Red Slime

[duckmans]

How do you stop red slime and what causes it?


Mike

 

[Herefishyfishy]

It is a type plankton bloom. Reduce nutrients, increase flow. Suck out all you can get and cut back on lighting. Some find success in increasing PH, but I do not recommend messing with chemistry unless you are a very experienced pro.

 

[saltwaterfishes]

I used to have red slime here and there.....it went away when I added more flow. Many don't recommend using Chemiclean, but I have tried it and it worked. Like herefishyfishy said....reduce nutrients and increase flow.

 

[darklcd]

sounds like cyano to me. Get more flow going is the biggest way and the other thing is to use some chemiclean its a "red slime" removed costs about 20 bucks and works well

 

[duckmans]

Thanks I will first try the increased flow and cut back my lighting an hour.

 

[darklcd]

thats what I did and between that and cleaning my tank out it worked well lol

the chemicals are the last resort as always

 

[duckmans]

Mike

Mike when you say cut back the nutrients less food?

It is a type plankton bloom. Reduce nutrients, increase flow. Suck out all you can get and cut back on lighting. Some find success in increasing PH, but I do not recommend messing with chemistry unless you are a very experienced pro.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Hey pal, yes that is one way to cut back. Another is to remove excess nutrients from the tank. Turkey baster or powerhead blowing off all the rocks with freshly rinsed filter socks. Also better skimming or a larger refugium. Any or all helps.

 

[duckmans]

Ok thanks Mike. How are your tanks doing??? Is the SPS still a growing???

Hey pal, yes that is one way to cut back. Another is to remove excess nutrients from the tank. Turkey baster or powerhead blowing off all the rocks with freshly rinsed filter socks. Also better skimming or a larger refugium. Any or all helps.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Doing fairly well Mike, but the SPS tank is still too young to be yet thriving. Typical new little tank syndrome stuff. My 72 is doing EXCELLENT, and so is the Sea Horse tank.

 

[abushr]

I started to get a bit of red slime showing up (my friend had a major outbreak which is why it made me nervous), I removed as much as I could physically and then I treated the tank with RedSlime Control (made by Blue Vet Rx/Blue Life). I had to remove my chemipure (no carbon to be used during treatment). It worked really well. I havn't had any more problems or seen any red slime in the last 3-4 months.

 

[Burke]

I had a bad case of red slime. I couldn't stay on top of it no matter what I did. Even less light and feeding less didn't help. I used the Chemiclean remover and it worked great, it's completely gone and hasn't returned.

 

[FeedMyJones]

I used Chemiclean and it didn't get rid of all of my red slime. The problem is that if it comes back additions of Chemiclean won't work any more. At least it stopped working for me. I had followed LFS advice to try 1/2 strength and am sorry I did.

 

[Burke]

I used Chemiclean and it didn't get rid of all of my red slime. The problem is that if it comes back additions of Chemiclean won't work any more. At least it stopped working for me. I had followed LFS advice to try 1/2 strength and am sorry I did.

Why 1/2 strength? The box claims you can dose again in 48 hours if needed. It also says you can dose it on a regular basis (monthly) if needed.

 

[lvsuckerfish]

I would fray from chems less lighting more flow and skim more wet, with less feeding. IMO that should work it out of the system. it will not reduce over night but with manually siphoning it out will help.

 

[OAL-T1V0M]

How do you stop red slime and what causes it?


Mike

I use mexican red leg hermit crabs. typically available at GARF. not sure where else to get them... also my pistol shrimp will eat small amounts of it, although i've heard thats a bit abnormal

 

[Inconservatory]

I had some pretty bad cyano in my tank, but adding some more flow fixed it. Well, it fixed half of it. The half of the tank with more flow is pretty much cyano-free. That's enough for me to know it's working well.

I also read on here that too much amino acid could cause an algae bloom, which proved itself to be likely after a hefty dosing with my amino-soaked food. It could have just been the food, however...

 

[NC2WA]

Mike,

along with cut back in feeding and increase flow,

Lights that need to be replaced can cause this as well.
when is the last time you changed your lights??

 

[wcj]

Hardness Relation?

I am pretty new to reefing (so please wait for feedback by others), but my parents' tank has had a cyano. break out for the past four months. We tried lights out for a couple of days, added two new powerheads, tried removing/scrubbing all rocks in a bucket, 10% weekly water changes, had new bulbs. Eventually, we found that if we stopped using the water softened well water through the RODI machine and instead used city water through the RODI machine we had better luck. Did some testing about two weeks ago and found that the hardness of the softened well water was only registering 1 dKH rather than the 8-12 we were supposed to be getting. Not sure if there is any relationship to be honest, but we are starting to see some results, but I thought that I'd throw it out there for some more experienced reefers....

Mike,

along with cut back in feeding and increase flow,

Lights that need to be replaced can cause this as well.
when is the last time you changed your lights??