ultralife red slime remover
- Thread starter as1720
- Start date
Help Support Reef Aquarium & Tank Building Forum:
"Red Slime" is the term usually referred to as Cyanobacteria. Cyano isn't a true algae, it's a bacteria and it's though that Red Slime Remover is erythromycin, which is an antimicrobial medication used for bacterial infections. It does work to combat Cyano, but I'd be really hesitant to use it in a reef tank. As a last resort, I've heard that it is reef safe, but can't say for sure. Here's a couple of links about it's "reef safeness" and effectiveness against Cyano.
http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/reef-talk/15521-ultralife-red-slime-remover.html
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diatomandslimemicroalgae/tp/tpredslimeremovers.htm
http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/reef-talk/15521-ultralife-red-slime-remover.html
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diatomandslimemicroalgae/tp/tpredslimeremovers.htm
I've heard that several of them do work, and work very well. The problem isn't IF they work, the problem is, how reef safe are they?
I used it in a reef tank a few years ago for red slime. it worked well but it will blow the top off your skimmer so unplug it for a few days. What are your trates running? Getting control of them will help loads with you battle. Here's a link for more info.
http://other-invertebrates.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_battle_cyanobacteria
http://other-invertebrates.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_battle_cyanobacteria
Scooterman
Well-known member
Instead of trying to add chemicals to solve your problem, why not do it naturally? Apparently you haven't read enough up on it to learn how to keep it under control.:exclaim:
Any time I've had a cyano problem, it's always been cured by manually removing it and then re-directing flow or adding flow to the effected area. Sometimes, when I catch it early, I just tweak a power head a little bit. The next day it's gone.
Again i have tried all this even added two more power heads. Its all over the sand so that is making it REALLY hard to remove by hand. And pointing the power heads to the sand blows the sand around the whole tank, which is fine but the cyno just gets blown someware else and grows there. I have also tried not having my lights on for a couple days that has not helped either.
I know i over dosed mag and cal, i dont know if this has anything to do with it but i have done massive water changes the last couple days to fix the problem, and will continue to do so for a another couple days in hopes it will help with the cyno.
I know i over dosed mag and cal, i dont know if this has anything to do with it but i have done massive water changes the last couple days to fix the problem, and will continue to do so for a another couple days in hopes it will help with the cyno.
Are you sure it's cyano and not dinoflaggelets? The best way to tell the difference is to observe it in the morning. Dinos will almost completely die off during the night, when lights are out and increase throughout the day. Cyano will have no change to it in the morning.
Dinos are best combated by a raise in pH and 3 days of NO LIGHT. I know the light thing sound scary, but your corals will be fine. I recenty had a Dino outbreak in an SPS frag tank and turned the lights out for 3 days. It worked great!!
As for combating your cyano, have you done anything to reduce nitrates? Have you tried manual removal? The problem you'll run into, if you use something like Red Slime remover, is that you're only killing the cyano, but not eliminating the cause.
Dinos are best combated by a raise in pH and 3 days of NO LIGHT. I know the light thing sound scary, but your corals will be fine. I recenty had a Dino outbreak in an SPS frag tank and turned the lights out for 3 days. It worked great!!
As for combating your cyano, have you done anything to reduce nitrates? Have you tried manual removal? The problem you'll run into, if you use something like Red Slime remover, is that you're only killing the cyano, but not eliminating the cause.
Aren't dino's brown? This stuff is a pretty redish/maroon color. lol I have tried removing it by hand but it being in the sand it beaks into pieces. I am going to go get a bunch of nass snails to see if that will help.
Again its just in the send bed but it is cyno.
I tried the light thing, it didnt work. I had this problem months ago on the rocks, and at the time i didnt have ANY corals so i just left the lights off for 2 months and still saw cyno in some spots on the rocks so i dont think the whole no light trick really works. lol
I am going to keep reading before i buy it though, just wanted to see if any one had any successes with the stuff or anything like it.
Also going to keep trying all the "home remidies"
My pH is a little low 7.8 i think, but my nitrates are at 0, i am nt sure what my mag and cal are i have not gotten my new test kits yet they are still in the mail.
Again its just in the send bed but it is cyno.
I tried the light thing, it didnt work. I had this problem months ago on the rocks, and at the time i didnt have ANY corals so i just left the lights off for 2 months and still saw cyno in some spots on the rocks so i dont think the whole no light trick really works. lol
I am going to keep reading before i buy it though, just wanted to see if any one had any successes with the stuff or anything like it.
