Red Slime.... I can't beat it!

[tikki50]

Ok. Ive tried your usual fixes and yes my water parameters are all clear.

AMM: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Cal: 420
ALK: 10.5
PHOS: 0
Temp: 80
Salinity: .024

For circulation Im running 2 maxi1200's and a return pump from my fuge 600gal/hour in a 40 gal tank. Everything is getting beat up from the water movement. The worst part is the cyno still clings to the substrate, ERRRRRRR…… I have reduced lighting, but haven’t switched out bulbs, they are only 4 months old. I use RO water tds meter reads 8-12ppm. Make up water test 0 on phosphate. I've done 10% water changes weekly no effect for 6 weeks. Matter of fact the day after the water change the substrate is covered with a thin layer again, less than 24 hours! I vacuum my substrate and remove all the cyno I can. I tried using special blend to help beat the cyno, no help.

I currently use a remora skimmer with maxi 1200 and a friend let me barrow a Berlin turbo to test it against my remora. There is no comparison, the Berlin is WAY better.

Remora 2 weeks = 1cup skimmate.
Berlin 3 days=1 cup skimmate.

Yes I know the berlin is much more finiky but for the results its worth it. I've been running this skimmer now for 3 weeks and no change in cyno.

Im becoming an antibiotic believer now. IF this doesn’t clear up I'm nuking my tank. I just ordered RSR and should be here within a week. Is there ANYTHING else I can do before using the RSR? Please help, I've always seen my system as a naturalist approach but that is quickly changing!

I dyed my hair red to match my tank.

[JoeMack]

I would check nitrates & phosphates with another test kit and tri Chemi-clean. Worked for me and it has not came back yet (4months?) . I had almost perfect levels and still had cyano. Chemiclean saved my life.

[maoiwowie]

How long have you been fighting this? Only 6 weeks? Needs more time for natural results.

[redFishblue]

You might want to upgrade your pump to a Mag 3. Two weeks to get 1 cup sounds like there is something wrong with the skimmer. I had a Remora Pro that pulled a cup every 2 days or so.

[dnjan]

If the nutrient source that is feeding your nuisance algae outbreak is organic, you might try Kent's PolyOx. This is basically potassium permanginate, and will accelerate the oxidation (breakdown) of the organics. Follow the directions on the container - takes about 2 weeks for a reef tank.

I think this would be a better approach than killing both beneficial and nuisance bacteria, etc. with chemicals.

While you are at it, continue with the more agressive skimming. You may have had a gradual accumulation of nutrients, which finally overwhelmed your tank's ability for processing and export.

It takes a while to re-establish a proper balance.

[CedarReefer]

Have you tried AZ-NO3. Work great for me.

[dirtyreefer]

Don't nuke your tank with antibiotics! This will only harm your inhabitants. Keep that berlin skimmer on there for at least another 2 weeks, that will definitely clear it up.

I had the EXACT same situation until I upgraded my skimmer, that IMO is the key to clean water (besides treating with RO/DI first of course).

[sesegal99]

I don't know what these people are talking about....use the RSR and kepp your levels in check. You will have to do without a skimmer for about 4 days, but you should be OK. I used the recommended dosage and bye bye red slime. Nobody corals or fish or inverts in my tank was hurt or even stressed from it's use. You can always do a day or two without the lights as well, but I just kept my system on its normal routine, just without the skimmer. My fuge also was ridded of all the red slime, now there is just macro growing like crazy.

[cuongvynguyen]

Just make you have good skimming, don't overfeed and use an iron based phosphate absorber such phosban.

[ryngill]

what about adding just erthromyacin (sp?) tabs?

[enchie]

I had the same problem as you. The damn cyno was only on my sandbed on one part of my tank. Stayed there for about 2 months w/out spreading. Then it started showing up all over. All water parameters were fine. To this day I don't know what caused it.
I heard the Mexican red leg hermit crabs love this stuff. I bought six & within a few weeks it was ALL GONE.

I probably should have found out what was wrong with the tank but gave up. It has been several months now & it still shows up in very small patches every now & then but by the next day it is gone.
My tank size is 125 gallons. The infected section was maybe 2 feet by 1 foot. The six guys did a great job!

[[)R@G()N]

Do you get a different reading on a TDS meter from an RO unit than you would from a RO/DI unit? Just wondering when he 8-12ppm, I normal get 0-2 out of my RO/DI.

[Saliki]

From my understanding, Ive been told that a reading that high on the TDS meter is just adding to the problem. Good RO/DI water should read 0 on the TDS. This may be adding unwanted "stuff" back into the tank, stuff that the red slime feeds on.

[tikki50]

Thanks for all the replies I'm glad there is a place like this.

Dnjan I think this might have contributed to its outbreak:

"While you are at it, continue with the more agressive skimming. You may have had a gradual accumulation of nutrients, which finally overwhelmed your tank's ability for processing and export."

