Red Slime Algea...

[bg7003]

Hey,
My tank has been up for about 6 months now. So... All the neutirents are building up i guess. Now I have red slime aglea growing all over my substrate. How do i control it? I've been doing a couple water changes here and there and have also put in phosphate removers... Now what?

 

[ben1987]

do you feed frozen? thats a source of phosphates. If you do, de-frost it first and get all the liquid off it.
Sounds like cyano to me

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yep get your phosphates down, syphon out what you can and see if you can increase the flow in the effected areas. I have a small patch of substrate that is plagued by cyno at the moment but Im pretty sure its because its not got a lot of flow in that area.

Cyno can be a bit of a pain to get rid of because it comes back so quickly. I beleive there are products out there that stop it from growing but not sure how reef safe these are (and its still better to fix the source of the problem first).

 

[bg7003]

ok thanks. i have some algaecide for reef tanks so ill try that. It doesnt seem to work too good..

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Be careful with that kind of stuff. Some is ok but some is not as reef safe as it claims to be.

 

[ben1987]

i would stick to the old fashioned way of getting rid of it tbh. Lower phosphates and nitrates and cut lights if needed

 

[bg7003]

Ok, i cut the lights for 2 days and only have em on for 4 hours for now. The algea seems to have died. Its all stringy like and easily removed. I did what you guys said, water changes, increased water flow, etc... Thanks!

 

[piranha_trader]

There is an aquarium antibiotic on the market that I used....I think its called Mycin.

Its basically the antibiotic erythromycin.

Only problem I believe that in addition to killing red slime (not an algae but a bacteria) is that it might kill beneficial bacteria.

With that in mind, I bought and used it as I had exhausted other methods that included all those mentioned above.


It worked like a charm and I didnt really experience any major spikes, if any at all. It hasnt returned since, so you might want to give it a try. Use as directed and read the application directions. They help.