Red Slime Algae eating inverts / fish ??

[danthemanj]

Anyone know of any red slime eating inverts or fish? I'm begining to get it on my rocks and want to control it before it gets out of hand.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[Edwardw771]

i've been fighting it for a few months with the Marco Rocks. 10% water changes a week have been reducing it.
I also tried to not run the lights for a few days.

 

[danthemanj]

Surprisingly, its only occuring on my Marco Rocks. Not a sign of it on my Sand Bed. I'm doing 10% weekly water changes but it doesn't seem to be helping too much. I started running a Phosphate reactor a couple of days ago with Phospure from Drs. Foster and Smith so I'll have to see how that works out.

 

[jceli728]

I was having the same problem, nothing that I did was getting rid of it till I change my power heads from 2 maxijets 1200 and a seio 820 to 2 Koralia 4. The only assumption I could make is that I just need it more water flow. now all the red slime is gone from my main tank and only get it in my refugium were the water flow is slow. I was thinking about using red slime remover but I'm still not too sure how safe it will be with the corals.

let me know if you get rid of it any other way.

 

[danthemanj]

I'm moving about 10,000 gallons per hours in my display tank so I don't think its necessarily the flow. I'll test my water parameters again today and see if it gives me some clues.

 

[harryk]

sorry to say nothing but better flow and phosphate reduction. maybe you have some dead spots in your tank that you don't realize even with the large water flow

Thanks
Harry

 

[jceli728]

I did start using phosphate media 1 month prior changing my power heads, But like I mentioned before I didn't see anything working until I got more water flow and making sure it was hitting the spots were I was getting the red slime.

 

[Edwardw771]

no lights no algae

 

[erid]

pacific east aquaculture has some that they describe as Cyano eating snails. Check them out.

 

[danthemanj]

I see it. Biological name is: Tegula funebrallis otherwise known as the Black Turbo Snail.

Anybody have any locally I can try out before ordering a bunch from them?

 

[jonathan.]

I've used Maracyn on a few tanks before w/ corals. As long as the cyano isn't TOO bad, then it should be fine to dose Maracyn (make sure to follow their directions) to remove it. I've used it with corals and inverts and never had a problem.

The only time I've ever heard of people having problems dosing Maracyn to kill cyano is when their tank was covered head to toe with it and the die-off caused a nitrite/ammonia spike.

 

[Hawkeye]

Dan - With your darts pushing all that water - it's really curious how the cyano could get a hold onto the LR. I don't have experience with Marco - but is it possible that the rocks are leaching phosphates and driving the growth of the cyano?

Separate from the rock though, cyano does need nutrients to really take off - what is your bioload in the 215? Is it possible perhaps one of the bulbs it not producing the right spectrum of light (did you change anything recently, or perhaps a change is overdue?).

Honestly I'm not a big fan of purchasing an invert to eliminate symptoms ( cyano) instead of understanding the root cause. I guess let us know how these snails do. It's my experience that most inverts, when given the choice between eating some nasty algae, or something more palatable, will go for the nice stuff instead of what we want.

 

[jonathan.]

I still say dose with Maracyn if it's not too bad. It's an anti-biotic. Cyano is a bacteria. It'll definitely get rid of it. Just obviously don't do it if the Cyano is like covering everything because of the die-off.

If you're not comfortable using a medication, look it up and look around for some reviews of the use for that. Most are positive (including mine!).

 

[danthemanj]

I'm running a phosphate reactor for the past few days so I'll have to see if that helps. My bioload isn't really much. I have 4 bartlett anthias, 2 chromis, 1 royal gramma, 1 Jaw fish and 2 False percula clowns with some coral on a 350 gallon system. I do weekly 10% water changes. I do feed frozen foods every other day and flake foods on the days that I'm not feeding frozen. I think I'm going to stop using the flake food and see if that makes a difference. The flake is a blend of 3 different types of food. My bulbs are only 4 months old and nothing else has changed. I have a hammerhead pump pushing 5800 GPH as my closed loop on the display and about 1200-1500 GPH returning from my sump through 2 penductors that multiply the volume to about 3-4 times. No dead spots in the display but there are areas of slow water movement. I'm going to siphon out all the red slime this weekend and see how long it takes for it to build up. It seems though that after installing the PO4 reactor, the growth has slowed. The Marco Rock could very well be leaching phosphates. They have been cured for over 4 months though so it would be really surprising.

 

[jceli728]

I read in an article that frozen food has high amounts of phosphates, and that it should be rinse before you feed your tank. It will be interesting to test some of the frozen foods to see how true this is.

 

[Phyl]

Frozen food turns PO4 tests colors INSTANTLY. There's a LOT of PO4 in it.

 

[danthemanj]

I've started rinsing all my frozen food and then adding some garlic to it to give it flavor.....