I haven’t tried any of these yet: AZ-NO3, Redox. I read on this board quite a lot and didn’t really find anything that points to using these two things, but at this point I'm keeping my options open, thanks guys.

Dirtyreefer I will continue my skimming. Curiosity makes me wonder if I could hook up the second air line at the base of the skimmer for better results. Right now it only has one airline going into the pump. Any suggestions?

Enchie – I have red legged they don’t touch the stuff. None of my snails or hermits touch it. It's the plague of death, especially for my devil hand frags which are now covered by this stuff, IN 24 HOURS!

[)R@G()N – I use water from Farmer Jack. THIS could be the cause but I can't believe it is right now because my TDS does read very low, yes I compared it to other systems. The variation 8-12 is due to filter changing at the store. The lowest Ive read from there is 7. Highest was 28 and waited until it was changed but that was months ago.

Most likely I will order a RO/DI unit from ebay and try that along with excessive skimming. I already under feed my tank, poor tang, hes looking thin, and plan on cutting back my temp to 77-78. Maybe the 3 degrees might help slow its growth, I've always noticed that 80 degrees is when things get crazy.

Thanks

[Tek]

This might be late, but cutting my photoperiod to 7-8 hours stopped my cyano problems for over a year.

[cpage3]

What about silicate, I heard somewhere that the main nutrient that red slime algae feeds off of is silicate. It's not gonna do any good to test for it though because sometimes the reading can be zero, that can just mean that the silicate is being used up as fast as its made. I would invest in a good, high capacity, phosphate and silicate remover, like Rowaphos.

[grim]

Your TDS is way too high, replace the filters in your RO immediately.

As soon as they are replaced, do 20% water changes *daily* for the next two weeks.

Do not feed anything for the next two weeks.

Run an Iron Based phosphate remover and heavy carbon for the next month.

Do not touch your lighting..

jb

[sparatus]

a decent sized queen conch will eat the stuff on the sandbed, but only the sandbed..

when I fought this stuff, I cut back feeding to every other day rather than daily..

also, did big water changes (25 percent) twice a week for two weeks... to get rid of as much doc's as I could....

[technomex]

I was tired of the red slime plague in my tank and also tired of my wife giving me crap, so I went old-school on my tank this weekend. This is what I did knowing I had way to much nutrient in my tank.

Once a day for a week prior to this weekend, I blasted my live rock with a MJ 1200 and changed the filter pad an hour later.

I cut back feeding to every other day.

I put a power head in each over flow because I was getting lots of detritus settling in there.

I finally cut the pumps off and did a 30 gal water change in my 150 gal tank. I also took all the bio-balls out of my sump and rinsed everything out with a garden hose and a power head pumping the water out. You can't imagine the amount of crap that was in there. I re-filled the 30 gal sump and had enough water made up to empty my 20 gal fuge.

So far so good. It has not come back like it used to from day to day, and the little left seems to be receeding.

[bzzbee2]

i thought that you werent supposed to clean your bio balls with freshwater like that as you will kill all the bacteria on them...

[technomex]

I took them all out before I brought in the hose. Although, I only put a few back in so that I won't get all the crap in there again. I'll probably put some LR rubble instead.

[bzzbee2]

so if i were to take out all of the balls... hose half of them off. clean out the sump... then place all the bio balls back the unrinsed bioballs should repopulate the clean balls with bacteria. im doing a big water change tomrow. and willl probably clean out the sump tomorow.

[VP]

Is this a fairly new tank, 6 months or so old? It's fairly commonplace for newer tanks to have a nasty cyano problem. Mine did way back then. Rather than use antibiotics that will KILL your biological filter, I would keep doing water changes, add a DI cartridge to your RO to get 0 tds (Walter at www.airwaterice.com is very helpful), and keep syphoning the cyano out. Eventually, as your tank matures, the cyano's going to go away. Even after my tank was a couple of years old I got a bit of a cyano problem and I just kept doing water changes and syphoning out the cyano and after a couple of months it went away.

Also, keep in mind that your nitrates and phosphates could be zero because the cyano is eating them all up as soon as your tank produces it.

[bzzbee2]

my tank is about 3 years old, however i did a big move in feb. I have used nothing but RO/DI water for the tank. and as soon as i get my next paycheck i will be purchasing a phosban 150.. one of those phosphate reactor things.. as i cant control the phosphates right now. I am thinking that my substrate is the problem. and am prepared to eliminate it, but i have just got it to the point that it is extremely full of life..... i want to switch from CC to white sand. im just not sure that its a smart thing to do..

[VP]

Several months back I changed out my sand because it was saturated with phosphate and things seemed to go a bit smoother. I changed 1/3 at a time 3 weeks in a row. Then also started to use Phosban in the chemical reactor. Have been using Phosban for several months now and I went from replacing it every week to replacing it every 4-6 weeks. Now if I can just get my coil denitrator all cycled up.

Good luck with your problem! Be patient.