Also going to keep trying all the "home remidies"
My pH is a little low 7.8 i think, but my nitrates are at 0, i am nt sure what my mag and cal are i have not gotten my new test kits yet they are still in the mail.
If "lights out" has no effect, it's probably Cyano, not Dinos. Dinos can be a reddish/brown color and are easily confused with Cyano. That's why the best way to tell the difference is that Dinos will appear to be gone in the mornings and come back throughout the day. Cyano will stay the same.
Scooterman
Well-known member
Now your talking!
I think there are some good reading in here alone with many links.
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3920
if this isn't enough they search cyno & go straight to the older threads.
I tried going to other threads and have already gotten a ton of info. I mean i have the basic idea of how to try to get rid of it and i am disapointed to say they are not working. So i guess i am trying to find something i may have missed.
tell us about your sandbed. it sounds like your sand has a pile of nitrates feeding your cyano.
it it silicate free sand?
how long has it been in there?
when i dealt with cyano that wouldnt go away i resorted to removing and replacing a large portion of the top of the sandbed, trying to export the overflow of nitrates
it it silicate free sand?
how long has it been in there?
when i dealt with cyano that wouldnt go away i resorted to removing and replacing a large portion of the top of the sandbed, trying to export the overflow of nitrates
roscoe
Well-known member
I have used chemi-clean to rid my domanately SPS tank of cyano. I got it from frags I received and failed to treat it before going into the DT (my fault). Any how before you treat it you have to do a big water change and siphon out as much cyano as you can. I wait a few hours after I fill the tank back and then treat. You have to follow the directions closely. This stuff worked for me. It was a last resort as I couldn't get it under control the natural way. I can assure you if you follow the directions on the chemi-clean your corals will be fine.
I have a vary fine almost powder like sand bed so putting the power heads towards it makes a big mess which is fine but it just blows the cyano to another spot and it starts growing there.
I got the sand on ebay a year ago, i am not sure exactly what it was as i dont remember but its from the ocean! lol no it was sold as fine live sand i will look it up they are still selling the stuff so im sure i can get the info if its needed.
I plan on doing another 10 gallon water change tomorrow, to get things back in balance after over dosing. so after this one i will have changes 30 gallons in the last week. (29 gallon tank)
Could it be the extra mag. and extra calcium that i dosed that is making this cyano show up?
I need to go get something to siphon the sand bed out that will be my next step.
I got the sand on ebay a year ago, i am not sure exactly what it was as i dont remember but its from the ocean! lol no it was sold as fine live sand i will look it up they are still selling the stuff so im sure i can get the info if its needed.
I plan on doing another 10 gallon water change tomorrow, to get things back in balance after over dosing. so after this one i will have changes 30 gallons in the last week. (29 gallon tank)
Could it be the extra mag. and extra calcium that i dosed that is making this cyano show up?
I need to go get something to siphon the sand bed out that will be my next step.
Dear god Cyano is the Devil...
You know its hard to say what your root problem is. I have tried the red slime remover ChemiCLean and it did nuke it out of one tank…. But another tank it would not stop coming back. I learned that when I first started into salt water tanks I made a huge mistake. I didn’t know it was one till long time later.
What happened is my tank was so full of phosphates my substrate and rocks absorbed a lot of it. No matter how many changes I did (even 50% change) and weekly 10g changes on a 55g for weeks never really pushed that problem completely down with cyano. The phosphates kept leaching back into the water..I kept getting hair algae return and cyano return.
I think that in your situation with it growing out of the sand means your sandbed has a an abundance of detritus build up on its upper layer. You should siphon off a good portion of your sands upper layer. Then do a very large water change. Monitor Nitrate and Phosphate …these two things fuel cyano more than anything else.
You have to identify your root problem though. This is the key to this battle. You can treat the symptoms with clean up ..but if the root problem is still there. It will only return. Even if you nuke it. Trust me.. I have been down this road.
So how can you ID your root source is the question now. I have some questions.
1. Do you feed often and what do you feed? This is a common source of adding to your nitrate phosphate problems that in turn result in algae and cyano break outs.
2. Water source. Municipal water sources can change without warning in quality. One day nitrate free and phosphate free…the next full of it …and not to mention other contaminations like metals and or bacteria that they didn’t nuke out well on there end.
There has been advise that is more preventative in here . Like flow. Flow prevents detritus from settling if positioned well. Stagnant areas will build up detritus (food for cyano) .. plus Cyano has a harder time sticking to areas with flow but still it can. I have had it grow on the mouth of a outtake from a HOB fuge and my Korilia to.
