Help! Red Slime, feathery, fast multiplying algae!

[old salty]

Great news so far....reduced the lights! So far so good. I did not have lights on for about a week. I even wrapped a blanket around the tank for 2 days. Slowly putting light on and I am up to 4 hours per day with barely any red slime! Keeping fingers crossed. Thanks for the advice!

 

[jtravapd]

my whole tank was covered in the stuff..i would pull huge sheets of it off my sand and rocks...i battled it for months..i bought five powerheads because it supposedly does not like water flow...i basically starved my fish by cutting down feeding, did crazy water changes, i upgraded my skimmer., and i cut back my lighting..every time it came back..i felt helpless...then i took out all the bioballs in my sump and replaced it with live rock..(which i found out later isn't really a good idea neither, but better then bioballs)..and within two weeks all the red slimy hairy algea was gone..and stayed gone..I swear to you, it was like a miracle...i tried everything...the trick is finding out what is causing it so you can change that and then you'll be golden...sometimes its overfeeding, sometimes low water flow, mine was the bioballs. if you dont have bioballs, then i guess just keep going down the list to figure out the source..good luck..