Algae Control: Cyanobacteria

DEFINE - What is cyanobacteria, or just cyano?

Luckly, this bacterial infection is pretty easy to address. Cyano generally looks like a greenish-blue goop that ends up sitting on to pof plants, hardscape and your substrate.

General causes:

• Immature filtration system

• Low nitrates mixed with low oxygen in a high PAR setup

• High ammonia/nitrites either due to lack of husbandry or water changes, or your tank is cycling

• Lack of circulation

REMOVAL - How to remove this slimy stuff

The methods we are about to mention will not prevent cyano from coming back. We'll address that shortly. But here are a few ways to remove it from the tank.

1. Manual removal - Luckly cyano doesn't really stick to surfaces as much as it just grows on top of them. The suggested method of removal is to siphon it out of the tank during a water change. One can use a toothbrush to pull it out by hand, but make sure you don't kick it up into the water column and let it land somewhere else in the tank. Make sure you remove all of it if its been disturbed. With this being said, you ALSO need to use an antibiotic. See below.

2. Antibiotics - Since this is a bacterial infection, an antibiotic will kill it completly. We suggest you manually remove as much as you can, then hit it with an antibiotic like Chemiclean. This is the one-two punch to ensure its eradicated.

PREVENTION - How to keep this stuff from coming back

I am going to say this in every algae article... we need to make changes to how we've designed our aquarium otherwise the algae will just keep coming back. The definition of crazy is: doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting different results. Do not rely on fish, algae eaters, snails, shrimp etc., to fix the design flaw that we've introduced into our tanks.

Solution 1: Boost biological filtration. We generally see cyano in newer aquariums that are cycling and the filters biomedia has not matured yet. One thing we can do is use beneficial bacteria supplements. These are not 100% needed, but if the cycling process is taking longer than expected, and ammonia and nitrate levels are high, using bacteria in a bottle like Seachem Stability, or Bacter7 can help you get through the cycling process faster. Another way we can help speed filter maturity is by "seeding" you filter with biomeda from an established tank. Many local dish stores will sell bio-media that has been pre-cycled tat you can simply toss into your filter. This doesn't mean that you're instantly cycled, but it will help introduce beneficial bacteria into your filter immediately. This will help address the lack of filtration maturity. If you need more education on how to set up filtration properly, check out our filtration guide below.

If you don't have time for the video, these are 3 things we want to keep in mind to help promote filtration maturity:

1. Have dedicated bio media to house our beneficial bacteria. We do not want to rely on our mechanical filtration (sponges) for this. Looking at you sponge filter users. We want to be able to clean our sponges our really well to remove rotting matter, like dead plant matter, uneaten food, fish waste, etc.

2. We need to ensure we are not cleaning out bio-media with tap water, as it can kill our beneficial bacteria. There are studies that show our bacteria can handle some amounts of chlorine for prolonged periods of time, but its best to just not risk it. Chlorine can kill our bacteria thus restarting our cycling process, which organics build up again in turn stimulating the development of diatoms.

3. We want to make sure our filter is able to turn over our water volume 10x an hour. Example: We have a 20 gallon aquarium, we want a filter that has a gallons per hour (gph) of around 200. This will ensure the filter is processing any ammonia and/or nitrites of out the water column very quickly, and not leaving them in the tank to float around.

Solution 2: Increase oxygen and nutrients. Many algaes, like cyano, love stagnant water. Stagnant water can cause a depletion of oxygen due to a lack of flow, and/or surface agitation. This is why we always suggest having 10x turn over with filtration. Your filter creates surface agitation relishing natural oxygen levels. The flow of the filter also helps move water, oxygen, CO2 and nutrients around your aquarium preventing stagnant water and the build up or organics. If you have dead areas in yoru tank, strategically place powerheads to e nsure the entire tank is receiving flow. If you have plants in your aquarium from the start, make sure you are providing adequate nutrients with an all in one fertilizer like Thrive. This will help address low nitrates and low oxygen levels.

Solution 3: Keep up on your husbandry! It is common to see ammonia and nitrites when your tank is cycling, but we don't want rotting or decaying matter in our tanks after the tank has cycled. The build up of organics can led to cyano, and other algaes like staghorn. Make sure you are kicking up all the detritus and mulm that gets stuck in crevasses of our scapes, and suck it all out during water changes. You can even use a turkey baster to blast water into hard to reach areas. We need to get out as much of this decaying waster to help lower dissolved organics in our tanks.

If you have any questions about algae, reach out to us on our new forum! We can help you troubleshoot your algae issues.