Red Purple Slime Algae

[jjhill]

I have an infestation of what I believe is red slime algae. It is a deep reddish, purple colour and is somewhat stringy. I have a couple times scraped it off the rocks and sand only to have it come back in a day or so.

It is definaltly getting larger and I want to get rid of it as soon as possible. Anyone have any suggestions? I have read that cutting back on my lights might help. I currently run two T5's for about 8-9 hours a day and LED moonlights at night. Would it kill the algae if I were to turn the lights off for 24 hours or so?

If it helps my pH is 8, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, I don't have a phosphate kit so I'm not sure what that is. I presume it could be high as I do have some hair algae that I also can't get rid of which has to be feeding on something.

I recently added (yesterday) a lawnmower blenny and a chem charcol bag to take up some of the phosphates and nitrates but it is too soon to see much of a difference.

Any other suggestions on things I can do to clean this tank up?

Thanks

[tlo]

cyanobacteria (red slime) is a result of too much nutrients (nitrates and phosphates) and too little flow.
try increasing your flow and use a phosban reactor if you aren't already.

[Reefer Rob]

How old is the system? If it's less than 6 months Cyano is just one of the phases it will go through. Eventually it will go away on it's own, but if you have to get rid of it now a 3 day black out (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1078532) will knock it back. Cutting your photo period back to 1/2 and then slowly bringing it back up after the cyano has disappeared will work too. Cyano is always present in aquariums, but will bloom when it can take advantage of a change.

[ElGuappo]

i did a black out and it worked for a while but since i added more flow i havent seen any . a black is great to knock it down. i did a total blackout for 24/5 and cut it back almost entirely. but it did start to come back monthe later, until i added flow.

Hope it helps just my 2 cents.

[supersmile]

I added more flow as well and now I have it under control. Doing the black out was only a temporary measure for me. It didn't go away totally until I increased flow in the tank. I also changed my bulbs.

[truperc]

Chemi Clean is a great SHORT TERM solution to your problem, I have used it on my customers tanks to get rid of the slime. I agree with the others posting here but if you want to get rid of it in a hurry, then deal with the source of the problem. Just my $0.02

[ElGuappo]

I added more flow as well and now I have it under control. Doing the black out was only a temporary measure for me. It didn't go away totally until I increased flow in the tank.

Agreed.

[banditpowdercoat]

Hmm, how much flow are you guys having? I have a Quiet one 3000 in closed loop , 6 1/2" loc line nozzles and a Mag 3 sump return., Throttled halfway I guess. SHould be approx 800gph for QO 3000, Its in tank, in overflow so 0' head and another 150Gph? for the sump return. This on a 45g. No real strong currents near the sand tho.

I got RSA that keeps coming back, getting Green slime too now.

[ElGuappo]

i have a rsm tank 34 gallons and i added a koralia 1 behind the rock for debris and a nano for turbulance in the tank. aimed directly at one of the original PH's. have in the last 3 weeks removed the nano as it was needed in a hospital tank. i find "crossing the streams" works nicely when aimed Upish.

[digital-audiophile]

Red slime is the the nightmare that keeps me up at night. I have been fighting it for the past 2 months and am losing. The tank is not new either.. 1-1/2 years running in this set up.

Good luck!

[Sean]

My first tank failed because of red slime,

I'm no expert but I can tell you what not to do from my experience, i'm just kind of putting this out for the newbies like me that had problems finding a solution on the net soo this is what iv learned from my mistakes.

Don't run to the store asking what you can do to fix the problem, I wasted way too much money on chemicals and equiptment because the guy used sales tactics on me. Search the web and if you feel that perhaps your equiptment is whats lacking then make the decision to purchase.

If your tank is real new (doesn't help the above fellow) restarting is an option, Its amazing how much money you can spend trying to keep 2 fish and a corals in your tank when sometimes the best solution is to find them a new home for a little bit while you clean your tank and start again. Spending hundreds of dollars on a fish that cost you 19 isn't my idea of a good time.

Don't go nuts and suck all the water out of the tank trying to clean it everyday. This usually ends up making your tank cycle again and you have a bigger head ache.. I also suggest finding a small tube for sucking up the slime, the larger ones can drain your tank faster then you can suck the slime up.

don't stress over not having the light on for its exact rotation. You can easily cut back with little stress on the habitants. Try shaking a few hours of light off every few days. If you don't see any improvement cutting the light off for 3 days as said above should help. I suggest cleaning the tank before you cutt it back completely. Reasoning for that is you won't be fighting with it multiplying while the lights are off and also if it starts up again you can pay close attention to see where its building up. If it seem to originate from a certain part that could be a clue that you need to investigate and clean that area of the tank.

Cut back on the amount you are feeding aswell.. Sure its nice to keep everything nice and full but what comes in comes out.

[petzoo]

Chemi Clean is a great SHORT TERM solution to your problem, I have used it on my customers tanks to get rid of the slime. I agree with the others posting here but if you want to get rid of it in a hurry, then deal with the source of the problem. Just my $0.02

I agree, chemi-clean is awesome stuff but some caution should be used. It is important to do a water change after it has done it's job. It is also very important not to use carbon or ion exchange resins like chemi-pure at the same time as it will rapidly remove the chemi-clean before it has a chance to work. The stuff is expenisive but it sure works well!

[fishoholic]

When we had a smaller tank we used chemi-clean and it worked like a charm, however after awhile it would start to come back. We got use to adding chemi-clean (with no adverse affects to fish or corals) whenever the cyano showed up and it kept it in check. However on our 230g the chemi-clean didn't work at all.

Got some good advice from a LFS and started to add a magnesium supplement (Kent Marine Tech-M) to the tank, this helped a lot but there was still some floating around in the tank. Cut back our lights by two hours a day (every day, used to run 2pm-11pm now 4pm-11pm) and since we started doing this the cyano is pretty much gone.