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  #26  
Old 03/02/2003, 04:21 AM
kmk2307 kmk2307 is offline
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slholmes, long story short phosphates feed the growth of algae. Here's a good thread:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=139044

Is it possible the distilled water is not as pure as the water you were using before? A TDS meter will tell you the total dissolved solids of the water you are using. You can buy one off e-bay for ~20 or maybe a friend / local reef club member has one you could test your water with.

Kevin
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  #27  
Old 03/03/2003, 09:20 AM
DragonTamer DragonTamer is offline
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I did a double check on the "red algae" I have in the tank.,.. the more established part (i.e., the older rocks that have it on it) the red algae is fuzzy just like the green.. so I guess it's not the same.. eh well..
  #28  
Old 03/07/2003, 04:25 PM
snoflake snoflake is offline
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I haven't had the red slime on the sand bed...it just starts on one of my rock ares and spreads after several days. I take a tooth brush and gently scrub it off and get what I can with the baster...

My Queen conch was eating the cyno, but she was just recently eaten...by something... not sure what yet...

I have sea horses in this tank so I can't increase the circulation too much or they will be bouncing off the glass...

RO water~you have to be very careful when you get it. This is how my red slime started....I was doing RO water changes and my phospates went through the roof...someone suggested testing the ro...I did and that was the cause. I had to search for a new source...and this one still has them, but not so high...
  #29  
Old 03/08/2003, 09:22 AM
smity1333 smity1333 is offline
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" Dripping kalk at night will help to precipitate out CaPO4, which can then be collected by the skimmer"
What is CaPO4?
  #30  
Old 03/10/2003, 03:04 PM
NuTNT NuTNT is offline
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Question Pictures

Anyone have a pic of this cyno algae. Just kinda curious if I have any in my tank. It doesn't seem like I do but there are one or two patches on rock that's been described so was lookin for a picture to verify.
Thanks.
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  #31  
Old 03/10/2003, 04:39 PM
Flipper1 Flipper1 is offline
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I had quite a cyano outbreak for several months. The tank was only about six months old, and originaly filled with well water. At the time of the outbreak, I had already moved to distilled water, knowing the perils of tap, but still having no reliable source of RO. I don’t know if switching to RO helped end my woes, or if it was just the number of changes in general, but the cyano soon cleared up (after about 8 months). I had also run a phosphate sponge once in that period.
  #32  
Old 03/10/2003, 09:00 PM
GarSrtn GarSrtn is offline
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Ca = Calcium, PO4 = Phosphate, hence CaPO4 is calcium phosphate. Some of the calcium from the kalkwasser will bind with the phosphate in the water, creating CaPO4.

Quote:
Originally posted by smity1333
" Dripping kalk at night will help to precipitate out CaPO4, which can then be collected by the skimmer"
What is CaPO4?
  #33  
Old 03/12/2003, 04:53 PM
albinooscar albinooscar is offline
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Has anybody ever posted a pic of what this cyano looks like?

If not, why?

Will somebody please post some pics so I now what this
stuff looks like

TIA
AlbinoOscar
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  #34  
Old 03/12/2003, 05:38 PM
kmk2307 kmk2307 is offline
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Here ya go,
The Cyanobacteria or "cyano" is the red film on everything :-/ Note the whelk snail on the rock in the middle of the picture. This is my much neglected nano (now that i'm home on break from school) that I threw him in. The red by him is his tissue, not cyanobacteria.

HTH,
Kevin
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  #35  
Old 03/13/2003, 02:03 AM
piscies75 piscies75 is offline
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cyano

or red slime algae, I used Chemi-clean and previously Red Slime remover, neither worked. I wrote the manufacturer Boyd's they said I had a "mutated" red slime algae and that no product would work? I am only using r/o water now, increased my circulation, dramatically ,ran a Poly marine pad, add I- biotnic, ran Seachem phosphate beads but I hear the crushed solution is far better. Decreased my po4 from 1.4 to .5. Added two nice heavily covered purple coraline LR and two snails with lots of purple algae. Some improvement, my water looks far better . Here is a picture of red slime for the fellow that asked.
  #36  
Old 03/13/2003, 03:12 AM
KORE(67) KORE(67) is offline
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Well last week i was fed up of cleaning my tank of cyano, and the whole tank re-covered in cyano in a couple of hrs. My lfs had a new product 'antired' by Aqua Medic. I was previously using phosguard by seachem, but no results. By 2 days after using antired, my tank was clear, and no sign of cyano anywhere, tank healthier then it has ever been. My finger coral has 4 growths which appeared after the cyano dissapeared last week......



