Red Slime Algae
Moderator: snoopdog
Red Slime Algae
I've got some Red slime Algae growing on my plants in My Refuge and is causing some die off. I've used antired in the past, in my 30gal, and it really work great but Now I have a lot more corals and I hate to take a chance. On the box of Atired it says " Eliminates red algae in salt water. Safe with invertebrates and enhances Macro algae growth." Has anyone used this before in there reef tank?
Red Slime algae is really bacteria (cyanobacteria). This is not caused by phosphates. The natural way of ridding the tank of this is to first skim off as much as you can. Then do a 50% water change. Several smaller water changes will not work. You will never get the bacteria down low enough to catch up.. I expect the tank is less that a yr old and I has not matured all the way yet.. After the water change cut lights back to 4hrs a day for 4-5days then start bringing the lights up 1hr a day till back to normal. Also cut back on feeding some. Another suggestion is make sure you have a deep sand bed of at least 3-4in. This will let enough good bacteria grow to help prevent this problem..If you just cannot wait You can use a product called chemi-clean by boyd enterproses, inc... you can do a search on the internet for thier phone # or where to purchase. After using wait 2days then do the water change...Their are no short cuts...good luck...
If your tank has 100gal and 50ppm nitrates, a 10gal water change has the following affect:
50-5=45ppm
45-4.5=40.5ppm
40.5-4.1=35.9ppm
35.9-3.9=32ppm
32-3.2=27.9ppm
27.9-2.8=25.1ppm
This example shows that nitrates are continously it would take over a week to reduce the concentration of pollution in your tank 50% with such small water changes.
This doen't take into account that nitrates are countinuously added to the tank via waste coversion.
You need to do a 50gal. water change to be effective and add a DSB to prevent further nitrate buildup naturally.
The question is why did you get it in the first place..Is the clean up crew large enough? Is there enough current flow in the tank? Have there been overfeeding? It is real hard for red slime to grow with heavy water current. Move heads around to get rid of dead areas.
If your tank has 100gal and 50ppm nitrates, a 10gal water change has the following affect:
50-5=45ppm
45-4.5=40.5ppm
40.5-4.1=35.9ppm
35.9-3.9=32ppm
32-3.2=27.9ppm
27.9-2.8=25.1ppm
This example shows that nitrates are continously it would take over a week to reduce the concentration of pollution in your tank 50% with such small water changes.
This doen't take into account that nitrates are countinuously added to the tank via waste coversion.
You need to do a 50gal. water change to be effective and add a DSB to prevent further nitrate buildup naturally.
The question is why did you get it in the first place..Is the clean up crew large enough? Is there enough current flow in the tank? Have there been overfeeding? It is real hard for red slime to grow with heavy water current. Move heads around to get rid of dead areas.