Cyanobacteria problem

I've been having an issue for the past month or so with cyanobacteria in one of my tanks, and I don't know how to get rid of it. I've looked up treatments for it, and all of them involved either changing lighting, avoiding overfeeding, and not using fertilizers. Well, I already don't use fertilizers in this tank, my lighting is already in the range of what I've read it should be (6500k) and overfeeding is definitely not an issue; I only have ember tetras and kibensis fry in this tank, so I don't put much food in to begin with. I'm considering trying a blackout, but it sounds like the results from blackouts are pretty mixed, and only create a temporary solution. I don't want to have to keep cleaning the stuff out every few days, so if anyone has had success getting rid of it, I'd love to hear how.

 

How long is your light on?

How much water flow is there in the tank? How often are you doing water changes and how much do you change?

You can treat it with erythromycin.

 

The most common causes are low nitrates and not enough water flow around the tank.

I have nuked it with Erythromycin in my planted tank once when it popped up. It came back again in a very small quantity and I removed the infected few leaves and increased NitrAtes and haven't had it since.

 

The most common causes are low nitrates and not enough water flow around the tank.

I have nuked it with Erythromycin in my planted tank once when it popped up. It came back again in a very small quantity and I removed the infected few leaves and increased NitrAtes and haven't had it since.

That sounds like it might be my problem then, thanks. I have a pretty fair amount of plants in the tank along with a very light bioload, so my nitrates are more or less nonexistent in this tank. It also has a sponge filter specifically to keep the water flow down, since the ember tetras don't like it.

I've cut my lights down to about 6 hours a day now and it's done nothing at all to slow down the growth. I've been doing about 25% (a single 5 gallon bucket's worth) water changes weekly as usual.

I'll have to see about getting some erythromycin and see if that works. For the sake of the embers, I don't plan on increasing water flow, and I'm not going to add more fish to increase nitrates, so I guess I might just have to medicate it until those kribs grow up and start producing more of a bio load.

 

That sounds like it might be my problem then, thanks. I have a pretty fair amount of plants in the tank along with a very light bioload, so my nitrates are more or less nonexistent in this tank. It also has a sponge filter specifically to keep the water flow down, since the ember tetras don't like it.

I've cut my lights down to about 6 hours a day now and it's done nothing at all to slow down the growth. I've been doing about 25% (a single 5 gallon bucket's worth) water changes weekly as usual.

I'll have to see about getting some erythromycin and see if that works. For the sake of the embers, I don't plan on increasing water flow, and I'm not going to add more fish to increase nitrates, so I guess I might just have to medicate it until those kribs grow up and start producing more of a bio load.

I'd increase your water changes too. It'll be good for the kribs as well. 25% every other day would be better.