Help with red algae

[xroads]

Hi all,

I have this crappy red algae that is growing on everything. I scrap the glass & vacuum the sand when I do water changes, but it still keeps coming. How do I get rid of this stuff?

Thx alot
Craig

[xroads]

I also notice tons of air bubbles coming up from the sand and some of the rocks as well. Algae has been bothering me for awhile, but air bubbles are something new.

Thx again

[mwood]

The chemistry forum is a good source of info here. Your looking for red slime or cyano. Caused by organics. A few things you can do are; increase flow, increase skimming, run carbon, and use products like red slime remover or chemi pure. You also may benefit from growing macro algae.

Marcus

[Atticus]

Also inrease you calcium and ALk. for some reason Cyano thrives in chemically unbalanced tanks.

[terryricke]

I've used Chemi-Clean to get rid of the cyano in my tank the first time and didn't see it come back for sometime (8 or 9 months). My tank was young and I wasn't using RO/DI water back then.

Recently I had a re-emergence of cyano and this time after trying to use Chemi-Clean it wouldn't go away. I finally determined the problem might be due to my aging PC bulbs so I changed them out. Bingo, the cyano is gone once again...

Good Luck

[Duke13]

Yup, check the age of your lights.

[dascharisma]

Originally posted by Atticus
Also inrease you calcium and ALk. for some reason Cyano thrives in chemically unbalanced tanks.

Don't you want to know what his current values for calcium and alkalinity are before you advise this?

Am I the only one who would like xroads to tell us more about his tank before we try to offer solutions?

[Atticus]

I figured he would know to test it before adding otherwise how would he know how much he could add. We have also hit the ways you remedy the situation in any tank. Sure it would be nice if we could pinpoint the source, but he did not ask for that, just how to get rid of it.