My general advise specifically for your situation:
Clean up: Stir up your rocks with a power head .. just start blowing all them off get that water all stirred up with detritus that’s settled on them. Siphon out your top layer of sand… change 50% or greater of your water. Then cut back feeding.
Nuke If you want with Chemiclean and follow the directions…next water change it says 20% ..up that to 50%.
By this point it should be gone.
Example of how good parameters is all you need: I purchased a Hammer that had lost 3 heads and had cyano and hairalgae on it from someone. (to save it) I put that in my tank with cyano and hair algae on it. Next morning that thing is bone clean. No cyano out break.. algae gone (thanks to cleaners)… I have an environment that wont let the cyano or algae thrive in… This is what you want to accomplish. If you can get those parameters I check and detritus cleaned up on that tank..I believe you will see the end of this problem.
Good luck ..I hope I was informative.
You know its hard to say what your root problem is. I have tried the red slime remover ChemiCLean and it did nuke it out of one tank…. But another tank it would not stop coming back. I learned that when I first started into salt water tanks I made a huge mistake. I didn’t know it was one till long time later.
What happened is my tank was so full of phosphates my substrate and rocks absorbed a lot of it. No matter how many changes I did (even 50% change) and weekly 10g changes on a 55g for weeks never really pushed that problem completely down with cyano. The phosphates kept leaching back into the water..I kept getting hair algae return and cyano return.
I think that in your situation with it growing out of the sand means your sandbed has a an abundance of detritus build up on its upper layer. You should siphon off a good portion of your sands upper layer. Then do a very large water change. Monitor Nitrate and Phosphate …these two things fuel cyano more than anything else.
You have to identify your root problem though. This is the key to this battle. You can treat the symptoms with clean up ..but if the root problem is still there. It will only return. Even if you nuke it. Trust me.. I have been down this road.
So how can you ID your root source is the question now. I have some questions.
1. Do you feed often and what do you feed? This is a common source of adding to your nitrate phosphate problems that in turn result in algae and cyano break outs.
2. Water source. Municipal water sources can change without warning in quality. One day nitrate free and phosphate free…the next full of it …and not to mention other contaminations like metals and or bacteria that they didn’t nuke out well on there end.
There has been advise that is more preventative in here . Like flow. Flow prevents detritus from settling if positioned well. Stagnant areas will build up detritus (food for cyano) .. plus Cyano has a harder time sticking to areas with flow but still it can. I have had it grow on the mouth of a outtake from a HOB fuge and my Korilia to.
My general advise specifically for your situation:
Clean up: Stir up your rocks with a power head .. just start blowing all them off get that water all stirred up with detritus that’s settled on them. Siphon out your top layer of sand… change 50% or greater of your water. Then cut back feeding.
Nuke If you want with Chemiclean and follow the directions…next water change it says 20% ..up that to 50%.
By this point it should be gone.
Example of how good parameters is all you need: I purchased a Hammer that had lost 3 heads and had cyano and hairalgae on it from someone. (to save it) I put that in my tank with cyano and hair algae on it. Next morning that thing is bone clean. No cyano out break.. algae gone (thanks to cleaners)… I have an environment that wont let the cyano or algae thrive in… This is what you want to accomplish. If you can get those parameters I check and detritus cleaned up on that tank..I believe you will see the end of this problem.
Good luck ..I hope I was informative.
I have a vary fine almost powder like sand bed so putting the power heads towards it makes a big mess which is fine but it just blows the cyano to another spot and it starts growing there.
I got the sand on ebay a year ago, i am not sure exactly what it was as i dont remember but its from the ocean! lol no it was sold as fine live sand i will look it up they are still selling the stuff so im sure i can get the info if its needed.
I plan on doing another 10 gallon water change tomorrow, to get things back in balance after over dosing. so after this one i will have changes 30 gallons in the last week. (29 gallon tank)
Could it be the extra mag. and extra calcium that i dosed that is making this cyano show up?
I need to go get something to siphon the sand bed out that will be my next step.
Change of post I made. Do a complete sand change out. VS siphon the top layer... I am pretty sure that 1 year old sand has trapped so much detritus now. How about just siphoning out most of it and replace it. Just knock out two birds with one stone here. Has your sand been clumping lately and become hard in some places? (differ problem but that indicates its time for a sand change).
Understand Cyano is a hybrid algae bacteria. Algaes thrive on light, nitrate, and phosphate is there miracle grow. Nitrate and Phosphate is the focus here...sources of nitrate will be poop and uneaten food.. Phosphate from food or bad water source...
Last edited:
