Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Hi Everybody,

I have noticed a large quanity of red algea forming in my tank. I dont know enough about it to know how to get rid of it, so I thought I would ask around here.

I have tried a couple things including physically scouping it out. But no luck. I have 2 emerald crabs, 2 cleaner shrimp and 2 fire shirmp, I would have thought the would eat on it, but I guess not.

Any thoughts?

Can you describe what it looks like?

Well its red and seems to be getting more and more red, dark blood red.

It is long enough to flow in the current.

it seems to mainly be spreading in the sand in patches that get larger and larger.

Ive never seen it before.

Thats the best I can do, if a certain puppy had not of eaten my camera I could post some pics.

THanks for any help.

-Skip

It sounds like red Cyanobacteria. It's not actually an algae. It can get long, almost stringy patches on it. That's usually the first thing to show up on sand. It tends to do well on the sand, but will also get into corals and on the rock. You can try increasing flow in those areas, and vacuum up any of it you can get to. It comes up off the sand pretty easy. Generally it'll eventually go away when conditions that favor it are gone. It'll sure become a mess if it gets out of hand.

I asked about what it looked like because I have had quite a few algaes that were red or pink. Some adhere to the rock and won't come off unless scraped with a knife, and then a dense, almost puffy pinkish algae only turbo snails would touch.

i was covered with that pick/red hair/astro turff stuff. Those Mexican turbos are about the only thing that likes that stuff.. Now what i treated my tank with recently for cyano killed a lot of stuff. I'm not sure i'd suggest any treatments for it.

Sue is right. It's probably cyano. It's a 'natural' part of the cycling from what I've been told:roll: I think you can also get through it quicker by increasing your nutrient export-having more macro algae in your sump, skimming more, feeding less, etc. I noticed the day after I feed more than usual is when I have a huge bloom. I've noticed lately that my lawnmower blenny has taken a liking to it. Not sure if that is normal, but just an observation.

That is a good point, I HAVE noticed that it is not as visable/colorful first thing in the morning, but after about 3 hours of lighting then it is very visable and very red.

Its just a 30 gallon tank with no sump. I do have a protien skimmer. I am in the process of replacing my biofilter with one that is easier to maintain. I am in hopes that will help.

Thanks for all the advice guys and gals!

Just for the sake of it, I would advise against trying any of those "slime remover" products. Like Fishfood's post, you'll often have negative reactions much worse than the origional problem.

I have a 40 gallon with a skimmer I use mainly for water flow. It's a nutrient rich tank, and I don't want alot of flow because of the particular corals that are in there. I often have battles with red Cyanobacteria, but it's not too hard to keep ahead of it with vacuuming during water changes once a week.

armouredcat wrote:That is a good point, I HAVE noticed that it is not as visable/colorful first thing in the morning, but after about 3 hours of lighting then it is very visable and very red.

Its just a 30 gallon tank with no sump. I do have a protien skimmer. I am in the process of replacing my biofilter with one that is easier to maintain. I am in hopes that will help.

Thanks for all the advice guys and gals!

It grows thicker during the day (as opposed to a thinner, nearly colorless biofilm in night hours) as it photosynthesizes.

Found a solution and oddly enough it was one that I already knew about, had used in the past and was to dumb to remember.

Chemiclean Red Slime Remover.

Worked in a little over 24 hours with no visable side effects to anything else in my tank including corals, crabs, shrimp fish and more.

It was very expensive for the thimble size container I got, but was well worth it.

Thanks for all your help!

-Skip

Best thing though is time. It will go away on it's own within weeks. If you ever want to see the stuff again all you have to do is irritate the sand bed, like move a 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.

Thank you for the very helpful tips. I think I have it back under controll...its been 4 days since the last sign of the red slime.

But I will keep ya'll posted.

-Skip

tbmoore wrote: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.

Actually, cyanobacteria is directly correlated to phosphate (namely detritus based phosphates from breakdown). Nitrate, on the other hand, has less to do with cyanobacteria in most cases (at least in marine tanks). Cyanobacteria can actually access a viable nitrogen source directly from the atmosphere, so as long as your tank is well aerated, cyanobacteria will have their nitrogen source. Now, don't get me wrong--residual nitrate levels may in fact enhance growth, but are not to blame for the film's appearance.

I'm getting hit with this stuff again hard. Tanks been up since a few months after Ivan so its not due to a new tank. When I had a bare bottom tank I didn't have a problem. I added some sand(probably about 9 months ago) in front of my LR for a few select wrasses that I wanted to get. The cyano is going crazy in my fuge, and recently took off in my tank since my closed loop pump broke, hope to have a new one in soon. After I almost killed off my entire tank trying to treat the cyano the first time I did a huge 50% water change. I also cut my lights back to about 2 hours and changed all old bulbs, back up to 4 hrs now. I feed the fish about 2 or 3 times a week, and I only have 2 cardinals, 2 small wrasse adn 2 gobies in a 135 gal tank. All my recent test came up to 0 or extremely low. I also added a phosphate reactor. My RO water has a TDS of 0. Once I get my closed loop back up and running the main tank should be fine. I'll just have to continue to siphon it out of my fuge once a week when it builds up a nice thick mat of sludge. Its easier to siphon that way.