Your water can check out good, but you can have a lot of nitrate and phosphate "locked up" in the sandbed and LR.
You mentioned that your sandbed was black. This is one major area to check into. Usually a sandbed will not all turn black unless there is a serious problem. You may see some dark areas though.
How deep is your sandbed?
What is the material used?
What is the grain size of the material?
Directly related to black sandbed is feeding. Over feeding is a major problem and cause of cyano.
What is your feeding schedule?
Are you useing any liquid foods or other additives?
Yes, lighting can have an effect on cyano (red slime). Old bulbs don't produce the same light as new ones. Usually you want to replace PC bulbs every 12 months or so.
Cyano thrives in dim light.
What kind of lighting are you using in the tank? (size (in watts), type, and color of each bulb)
Live rock is also a factor.
How much live rock do you have in the tank?
Filtration is a large factor in cyano control.
What is your filtration system?
What is your cleaning schedule for it?
Do you have any other power heads for additional circulation?
As you can see from my previous posts, I'm not a big fan of EM or other chemical controls for cyano. I suspect your ammonia spike was because you killed at least some of the existing algae.
Your clean up crew of snails and hermit crabs is small for the size tank, but don't change that now. Most don't eat cyano, so get the cyano problem under control first.
Well, I've got about 10 questions for you. Let us know what you are doing, and I think we can give you some advice on how to get the cyano under control.
my sand bed is 3-4 inches deep
i used the caribsea arga alive sp. grade
its about 1mm-2mm is what my catalog says
i feed once in the morning, once at night about 15 seconds of brine shrimp cubes in water and whatever falls off in that amount of time
im also feeding 2 hours before lights go out spectra vital (4 spoons full, the spoon that comes with it), and everynow and then supplitude it up with some DT's for my anenome.
lighting:
its a satelite fixture 2 65w PC's 1-10k 1-actinic (totals out to 3 1/2 watts per gallon. Though i 37 is a tall, tall tank. But im only doing soft corals)
sump lighting, i have one of those coralife mini lights the 2 9watt pc fixtures for my chatamorpha algae is enough. Its 1-10k and 1-actinic. Because my chatamorpha hasnt grown in 2 months that i can atleast tell. I thought that stuff was suppouse to grow incredable fast. The light sits about 3-4 inches above the water line where my chatamorpha is at in my sump.
I have 44lbs of fiji live rock
filtration is just my 44lbs of live rock, aqua c remora skimmer, and my chatamorpha algae.
i clean the aqua c remora collection cup daily
now that have such bad cyano, ive been turkey basting all my live rock about 2-3 days so i can actually see rock
also theres 2 maxi jet 1200s on opposite sides at the top of my tank.
the return from my sump hangs down in the middle, backside of the tank. Puts out alot of water, return pump was so big had to T my return and dump some back through the sump. Water changes about every 3-4 weeks of about 15-20 gallons. Tank and sump water volume totaly up to about 50 gallons.
Ive only bought enough snails and crabs to keep my algae in check. Ive seen those packages that come with tons and tons of critters. But i just bought 4-5 at a time until they took care of my old green algae out burst. which they took care of in about 4-5 days and tank looked awesome for about 2 weeks until the cyano kicked in.
Do you think im bristle and spagehtti worms, amphipods, and mini stars and all the other critters from IPSF.com the live sand activator will help clear some of it up off my sand bed. I know i need something to help stir up my sand bed more because i only have about 8 nassarius snails to do it and there all about the size of a dime. And as to getting critters from my live rock to activate my sand bed, havent seen anything yet, thats why i ordered the kit from IPSF.com which will be here wed.
now that i looked at my tank real hard, it looks like i have excess detrious on my sand bed. Light brown clumps every where, under the rocks where theres hardly any light penatrating through my rock. Could that possible be that cause? Polluting the water and the cyano is just growing everywhere? If so what would you all recommened to stir my sand bed. All i have now is some nassarious snails, and a brittle star. But i do have my live sand activator kit on its way. And if it is cause of my sand bed collecting crud and i finally get something to get rid of it, the cyano should slowly die off on its own shouldnt it. It wont stay attached to the rocks and ill have to remove it all will I?
It seems like you are feeding way to much. IMO you should be feeding 2x per week at the most. During the cyano problem I had I only fed once per week and very little at that! I think if you give it some time and let your Aqua C do it's work, don't feed nearly as much, and get your sandbed vaccumed up you should start seeing a dramatic effect. Rememeber, you can't do any one thing and wake up the next morning and the cyano be gone. The entire time I battled it I wished it where so. Another thing to consider is your tank is only 4 months old. Many consider cyano to be just another natural part of the long term cycling proccess.
