Lot's O Slime

[CeeGee]

I am getting quite a bit of slime in my tank and I am wondering if this is pretty normal?

My coral selection consists of a couple of leathers a frogspawn, a candy cane, some zoo's and some ricordia. I also added a green slimer SPS on the advice of my LFS as he said these things are nearly bullet proof and I really liked the coloration of the frag.

The slime is in different areas of the tank so I don't think it is one particular coral causing it.

Should I be worried or just ride it out and see what happens?

All water parameters are normal. I am going to double check tonight just to be sure though.

[jciwlsn]

What color is the slime, is it a brownish/red color? Are the leathers, frogspawn and candy cane in close proximity of the green slimer? Leathers and LPS corals are highly toxic to SPS if too close

Sorry for all the questions

[CeeGee]

The frogspawn is pretty close to the slimer.

All of the slime is clear in color and it picks up air bubbles from the tank. The only two corals that I have close together at the moment are the frogspawn and the green slimer.
Everything else is spaced out pretty well.

Thanks for the reply. I was afraid that this would go unanswered.

[fragspawn]

Is it near one particular coral over another? I know my leather released quite a bit of slime in my tank (until I got rid of him), and my SPS used to slime when I had a two spot goby that would stir up the sediment into the water column.

[onthefly]

Does it look like this:


Do you use Kalk/vinegar in your tank? I found out that the Heinz white vinegar in my Kalk mix was causing it......It is a bacterial/cyano/diatom bloom because of the increased carbon source.

In my case, I stopped using vinegar and it was gone in 2-3 days.

[fragspawn]

No, have never dosed with kalk or vinegar. Mine has never been that large, and I usually see it form on the corals and then the corals release it into the water.

[CeeGee]

In all actuality it looked as if something had been crawling all over the tank sliming everywhere it went.

The "slimes" were thin and stringy and scattered throughout the tank.

[fragspawn]

Yeah, looks like you had dropped a couple of garden slugs into your tank....

[CeeGee]

Looks similar on the fly. Not that bad though.

I don't use kalk or vinegar. I am using b-ionic because my tank is small.

I think that maybe the velvet nudibranch I am using to eat my flatworms is causing this. The poor thing isn't very good at finding the flatworms though. I have been watching it tonight and I am seeing a little of the slime wherever it seems to travel. I can't believe that I didn't think of this before posting. It is hard to believe that this little nudibranch could produce so much slime though.

On a side note my toadstool leather coral seem to slime up (shed) pretty often. I have had it for a couple of weeks now and it has totally "shed" it's skin twice. There is absolutely no other corals around it at the time. Anyone have any input on why it would shed so often?

[fragspawn]

Is there algae buildup on it? Is it growing?

[CeeGee]

No algae buildup on it. It very well may be growing. I just figured that it is still trying to settle in.

I am very new at keeping corals so I am asking quite a few questions at the moment.

[fragspawn]

No harm in asking question! I still have heaps of them myself.

[Gawain1974]

Is there any way you can post a pic for us? That might help us to get a better idea of the arrangement of corals in your tank and to identify the cause of all this slime.

Are you running plenty of carbon in your system to help soak up the possible toxins released with this slime? That could help the overall water quality of your tank as well.

[CeeGee]

I moved the coral today as I bought a couple more corals at my LFS and decided since I am in the tank why not try moving the leather?

I don't want to speak too soon but it has opened up and looks lovely. I hope it stays this way. Gonna add some more carbon tomorrow. Funny enough my royal gramma chowed down on some of the shedding again this morning and a hermit finished the job.

BTW fragspawn that is a beautiful coral in your avatar. What is it?

[jimbo045]

I just recomend using a working Protein Skimmer. It takes alot of garbage away so it does not break down into that algea stuff

[fragspawn]

Thanks CeeGee. That is one of my acro's that I bought about 9 months ago as a brown frag. It's my favorite so far. Amazing what 400W of metal halide brought out. Then there are some other acro's that I put in that were green and I expected them to go greener, well, one went a light shade of yellow green with the tips going baby blue, but the other one went brown. So I moved it to a spot with less light and it went green again.

[fragspawn]

Actually, if you click on my home icon you can see my photogallery with large, good quality photos. They were too big to download into my RC gallery!