X 80% water changes, one after the other. Daily on a new set up.

Blast the substrate with a turkey baster at the same time as syphoning out. Attach this to the syphon tubing with cable ties.

spray bar under the water pointing slightly up to give a good water ripple.

Lack of oxygen, low plant mass and build up of waste is probably the main cause.
Thanks again.

My tanks run at room temp, around 21c (slightly higher in the tanks)

The spray bar is exactly as you describe and I try to syphon as much out as possible.

Plant mass is high, it a full-grown in carpet and lots of h'ra etc so hopefully that is ok (I couldn't fit any more plants in)

20210204_201125.jpg
20210204_201133.jpg

20210204_201142.jpg
 
Have you tried Blue Exit Nick (Easy-Life Blue Exit - Easy-Life). I've not tried it myself, as I've fortunately never had it bad enough to need treatment beyond a bit of spot misting with Excel, but I've read a lot of user reports swearing by its success. If I were you I'd try it before restarting your tank as you seem to have otherwise relatively healthy plant growth.

You might also want to consider experimenting with your filter inlet and outlet positions. You might get better circulation for example, with the filter inlet in the corner next to the spray bar, and indeed perhaps having the spraybar on the rear so the fresh water hits the front glass, goes down to the carpet, and is then drawn back through the stems.
 
Have you tried Blue Exit Nick (Easy-Life Blue Exit - Easy-Life). I've not tried it myself, as I've fortunately never had it bad enough to need treatment beyond a bit of spot misting with Excel, but I've read a lot of user reports swearing by its success. If I were you I'd try it before restarting your tank as you seem to have otherwise relatively healthy plant growth.

You might also want to consider experimenting with your filter inlet and outlet positions. You might get better circulation for example, with the filter inlet in the corner next to the spray bar, and indeed perhaps having the spraybar on the rear so the fresh water hits the front glass, goes down to the carpet, and is then drawn back through the stems.
Thanks Wookii.

The inlet and outlet I am a bit limited on as there are hard piped (it's a HOB filter), I can move them but only swing them left/right. I have tried to set it so the flow hits the right-hand pane of glass and goes down and across the substrate, there is decent flow around most of the tank and I am a little reluctant to add more flow or it will end up looking like a washing machine lol.

hob-500-filter.jpg


I haven't tried Easy life, but have been dosing Aquadip Blue Algae Control for the last 4 weeks, which is Salicylic acid based which I believe is the same as the Easy life stuff.
 
Thanks Wookii.

The inlet and outlet I am a bit limited on as there are hard piped (it's a HOB filter), I can move them but only swing them left/right. I have tried to set it so the flow hits the right-hand pane of glass and goes down and across the substrate, there is decent flow around most of the tank and I am a little reluctant to add more flow or it will end up looking like a washing machine lol.

View attachment 162125

I haven't tried Easy life, but have been dosing Aquadip Blue Algae Control for the last 4 weeks, which is Salicylic acid based which I believe is the same as the Easy life stuff.

Ah, sorry, I didn't realised it was a HOB - have you tried rotating the spray bar so its at the rear? Not saying that will help your BGA issue, but it usually helps a tank generally to have a circular flow pattern - if you have a gap in that circulation between the inlet and outlet you stand more chance of dead spots.

Yep, I imagine the Aquadip is the same. From your images it doesn't look like you have masses of BGA, but you have a fair bit of diatoms also. Have you tried misting the BGA (with the filter off for 15 minutes post application) you can visibly see with Excel? As you have a small tank, you'll only be able to use around 3-3.5ml a day (assuming large 50%+ daily water changes) - but the BGA you mist should be gone the next day. You could try diluting the Excel 50/50 with water before misting to increase your coverage initially. If you keep that up for a few weeks you should be able to get on top of it.
 
I see mostly diatoms,and might consider some cherry shrimps that are relatively hardy,and love grazing on everything.(algae & diatoms especially).
Keep floss/foam in filter clean by rinsing it out frequently in old tank water.
Don't see much livestock in photo,and might use peroxide treatment before I chose bleach & teardown.
Can't remember dosage for peroxide and the process for it's use, but do remember that media from filter would need to go into a bucket of tank water during the treatment.
Filters run full tilt during treatment, to vigorously move water.
I'm sure the process is described with help of google (peroxide treatment for algae) out there somewhere.
I just can't remember where I came across it , cause I'm old. lol
I used the method once,in 80 US gallon tank that had some stubborn algae on some wood pieces that I was fond of ,and it worked well, but I had no livestock in the tank at the time.
The peroxide turned all the algae white,and I gave the wood pieces a scrub afterwards, and it was then that I introduced shrimps to the tank,and a couple breeding Bristlenose plecos I cared for, and between the shrimp and bristlenose fry, I never needed to worry bout keepin hardscape/plants clean much.
Actually wishin for a little more algae at times lol.
The tank I mentioned,, is the same tank in my avatar. Just sayin.
The peroxide didn't harm plants that I could note.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top