Aaron_owen's post about over feeding is 100% right on target. I only feed my reef about 2 to 3 times a week. If I were in a cyano battle, I'd cut my feeding back.
Also, discontinue the use of Spectra Vital. It's really not needed in a reef as long as you make regular water changes, and it's contributing to the cyano problem.
Just about everything else you are doing is fine.
You want to clean only about the top 3/4" to 1" of your sand bed. Don't try to go deeper. You can use one of the various gravel cleaning devices that hook up to a syphon tube, and clean your sandbed as part of the water changes.
The other think that I think would help is to add some mechanical filtration. Now normally I am not a fan of hang on the tank power filters, but in your case, they may help. You want something that is going to be used only for mechanical filtration, so avoid all of the "bio-wheel" type products. Get something like a large Whisper or Aquaclear. Get one rated for a tank about double the size you have. It will only cost you about $20-$35. Set it up, but do not use the carbon or loose bio-media. Just use the mechanical media. Replace or clean the media in FW at least once a week. Twice a week would be better. If you let it go longer, the filter will turn into a "nitrate factory", and this will not help solve the cyano problem.
Canister filters used the same way would also work, but are a lot harder to clean, and a lot more expensive. I mention this only because you may already have one.
It takes awhile to win the cyano battle, but if you do these few things, you'll be well on the way.
Ok ill try feeding less. Do you mean to cut back both on feeding my fish the brine and cut back on feeding my corals spectra vital and DT's? Fish can go a week without eating and remain healthy? Is there any critters you would recommened to help for over feeding? Also why if i over feed arent my nitrates high? Well im going to try cutting back on feeding and wait to see if my live sand activator kit helps to get things under control. Now that you mentioned could be because of built up crud on sand bed and stuff, i believe that is my problem, which is cause from my over feeding i believe. But hopefully the critters will eliminate what i have over feed.
There is a lot of speculation on what causes cyano (water quality, lighting, flow, salt brand, insufficient or inappropriate sacrifices to the reef gods, etc). All of the potential causes are, at this point in time, simply guess-work. We just don't know what causes cyano outbreaks.
Some people think it's part of the natural algae cycle a new tank goes through (it's not). This is, in part, because cyano often disappears as quickly as it appears. The key thing to keep in mind is that cyano is a form of bacteria, and, as such, can be treated with antibiotics in a way that other nuisance algae can not.
I had a cyano outbreak in my refugium when I first set up my tank. Because of the way my system is plumbed, I could isolate it from my display tank. I dosed Maracyn for 7 days and the cyano was gone (never to return). Of course, I was lucky that the cyano was in my fuge-- I would have been more reluctant (initially) to dose my display tank. Knowing now how well it worked, I would feel comfortable medicating my display tank (especially a new one).
Having said all that, the additional advice on feeding is spot on.
Yes, discontinue the Spectra Vital, and never use it again. You should only feed something like DT's if you have a huge number of filter feeders. Sebae Anemones are not filter feeders. The fish you have should be fine getting fed once a week, but if you want you can use two very light feedings.
You do not have high nitrates because of your deep sand bed. They can process a lot of nitrate. That is also why it's so black. Over time, and less feeding the amount of black will reduce.
You are going to need to vacuum the sandbed. You can add other sand living things, but there is too much "glop" in the sandbed right now. You need to get out a lot of the "glop". Don't expect any livestock you add to clean it by eating it.
K well i just vacuumed my sand bed 2 days ago, and also cleaned all the live rock. Today i come home and cyano is still popping back up everywhere. Not as fast i dont believe. But im wondering what to do next. Ive cut back on feeding to once every 3-4 days. The only thing i know is that my phosphates tested at .25ppm and nitrates .5ppm. Is this enough to have my cyano out break? If so whats it coming from? Ive cleaned the whole tank. Took my 3 and 1/2 hours to! Can chatamorpha algae give off phosphates or nitrates? My ball thats about the size of a baseball hasnt grown since got it 2 months ago, and my other the size of a softball hasnt grown either. Well its grown bushers inside but never has it stretched out wider or anything. Ive only prunned it once because it never seems to grow. I have a 9w day light 9 watt actinic over it for 12 hours a night in a 15 gallon sump. any other suggestions on what you think i should do? My clean up crew is lacking also, im down to 6 snails and my serpant star fish. its a 37 gallon tank with 15 gallon sump/refugium for you all to know. I even put a maxi jet 1200 on the right side of the tank about 8 inches from the sand bed to blast water movement over it but it seems to be growing in the current spot the best! Anyways help me if you can. Maybe bulbs? I first turned them on to see if they work over a year ago, but tank with them on for more than 2 seconds has been running for 4 months now.
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