Finally! Take 3 (pg15 or 16)!

[oldpunk78]

great wood! good luck with the tank this time.

[oldpunk78]

oh, i was looking at the pic w/ the fish and it got me thinking... how do your rasboras get along w/ the angels? i just got a school of them and was thinking about getting a pair or angels next.

[skabooya]

My rasboras get along great with my angels. Although my angels are a pretty mild couple. They let the rummys steal food from their mouths. The harlequins stick with the rummys so they are in one big tight school.
Be careful though your angel pair might be the most mean fish you have ever come across, then again you could get a pair like mine. Their cichlids and therefore their personalities differ.

[oldpunk78]

Originally Posted by skabooya

Their cichlids and therefore their personalities differ.

that is what i'm worried about. thanks for the thought.

[skabooya]

Ok WTF! SEARIOUSLY!
Its comming back. Its just little bits here and there. Im gonna do another test on my tank to see where im at when i get home.
Its my 2 year wedding anniversary today and we are going to the text town over to have dinner. When we go there im picking up that carbon stuff. Im hoping it will work. If they have more test kits im picking up the ones i dont have as well. *crosses fingers*

Rant: ITS MY FRIGGEN ANNIVERSARY I DONT WANT TO WORRY ABOUT THE FRIGGIN CYNO ON MY ANNIVERSARY! I WANT TO GO OUT WITH MY HUBBY AND HAVE FUN! friggin stupid cyno.
Rant complete.

[skabooya]

Well i put in the opti carb and its not doing a thing. All params are normal and my plants are growing nice again but so is the cyno. I really am out of ideas.
I have a deep substrate at the back of the tank. Could anaerobic spots cause cyno?

[Homer_Simpson]

Originally Posted by skabooya

Well i put in the opti carb and its not doing a thing. All params are normal and my plants are growing nice again but so is the cyno. I really am out of ideas.
I have a deep substrate at the back of the tank. Could anaerobic spots cause cyno?

Well for what its worth and I know you may find this hard to believe, but sometimes it may just come down to being patient and letting the tank mature in order for stability to be achieved and for issues to work themselves out. I experienced similar issues as you with a 10 gallon tank that I set up. Things started out really well but went downhill after that. I had no explanation as the water parameters tested monthly indicated no problems and were within the range(s) that would be considered ideal for plant growth. At one point I was ready to tear the tank apart as it was really frustrating. The tank is just "now beginning" to come around and the Amano Shrimp are thriving - and this is a tank where all the fish previouly died one by one without any explanation other than they may have been fed contaminated feed or the stress of overstocking was too much for them.

You can read more about what happened in my journals.
http://azdhan.googlepages.com/thelostworld

[skabooya]

Thanks Homer for the encouragement. Im trying to keep params under control and stable. My light is now on only 4-5 hours a day. Doing that the cyno seems to be undercontrol. Not growing but not receeding either just kinda there. Im hoping that in time it will go away. My sunset hygro completely melted away. My green crypt windetii melted after the move but is growng again (thinking about getting some more) and my anubias nana are doing awsome now. Java windlov are covered in cyno again but the regular java ferns arent. All my low flow areas are cyno free but high flow areas are suffering. We shall see how it goes in time. *sigh*

[skabooya]

spoke too soon cyno is taking over again and all params are within range. Did another big WC. Good news is i have no algae at all... just cyno and its everywhere again. Plants are suffering big time. Deficiency including brown leaves on the anubias nana Ive been dosing trace and Iron but nothing is helping. I have no idea what is going on. My fish are happy though angels bred again but daddy ate the babies after 5 days.
Sigh. Still waiting for the tank to mature but i feel like im fighting a loosing battle.

[Homer_Simpson]

Originally Posted by skabooya

spoke too soon cyno is taking over again and all params are within range. Did another big WC. Good news is i have no algae at all... just cyno and its everywhere again. Plants are suffering big time. Deficiency including brown leaves on the anubias nana Ive been dosing trace and Iron but nothing is helping. I have no idea what is going on. My fish are happy though angels bred again but daddy ate the babies after 5 days.
Sigh. Still waiting for the tank to mature but i feel like im fighting a loosing battle.

