Red Slime Algae
 

I am having a problem with red slime algae. I have been told by a LFS to use the Red Slime be gone medication. I have used that twice now and it seems that the red slime just returns in a matter of 2 weeks. I try to siphon out as much as I can but it still comes back. Does anyone have any other suggestions? This is driving me crazy. I have gotten my water all tested and everything is fine.

Try a blackout. i did this and in under a week my cyno was gone. all i did was cut my lighting (photosynthetic period) down to 2 two hour periods for the day.

also flow can be an issue.

So for a week did you turn the lights on at all??? Did the Cyano ever come back?

How old are your bulbs? As your bulbs age, they produce more red light, which in turn algae thrives even more so on.

I used Poly Ox before, and it never came back

I had the lights on from 9am to 11 am then again from 4pm to 6 pm. the only reason i had any light on it was for corals. i also fouund this didnt bother the fish. i had a standing lamp beside the tank for light 60 watt. i was deali8ng with algae issues since day one and the cyno was the last of it. i have been cyno free now for about 6 weeks since turning my lights back up to being on 12 hours a day. only thing is that i gradually uped the time that the lights were on. i left the 2 hour break in the middle untill the last step. thus keeping an interuption in photosyntisis. when upin the lights on time keep an eye on the red slime as it can come back in about 2 days.

Hope this helps. Any questions on this pm me.

PS the reason i went this route is because i dont like using chemicals as i have a fair amount of inverts in my tank,

Just did a 3 day lights out in my tank, Cyano started to disapear in a matter of hrs. Alot of people do 3 days no lights every couple months. Doesnt hurt fish or corals. My torch still came out during the day.

I had a really bad Cyano outbreak in my new reef.
I just adjusted the flow so there was no dead spots at all and got pretty religious about siphoning off all detrius and Cyano and replacing it with clean ro/di water.
Took a week of care and about 70 gallons of water changes but as of this weekend there is barely any cyano and what is there is diminishing.

had it once, and it was always in deadspots, added another power head, siphoned it out and used that blue vet red slime remover and never seen it since, my bulbs were about 8 months old at that point i believe, i'm pretty sure I've read alot of times that as you're bulbs age, there switching spectrum becomes more favourable for nuisance algae growth. makes sense i don't see a single strand of any algae under 20k's

I read in the zeovit guide, that if you dose coral snow and zeobak mixed together it will eliminate cyano.

My bulbs are brand new......I just changed them about a month ago thinking that might have been the problem. I also added a power head. My tank is only 44 gallons and I have 1 powerhead. Do you think I need another powerhead? I am also battling really dirty sand. Even when I do a water change every 2-3 weeks. Do you think these 2 problems are related?

bulbs are definitely not an issue, are you running a skimmer at the moment? 1 power head isn't all that much for a 44-gallon imo, for now just try to position the power head as best as possible so the tanks getting even flow, just my 2 cents

Agreed.....

i added a korialia 1 and nano to my 34 G rsm as there was little to no flow on the front of my rock face. the korialia 1 is behind my rock face to blow out debris and the koralia nano is pointed at the front of my rock face.

I keep meaning to get pics when i do maintanece so others can see. i have been asked to do this on another board and have just forgotten. the reason being is that I built my rockscape around the Koralia to ensure no POOp would end up settling behind my rock wall. ( I ABSOLUTLY LOATH SIPHONING)

Yes, I do have a skimmer. I have now programmed my lights to come on only from 6pm to 8pm. I will try this for a week. Hopefully that will work. Maybe I will get another powerhead as well. Do you position your powerhead more in the middle of the tank rather then to the surface of the water? I have mine closer to the top. Any suggestions for keeping the sand clean?

Add more flow. You want a minimum of 20x turnover. 40x is better. In my 33 gal I've got about 30x and will add another koralia 2 to bring it up a bit over 40. That should help with your red slime and also keep crap in suspension so it can be removed instead of settling on the sand.

For keeping the sand clean try a couple of big nassarius snails, a strawberry conch, or a tiger tail sea cucumber. They do a good job on mine.

