large outbreak of red algae

[Steph11787]

The red algae looks slimy. It is all over the rocks, a little on the glass, and some on the seahorses. I do a water change weekly, and I have been taking out one piece of rock a week and brushing the algea off, but now its gotten worse and even the pieces I brushed are covered again. How can I get this to go away!!!??

[bertoni]

You might be seeing a cyanobacteria bloom. If so, they are fairly common in new tanks, and they often go away on their own. In the mean time, you could siphon out the slime. That will remove nutrients from the tank.

How long has the tank been running?

[sir_dudeguy]

so the algae comes off really easy, right? like when you rub it off?

if so, its definately cyano/red slime algae
What are your nitrates and phosphates? I'd test at nite..it can release some of the nitrates during the nite and give you a higher reading. How old is the tank? New tanks almost always go thru algae phases and cyano is one of them.

[Steph11787]

The algae comes off VERY easily, it comes off even if you just touch it. The tank has been going for about 3 months now, everything is at 0, good salt and pH.

[sir_dudeguy]

ya definately cyano. I'd just keep your levels down and wait...i dont like adding chemicals to my tanks...i try to get stuff to happen naturally most of the time.

but what is your flow? I'd say get about 20-25 times turnover per hour to start with and go from there. Having good flow wont solve the problem, but it will definately make it harder to grow. And in any case, i doubt there is a real problem since its a new tank, and again...probably just a phase.

[bertoni]

Hmm, well, the bloom is likely cyanobacteria, dinoflagellates, or diatoms, probably a mix. It might go away on its own.

Otherwise, one common cause is overfeeding. Can you post details of your feeding?

You could consider working on the problem now. This article is written about nitrate problems, but the ideas will work for your situation as well:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/august2003/chem.htm

Growing and harvesting a macroalga is a commonly-used approach. A phosphate reactor is another idea to consider.

[Deadeye]

The flow isn't very much in the nano-cube, but we have seahorses so we don't want it to high. I was thinking about adding a small power head maybe but it still has me worried.

I used to feed them a little bit of mysis twice a day and I cut down to a little bit once a day. The seahorses are slow eaters.

[sir_dudeguy]

aah, ya...seahorses..scratch the thing about flow then lol. I'd just wait then for a while and keep your nitrates and phosphates down.

[AZDesertRat]

Are you using RO/DI water?

[Deadeye]

When we first set up the tank we did not use RO/DI water. Water changes are now done with RO/DI water, I'd say the last 3 to 5 changes have been with RO/DI water, ever since we found out our LFS sells it.

[AZDesertRat]

Ask them to check the quality of their water in your presence. Not to say its not good but some shops don't have what they claim they do. It can come out of the filters good but if its stored improperly its not much better than tap water.

[Swanwillow]

do you use a skimmer? sump setup? well, what type of filtration do you have is a better question ;)

[Deadeye]

It is a 24 gallon nano cube, so no protein skimmer or sump, filtration is built in. We change carbon once a week along with water changes.

speaking of skimmer, I am thinking of getting a 24 gallon aquapod w/ 150 watt halide, should I add an aqua C remora nano skimmer to this? I don't know if it will fit on the pod's though. Won't fit on the nano-cube cause it has a hood set-up, but the aquapod has a halide on it so there is no lid/hood on it.

[Swanwillow]

well, without an active filtration that takes out the protein, especially with seahorses, which should mean ya feed. ALOT. would cause a great many algae blooms.

I'd advise investing in well, go to one of the seahorse organisations (seahorse.org or syngnathid.org)
skimmers aren't advocated for seahorse tanks. Lots of water changes ARE though!

[antdog]

I had the same problem and I used Ultralife red slime remover. It seems to work! I also did a partial water change and changed the filter in my power filter. Also removed the powerheads and cleaned them really well. I had been a little lax on upkeep for a couple of weeks. By the way the Ultralife had no ill affect on any of my tank inhabitants. I have a few fish, xenia, yellow polyps and some zoos. Great product!

[bertoni]

Often, UltraLife and similar products work reasonably well, at least in the short term. If there's enough cyanobacterial mass in the tank, these products can kill off a lot of animals. I wouldn't risk it. For that matter, if there's an underlying problem, the cyanobacteria will return in short order.

[PatMayo]

I would also double check the LFS water as AZdesert Rat suggests. When I was first setting up my tank I didn't quite have enough RO/DI water that I made and the fellows that were helping me set up the tank initially, a LFS, were going to use there water. I test it with my TDS meter and the TDS registered over 400. Yikes. Needless to say I didn't use that water, I made more but in the meantime used some water from my 46 gallon which was coming down anyhow.

It couldn't hurt to check it.

Regards,

Pat