PS. Follow instuctions of bottle carefully. The lfs says turn off your skimmer because it goes off its nuts, but it's a must to leave on to rremove the cyano from your tank. Also remove you carbon from your filters, as it removes the chemical from your system, making it useless.....

PSS. Before using the chemical, siphon as much cyano out of your tank to remove stress off your skimmer.....
  #37  
Old 03/13/2003, 04:09 AM
macg macg is offline
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maracyn

if i'm not mistaken, maracyn has erythromycin as its generic name. my question is, could i use erythromycin itself as treatment for cyano in my tank?
  #38  
Old 03/13/2003, 01:52 PM
kmk2307 kmk2307 is offline
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macg,
I am going to discourage you to use antibiotics to kill the cyano. If you do so you will harm or destroy the bacteria essential to your "biological filter." If you have live rock and live sand you will essentially negate its purpose. Also, after you kill off the cyano it might come back as antibiotics only really take care of the sympton - the algae, not the problem - excess nutrients. I don't mean to be discouraging but I don't want you to do something that might hurt your tank - for all I know you are well aware of the risks and just fed up with the algae. Could you post some information about your tank? Filtration / water quality / etc.? Maybe someone will have an alternative suggestion for you.

HTH and Good luck,
Kevin
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  #39  
Old 03/13/2003, 05:23 PM
macg macg is offline
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75 gal mixed reef tank a 1 inch sand bed about 60 lbs of LR, running a fluval 204 with carbon 24/7. I have a sump/refugium with caulerpa/ulva species on a reverse photoperiod. No other media in the sump. I'm running a seaclone skimmer in my sump 24/7. I dose tropic marine Calcium daily and supplement it with coral mineral, also from tropic marine. I add ph buffer although i dont really check on the levels. I run 2 6500K NOs and 2 actinics 10 hours for the daylight, 12 for the actinics. i have a tomato, two chromis, an ornate wrasse, an anthias and a yellow tang in my tank.
  #40  
Old 03/13/2003, 06:24 PM
scottseidner scottseidner is offline
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Algae

I have a 100 gal tank with 130 lbs of LR 3inch sandbed. I run a Rio2500 for the main filtration/circulation system which is a 30 gal sump with 10gal of blue bio media. I use a Prism skimmer (works great btw). I run carbon 24/7 with a MegaWatt UV sterilizer. I use a Rio1100 for secondary circulation. I had that red abnoxious algae growing furiously. Yesterday morning it seemed to have just disappeared, and stopped growing completely. I couldn't see through the first pane of acrylic in the sump. Now I can see through and through? The tank has been running since the begining of Jan this year. My levels are 0Am 0Nit 8.1PH

Any thoughts on how this algae just jumped up and left? I am not complaining, just wondering
  #41  
Old 03/13/2003, 06:40 PM
kmk2307 kmk2307 is offline
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macg, do you get a lot of growth out of your caulerpa and ulva? What kind of light do you have on it? Had you considered increasing it's photoperiod?

