Red Slime? (picture attached)

[Quigley]

Thanks for your help! My wife and I are new to reef keeping. We have a 90g tank tank with a mixture of fish and corals. Our tank has a refug, protein skimmer, lots of live rock, and a sand bed bottom. We have 2- 250w MH lights w/ 2-96w actinic's, the lights run 12 hours/day. Our water quality measures good/normal, we change 30% of the water every 2 weeks, and our tank is kept between 76 - 78 degrees using a chiller. We have kept our tank for 10 months.

Recently a red algae/slime has been developing in one corner of our tank (please see picture). Is this Cyano? If so, what is our best approach for removing it?

We have read that cyano is best removed by;
- less lighting
- more frequent water changes
- syphoning
- better water circulation in the infected area
- effective protein skimmer

Is this correct? Please advise,
Thanks for your help!
Randy & Deanne

 

[jezzeaepi]

What do your nitrates/phosphates test at, and what brand kits are you using?

 

[mmkeeper]

Less food, then all of the above you mentioned. What are your water parameters?
Ca,Alk,Mg,NH3,NO2,No3.PH..

 

[mmkeeper]

What protein skimmer are you using? Cleaning crew?

 

[ecobalance]

where's your power heads

Th.e most likely and often cause of cyno is lack of circulation.The easiest way to fix it is to syphan out as much as possible and than after a small water change,add chemi-clean turn off your skimmer for 48 hours and add a air stone for that time,also remove any carbon and then after is gone do another water change and turn skimmer on and invest in a couple power heads.

 

[chadmace]

I had Cyano really bad in my tank with perfect water, and 3100gph flow in my 125....in the end it was my lights. (You say that you have had your tank for 10 months so new lights should be on your list soon.)

If your water tests out perfect then look to flow and lights.

If your water isn't perfect do more water changes, syphon out the algae, and your rocks. At least in my experience it takes very little work to ensure you have 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, and 0 Nitrate....the rest is where it gets tricky. Good luck.

 

[delemi]

Ya know - I have an identical tank - 90 gal with 2/250 MH, etc. and I had a cyano bloom like yours for about 6 months before I realized I needed to actually add power heads instead of just syphon it out and get my water cleaner

After I started using RO/DI 100% of the time and I added 4 new powerheads (I had alot of dead spots, and still do, damn corner tanks, always get a square tank boys, the rounded ones are impossible to keep flow in). The cyano is 99% eradicated

Make sure to place your PHs low enough so they shift your sand a lil, the slime will likely disappear!

 

[theJ]

Quigly, where are you in post falls? we live in post falls too!!

We also have a cyno problem we cant get rid of, maybe its the area

 

[Quigley]

Thanks everyone for your replies and help - we appreciate it!

After reading everyone's posts we have concluded that our red-slime problems started when:

- several weeks ago our water quality went down (ph problems) as we were using lime to treat aptisia. We now have a copper-banded butterfly fish that is doing a great job of eating the aptisia.

- we re-aquascaped our tank and unknowingly developed a dead spot in one corner of our tank. This is where the red-slime started.

The drop in water quality and dead-spot coincide with the start of the red-slime. Our water quality is back up per my wife (she does all the water testing). And I have re-positioned our powerheads to give better overall water movement. I think I will also move some of our rocks around to help with better flow.

We will give these a try and if they don't work I will ask my wife for specific water test numbers, and consider re-bulbing our light.

Again, Thank You!
Sincerely,
Randy & Deanne Graves

 

[Krish]

Sounds good...Let us know how it goes. Chemicals should always be a last resort so just try limiting any excess nutrients in the tank, prevent any areas from having dead spots ( i.e lacking flow) and you should be well on your way. Also, be sure to use ro/di water when doing water changes and you could quite possibly bump up your water changes to once a week rather than once every 2 weeks. You don't have to do 30 gals each week, but maybe 15 each week instead. That way, waste is not allowed to settle in the tank for too long and begin rotting and degrading water quality before it is removed.

 

[Brenden]

Any time I have ever got a spot of cyano in my tank I change my RO/DI filters and it goes away.

 

[jeffnewt]

I have some in my tank, and I found that squirting them with some concentrated salt solution kills it off instantly- at least stops from spreading fast.

 

[wingnut247]

In the red

Hand remove slime (airline siphon)
Ro/Di Water
Less Nutrients
Increase Flow
Lights off (if you can) for a day or two helps

If you do all/some the above and you still have a problem... the chemical solution that I have seen great results with is --> Red Slime Control by Blue Vet / Blue Life.

I have seen no adverse effects... no problems with corals, anemones, pods or whatnots.

 

[jeffnewt]

Well, that stuff, or chemiclean red slime remover does work, and I haven't had any adverse effects, but it does tend to come back. And I have been warned that it may become resistant that stuff.

 

[brady816]

i just added another powerhead and the stuff disappeared. good luck