I am sorry to hear that
When I read about persistent cyno like this though, I cannot help but wonder. Of all the tanks that I set up, it only became a problem in a 10 gallon. I was lucky that erythormycin killed it. It made me think why my 10 gallon and not the other tanks(same tap water, same water parameters, same frequency of water changes, etc.,). There were only two things different about the 10 gallon when I experienced the BGA outbreak. The 10 gallon was severely overstocked(I had a pleco in there that was a poop machine) and the food that I was giving the fish was different than what I was feeding the fish in my other tanks. Again, I cannot confirm 100%, but was it possible that dissolved organic waste was higher in the 10 gallon due to overstocking and due to the food being fed. And did this somehow contribute to the BGA outbreak that I experienced. I don't have the answer, just questions.

Could be a long shot and may not even be the issue, but what are your tank stocking levels like and what kind of food and how much are you feeding the fish?

[skabooya]

Yup ive been doing tons of research and there are new thoughts comming out about dissolved organics in combination with NPK being out of whack (not always low N) and all this in combo with seeing deficiencies in plants. Ive also read about anaerobic bacteria being a factor for BGA. And yes my plants are stalled there are nutrient deficiencies but im dosing and keeping params in check HOWEVER i still havent found a test kit for P and K im thinking that my problems may lie here. I added the opti carb to help with the dissolved organics but its not doing anything to combat the cyno. I do notice that my particular cyno is growing only in high flow areas and against the back glass and front glass where the water constantly hits. As a test i moved some of my java ferns to the side of the tank with no cyno and it seems to be leaving my java ferns which were infested before. I moved my lighting up to 6 hours now and have so far seen no effect. The best thing ever is my tank is completely algae free. My only issue is the cyno bacteria. Id rather deal with algae i think.
I am underfeeding my fish now (since cyno began) My stock list is as follows (I was told before it was fine but im thinking now its a bit overstocked for a low tech)
2 adult angels (breed regularly)
1 german blue ram
8ish? harlequin rasboras (havent counted for a while)
8ish? rummynose tetras (havent counted for a while)
4 ottos (at last count, I did buy 6 but oh well)
Nothing i have been doing has worked so far and would only have been a temporary fix anyway so im trying to find out what is missing in my tank. (Detective work). What frustrates me is that i have had many tanks before this one and have never had a cyno problem and bairly ever had algae issues and if there was an issue it took care of itself after a WC and a scrub. I never dosed anything in my other tanks and i had plain epoxy coated gravel and a very high fish load. Now im doing things the "right" way and i have huge problems. *Sigh* so frustrated!

Just a list of stuff ive already tried:
Maracyn
Blackout
High flow
Increasing oxygen in water
ODing on excel and spot dosing
Large WC's
Opti Carb
manual removal
low nitrate was not a problem because after testing mine was very high

[oldpunk78]

if i were you, i would started over like a month (or two) ago. i couldn't take the frustration.

[skabooya]

I did start over... kind of. But even if i did the same problem would arise so i need to figure out what is going on in my tank and what i am doing wrong. Its frustrating yes but its also a learning experience since nothing common is working. I am defying all sure fire cures to beating cynobacteria.

[adamsaulnier]

Now, I've only got a 10 gallon so I'm not sure how much harder it is to beat BGA in a 32 gallon.. but what I did with success was a blackout for 3 days (with an airstone), then a couple of days later I dosed Maracyn (not maracyn 2 or plus) with active ingredient Erythromycin (or however you spell it) for 5 days straight with no days in between for water changes. I have found that it did not affect my biofilter so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Also, I dosed the stuff when the lights had finished being on for their 8 hours that day and it had been left overnight. Did you dose maracyn before your photoperiod or after?

With my method, I killed the BGA just as December started and I haven't seen it since.

Also, not sure if this also changes things, but since then I have switched back to using RO water that I can put directly into the tank without having to worry about treating.. I think the tap water I was using for water changes (when I got lazy) might have been a source of contamination.

[skabooya]

I dosed Maracyn in addition to black out. I followed the instructions on the bottle. Nothing worked. I tried the airstones previous to the maracyn but it actually made things worse. I did my WC once the treatment was over and not while i was dosing. I ended up tearing everything apart doing a super clean and put everything back. The cyno is now back. Its not my tap water because i have no issues in my other tanks. Although the 20 is now torn down and the 4 gal was torn down but is back up again for my classroom pet fish which is now home with me for christmas break. Our tap water is awsome here. Ive had it tested many times and its always neutral to slightly acidic (6.8-7), soft, clear, and all tests at the lfs showed everything as a blank slate perfect for dosing anything and bringing the water to whatever you wanted it to be at... the lfs lady was actually jealous lol.

OH and to answer Homers question earlier (sorry i missed that), I feed a varied diet of cichlid pellets, discus morcils pellets, staple flake food and freeze dried blood worms