Kevin
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  #42  
Old 03/13/2003, 07:00 PM
macg macg is offline
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i get steady growth from them. i use a 20w spotlight to light my fuge. should i go 24 hours fuge lighting?
  #43  
Old 03/13/2003, 10:19 PM
wedgee wedgee is offline
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Re: Algae

Quote:
Originally posted by scottseidner


Any thoughts on how this algae just jumped up and left? I am not complaining, just wondering
U know wat, I had this happen to me tank too!!! It just disappeared overnite! I think it left me tank with a 20ppm NO3 after dat...is dat possible?
Now hair algae has taken over the cyano instead....sigh when will this algae storm EVER end...
  #44  
Old 03/27/2003, 09:39 AM
yardboy yardboy is offline
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This is my first post to this forum, and after having my tank for only two months, I don't know much, but I am a water chemist, and having stared into the tank for two months.....
My first mistake was using tap water for initial filling. The #$%# LFS guy said it would be fine (that's what they use) Here in S. Florida, the water is so hard, they inject phosphate to keep down hard scale. My first phosphate reading was 1.2 ppm! No wonder the cyno started popping up every where! I had PC (110watts in a 67g tank) and it "seemed" that the growth was much worse during the day than at night (growth as in doubling every two hours!) Turkey baster is an excellent idea, helped me keep a little ahead of it, until I changed the water with RO/DI from my company (for "mine is bigger than yours" fans, "my" RO/DI puts out 250g/min @0.05uS/cm, 3ppbSi, 1ppmNa, n/d PO4) but since the water is at work and my tank is at home, I was lazy...
As an aside, an RO only cleans the water by %, to get really pure water you gotta DI. We only went to RO to cut down on DI regens.
Anyway, long story short, now I'm loooking at a small dime-sized patch on the sand that hasn't gotten any bigger in a week. LFS told me that blue-legged and red-legged hermits would eat it, but I've even put them on top of the patch and they just crawl back over to the hair algae on the LR. Guess I'll "baste" it out this evening.
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  #45  
Old 03/27/2003, 11:11 AM
kmk2307 kmk2307 is offline
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yardboy,

To Reef Central

I'm glad to hear you got your algae problem under control. That's awesome that you get free water... and yes i'm very impressed by your huge RO unit.

Kevin
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  #46  
Old 03/31/2003, 01:10 AM
JessieSp JessieSp is offline
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Angry Slimed!

I am at my wits end!! I have this awful cyano problem that I have been fighting since February - the tank had only been up for a month. My levels are all fine, I don't overfeed and I am always cleaning the dang thing. I've tried Chemi-pure, Poly-Ox, and Maracyn. I removed the carbon filter from my Eclipse system so am just running on the bio wheel while I treat with chemicals. Oh, and I also tried the "leave the light off for a week" method. It died while the light was off but my anemone almost did too! Then it came back the same day I turned the light back on. All this time I have been doing 25% water changes about weekly with RO water.

Any suggestions? Is it time to cry yet???
  #47  
Old 03/31/2003, 11:35 AM
kmk2307 kmk2307 is offline
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Hey JessieSp,
[welcome]

Don't give up yet! I'm sure the people here can help you get to the bottom of it. First, I want to ask you a few questions. Do you test the TDS, phosphates, or nitrates from your RO water? Do you test the phosphates or nitrates in your tank? What size tank do you have? Do you have a skimmer? Do you like the look of plants or macroalgae in a reef tank? Do you like soft corals like xenia or anthelia?

Kevin
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  #48  
Old 03/31/2003, 11:51 AM
Summitpa Summitpa is offline
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I know this post is mostly for natural ways to get rid of slime, but Red Slime Remover by Ultralife really did work the best for me. I suffered from new tank algae problem and couldn't get rid of cyano at all. I cleaned and changed water but it kept coming back.
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  #49  
Old 03/31/2003, 12:13 PM
Fatboy Fatboy is offline
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I did have that problem long time ago. My sand bed was completely covered with red cyano. Increasing the water flow, avoiding dead spots in the tank, using the correct lights and one (1) Golden Head Sleeper Goby solved my problem. The goby was amazing.....he started stirring all my tank and cyano never came back.

I still have him and I follow the rules in order not to fuel algae (RO/DI water, keep phosphates low, correct lighting, etc). No algae problems at all......
  #50  
Old 03/31/2003, 09:40 PM
ez1ez ez1ez is offline
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Talking

YYYeeeeeeeeaaahhhhoooo!!!! I tried the Marycin in my tank and wow!!!! It worked. I hope it stays this way.
 

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