Dear Cyano, I hope you starve.

So 4 months to this date my tank has been running. So far water quality has been great. I have aragonite sand that I got from a friend, I rinsed it a good 2-4 times till the water ran clean.

I know I'm in the "uglies" stage. Any thoughts on how I can get rid of this stuff. I'm running GFO in a reactor and just changed out to some new bulbs in hope to get rid of it.

Thoughts? Thanks guys. Also would like to have someone test my water, maybe there's something I'm not seeing? Idk. Located in Raleigh area.

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How long has the GFO been running on the tank? Do you have or can you borrow a Hanna phosphate checker?

I've had GFO on there for probably 3 weeks now.

I don't have a Hanna phosphate checker sadly. It'd probably be a good thing for me to invest in. I just have the api test kits.

Chemiclean will knock it out.

I'll have to order some. Thanks Wes!

Chemi-clean will indeed knock it out fast. But it will come back if you don't get at the cause. It takes a while for the GFO to work. Be sure it hasn't clumped in the reactor. It's a bit of an art to keep it gently tumbling, kind of bubbling across the whole surface without throwing out fines, but that's when it's most effective, I think. I don't trust the API kits. They don't start to measure any phosphate at all (in my experience) until it gets to .25. By then the horse is out of the barn. You want a reading below .05, preferably .03 or less. If you don't yet have shrimp in the tank, you can try Dr. Tim's Re-Fresh and Waste-Away. See his web site. As I've noted several times on this site, that regimen is what finally cured my "headache." Good luck.

I adjusted my flow when I got a bit of red cyno and added chemi pure elite and it went away pretty quickly. I have never had a problem since then and I have never had it in our other tank. I have never used a reactor in either tank. I did manually remove what I could.

+1 to chemiclean. Works great.

Here's a video from Marine Depot. Just landed in the old "inbox" today. Good advice as usual from these guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK_V...eid=0622118722

Same system? Still looks a bit raw. You can add some macroalgae to outcompete the cyano for nutrients.

Also, what is your source water? Are you using RO? If not your FW source could be the origin of your nutrient issues.