I left some water in my RDWC and now it has green deposits on the bottom and the surface looks like an oil slick.
You hear in the news how bad this is to get on your skin so I’m proceeding with caution, but before I went too crazy I wanted to know if it’s even possible
If I remember right, there are many different types of cyanobacteria, many of which are not hanging, and done of which are actually beneficial. I never had any reaction from the kind that occasionally appear in home aquariums, for whatever that’s worth. But it’s a monumental pain in the ass, and you want to eliminate it with a quickness.
Yeah fortunately I don’t have any plants growing in the system so it will be a simple fix. This was just a small bit of water that the pump couldn’t suck up and I’ve been too busy to get the shop vac on it. Sitting water under grow lamps not the greatest for keeping that shit at bay.
I’ll use caution and try and avoid skin contact for good measure. A little bleach couldn’t hurt as well.
I would definitely sanitize that container, pump, and whatever else is in contact. I’ve never experienced it in hydro, but in aquariums I’ve had a couple of pitched battles with it. Surely it’s not less of a pain in hydro, I imagine.
I fought that crap back in my aquarium days and more recently in my LPA/HPA grows. You for sure want to kill it before you put any plants back in the system. That stuff is hard as heck to kill. Your roots will suffer and die while the algae just shrugs it off and keeps coming back.
I would nuke that crap waaaaaaay beyond what you think it needs. Ive used strong bleach AND hi doses of copper and the crap still came back. A good scrubbing seems to be worth doing too. Parts I didnt scrub well re-infected themselves much faster.
As Im sure you know, light discipline is key to keeping it from starting. Using Jacks seems to have helped me a lot too.
Good luck!!