Chemi-clean for transparent slime

[AquaAddict]

Thanks for the advice everybody,

MitchM, I was hoping the Chemiclean would eradicate all this bacterial slime within a few days. I could wait a while after my Ca levels rise, but don't you think Chemiclean would work at all?

BRS calculator is great; I bookmarked it.

AquaAddict

[MitchM]

It's not known if the erythromycin cetyl sulphate that's in Chemiclean will or won't work with the bacteria you have, so I wouldn't advise it.

[Myka]

I wouldn't use ChemiClean either.

When nitrification takes place (ammonia to nitrate), alkalinity is bound up. When denitrification takes place (bacteria eating a carbon source and reducing nitrate and phosphate) they release that alkalinity that was bound up. A sudden drop in nutrients from the bacteria bloom could be the reason why you're seeing this increase in alkalinity. As the alkalinity increases you're going to get calcium precipitation which will lower the calcium even more, and cause the alkalinity to go up further. I would suggest a waterchange with a lower alkalinity salt mix such as Aquaforest. I would add extra calcium to the saltwater while doing the waterchange. IME, calcium can increase by about 50 ppm per day without irritating anything. Alkalinity swings are a real problem though. In your case, the damage has probably already been done. Instant Ocean or Reef Crystals isn't going to help you out much here.

[tang daddy]

Cause and effect, I have never heard of anyone using calcium glucomate as a calcium dosing source.

Definately stop dosing the alk and perform a couple larger waterchanges to bring the alk down to 9, and in future use calcium chloride for dosing calcium. If you want to dose a bacteria source use vinegar in really small amounts but generally I've tried to stay away from carbon dosing because it brings some weird strains of bacteria out.

[MitchM]

Aquavitro Calcification is calcium gluconate

http://www.aquavitro.com/products/calcification.html

[Myka]

Kent uses Calcium gluconate too IIRC.

[AquaAddict]

IIRC? - which means?

I use Kent salt mix which has a kH of 7. I can't remember the rest when I added the first 220 gallons of water to the system.

I think Ca and Mg were natural seawater parameters.

I am going to wait until Ca rises with use of Turbo Calcium as Myka suggested - let things settle down a bit before I do a water change. I guess I will have to be very, very patient to wait for the slime to disappear over several spaced out water changes.

AquaAddict