HTH

I hate to admit it, but I gave in to Cyano and used meds. My tank has LPS, softies, and lots of inverts. I used Chemiclean, and it worked great.

It's been 2 months since the treatment, and no cyano has come back. My corals didn't mind the stuff at all - as a matter of fact, they "perked up", if anything.

Cyano is one of the ugliest plagues IMO, but from what I have seen, it's usually one of the last - hang in there - you will persevere :smile:

From what we have been able to learn, red slime algae is primarily the result of too many nutrients in the tank. We are struggling with it now. We have been reducing our feeding and increasing frequency and volume of water changes. We also added a few brittle star fish to supplement our clean up crew. It seems to be going away in line with our reduction in nitrates (got pretty high for a while). Also, we just picked up two orange spotted sand-sifting gobies, and those have been helping us get rid of it - and they're cute to watch while they work.

In my reading and experience, it's not the actual turn over rate of your tank, it's the interraction of the water at surface with air and mking sure that all the water in your aqurium is being moved.
I increased my flow, spent almost 200 bucks on new Koralia but the Cyano actually grew more in the higher flow.
Once I took the two new powerheads out and changed the flow from the two existing ones i had initially had and my return pump so that there were no dead spots AND I had done more siphoning of the rocks and the substrate and replaced siphon with clean sw the cyano started to recede.
I also noticed that once the cyano had been reduced, my scarlett hermits chowed down on it pretty good.

I would try adjusting your current flow before you go blow some cash on new powerheads.

I've use chemiclean on our old tanks (30g and 120g) and it worked for a few months, but then we would need to use it again. Never did any damage to any inverts or corals, and it would get rid of the cyano. However on our 230g we used a whole bottle of chemiclean and it didn't do a thing to get rid of the cyano. Went to Blue World and Mike told us about Kent Marine Tech-M which helps supplement the magnesium levels in your tank and eliminates cyano. I admit I was a bit skeptical at first but 3 days after adding some the cyano is gone.

So where should the power heads be positioned??? I used to have it near the surface of the water but maybe I should have them down closer to the middle of the tank towards the live rock where the cyano is growing. I already have a sand sifting goby as well as a sand sifting star fish to help with the sand. Maybe the increased flow will help with the sand as well. It almost sounds like I should have a powerhead on each end of my tank.

its not really a matter of where you place the PH but where its current is blowing. just aim it at the rocks where the cyno is. i have found trhem to be loud at the top. mostly due to water levels droping from evap.

I'm no expert at reefing, only been into it for a year and my tank that had the extreme cyano is only a month old and I attributed the outbreak to the nitrate spike that naturally comes with the cycling process.
having said that, I just directed the flow so that there were no deadspots in the aquarium at all.
Having good interaction of gases at the surface is important, but unless your tank is enclosed or you have a serious canopy it should be fine without a powerhead creating turbulence at surface.

The key for me was to remove the nitrates and I did that by siphoning the surface of my substrate (this was tricky to do without disrupting the entire bed) and the surface of all of my liverock.
This combined with replacing the water that was siphoned out with fresh ro/di saltwater and adjusting the flow so there were no dead spots to enable detritus (nitrate) buildup has so far aleviated my 72 gallon display of cyano with no chemicals and I had it BAD, so bad that when it first hit I thought of giving up the new tank.
glad i didn't as with a little patience and elbow grease it was an easy fix.

I have just been using tap water I do not have an ro/di unit. Do you think it would help to use the distilled water that you can buy by the gallon at the grocery store??? I don't know maybe I'm grasping at straws now???

Years ago I had a really horrible outbreak and used the product that other people in this thread refered to as Chemiclean. It worked great! Noticed an immediate improvement and I have never had the problem again. I bought mine at J and L aquatics, but your LFS may carry it. About 20 bucks, and you don't need much, depending on the size of the tank. Didn't hurt anything in the tank except the cyano.

I have been told to use RODI but when the used RO unit i bought didnt work i stgayed with tap and its fine IMO just premix in advance.