Need Help with Red Slime

[paladin1369]

I have been having a battle with red slime the past few weeks and need advise. I have tried chemi-clean in the tank with no luck. Any idea what could be the cause. Thanks in advance for the help.

The tank is a 55g set up in July. My tank parameters are
P.H~ 8.2
Nitrate <05 ppm
Ammonia~ 0
Nitrite~ 0
Phosphate~ 0
S.G~ 1.024
Temp~ 78-81 F
Cal~ 440
dkh~ 8-9

 

[Carlo]

Everything looks good according to what you posted. Normally, you see the red slime when Nitrates and Phosphates rise.

What test kit are you using for Nitrates and Phosphates?

Also how old is the tank setup?

Carlo

 

[paladin1369]

I am using API Reef Master Test Kit and the tank has been running since july.

 

[momof6kids]

How is your water flow? I know that I had a problem when I first started, until I added in more powerheads. When the flow increased the slime went away.

 

[pmac90]

added to what the others have said... what type of light and lamps do you use - and there age? older lights generally start to change spectrum and the algea may feed on that light source. wouldn't believe it myself but i just changed to much stronger T5's (from old PC's) and the slime i had started to fizzle right away!

 

[cmsurfr22]

added to what the others have said... what type of light and lamps do you use - and there age? older lights generally start to change spectrum and the algea may feed on that light source. wouldn't believe it myself but i just changed to much stronger T5's (from old PC's) and the slime i had started to fizzle right away!

+1

i had VHO's that were 8 months and i had a horrible case of the red slime. after changing the bulbs i ran chemi-clean and never saw it again. when you ran the chemi clean did the slime go away and then come back?

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

Nitrate & Phosphate test kits are useless. They will almost always read 0 because the algae is using the nitrates & phosphates up unless you have a really bad problem. Things to do to rid yourself of algae:

Check your topoff water for nitrates & phosphates.
Change your bulbs and cut your photo period.
Do water changes w/RODI water while siphoning out the cyano (atleast 30% of tank volume once or 2x a week)
Check your Alk and double check your salinity (these are usually low)
Reduce feedings & rinse frozen food w/RODI water before adding to your tank.

Good luck and may the force be with you.

 

[paladin1369]

momof6kids: For water flow i have a Seio m820 & m1100 and my return from the sump is a Rio 1700.

pmac90: For lighting i am using 4 54w T5 lamps which are around 4 months old.

cmsurfr22: The red slime started to go away at 1st and came right back a few days later.

Thank you all for your help and suggestion's.

 

[Erich]

Ok,
Here is what I did to get rid of the red slime. This is important otherwise the redslime will be uncontrollable.

1.) red slime comes mainly from over feeding, sometimes bad salt from the manufacturer.. DO Not Over FEED your fish, and change salt manufacturer, cut back on feeding.

2.) Suck up as much red slime with siphon.

3.) Do a large water change about 40%.
a.) make sure the water you are adding is RO water (Do not use tap water if possible.) with the proper salt mix specific gravity.

4.) Wait 4 to 5 days for the new water to take affect and mix properly in the tank.

5.) Repeat step 1 and 2.

6.) Repeat until the slime is gone.

7.) Add some power filters for more water movement.

I have done chemical additives. They all tend to work over a long period of time, 3 weeks or more. Who as time for that !! I have had red slime multiple times, especially when I travel and my kids feed my fish and I come back with the lovely red slime growing. This program always works for me, and I now no longer trust the chemical solutions since they make your skimmer skimmer like crazy, to the point you have to turn it off.

 

[Carlo]

I wouldn't agree with Jcurry@wesketch when he says nitrate and phosphate tests are useless. Normally you WILL see above normal levels of either Nitrates or Phosphates when you get red slime. The algea will use as much of these items as possible but when one of them is used up (limiting factor) the other will still show high values. It could be that both get used up in proportion to each other but this usually doesn't happen very often.

paladin1369 the AP phosphate test isn't the best one to use for phosphates. A cheap test kit that does work pretty well is the Red Sea kit. The "problem" with the AP kit is that there isn't enough low range color swatches. So with the AP test kit if the color is even the slightest bit off the first color on the chart YOU DO HAVE a phosphate problem.

I would agree with Jcurry@wesketch to syphon out the cyano but wouldn't say you need to hit a specific percent of tank volume. Matter of fact I'd say ONLY syphon off as much as needed and keep as much original water in the tank as possible. Typically when you start adding in new water when you have an algea breakout you don't want to do massive water changes. You want to stabilize the tank as much as possible while working the problem. Major water changes don't help phosphate problems. You can change out 90% of the water and end up almost exactly where you started because phosphates leach into the sand and rock.

What will help:
Raise you alk up a little. Do it slowly over a couples of days and shoot for 11 dkh. Your PH might also rise up with the alk so stop raising your alk when the PH hits 8.4. It's important to go very slow because the PH might take a day to day and a half to rise in proportion to the alk and you really don't want to go over 8.5 on the PH side of things.

If you have the ability to run some type of phosphate sponge/absorber then pickup some and add it to a canister filter, reactor or other high volume area where the water will be forced through it (don't let the water go around it).

Most types of red slime start very light in the morning and get worse throughout the day. You can play a trick on it. If you can set multiple on/off times for your lights split the "day" schedule up. What you want to do is add an hour of "dark" time right in the middle of your "day" time. If you run 12 hours of day time do 6 on, 1 off and then 6 on again. Your corals won't be effected much by this but it will usually stop cyano dead in it's tracks because the photo period gets all messed up (simple organisms).

Is this a fish only or do you have corals also? If you have corals you might want to raise your SG a little. Speaking of SG. What type of device are you using to measure it and have you ever calibrated it? Did you calibrate it at the proper temperature and do you take the present tank temperature into consideration when arriving at the SG. Many devices only work at a certain temperature unless you cross reference the temp difference on a chart to arrive at your real SG. Some devices don't even tell you to do this. If you are using a float type device does it say "temperature correcting" on it or anything of that nature. Generally speaking I find the 1 foot tall hydrometers (with temp correction) to be way, way more accurate then all but the most expensive refractormeters (even when they are constantly calibrated).

What you need to think about is why you started getting the cyano outbreak.
How long has it been since you added or changed bulbs?
Have you switched foods or changed the amount of food you are feeding?
Have you added more fish or corals (changed bio-load)?
Has your maint. routines changed lately?
Do you have any sponge filters in your system? If so how long has it been since you cleaned them?
How often do you do water changes? Do you use RO/DI water? Did you happen to mis your last regular water change or anything of this nature?

Do you have a refugium running on your system? If not do you have any space you can set one up?

Your lighting looks fine. I'd say your flow is OK but others might think you need more. More would not hurt.

Just some more food for thought,
Carlo