Red SLIME :(

[Salt4Us]

Been battling this for a month and it isn't going away. I've cut down on feeding a LOT, once a day in the morning and it's only flake or pellets and some mysis shrimp a couple times a week for the scooter since he has his supply of [acronym:73ce388747="copepods, amphipods, etc"]pods[/acronym:73ce388747] .

My question is this we've tried the cutting down food, repositioning the [acronym:73ce388747="Powerhead"]PH[/acronym:73ce388747]'s and everything, right now we have 3 [acronym:73ce388747="Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions"]ph[/acronym:73ce388747]'s in there, 2 are on a wavemaker.

The red slime is all over the BACK of the rocks and in areas that I can't get it off with a turkey baster, it's also on sponges and on some of the unopened zoos, all over my pipe organ (grrr) basically everywhere, I've tried blowing it off and then sucking up the debrie in the water, now it's made it's way into the fuge onto the macro algae that is growning in there.

We aren't really big on medicating the tank, but something tells me I'm going to have to find something safe for everything in there except the red slime. There are two that DFS sells http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...=6&pCatId=4121

but if you notice it says they can't ship it to California

Anyone have any ideas of what I can do short of stripping this whole thing down and getting a bigger tank hehe John would kill me

[acronym:73ce388747="By the way"]btw[/acronym:73ce388747] we do use [acronym:73ce388747="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:73ce388747] water, I thought it was [acronym:73ce388747="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:73ce388747]/[acronym:73ce388747="Deionization"]DI[/acronym:73ce388747] but he says it isn't.

-Kaurene

The product does work, even though it does not solve the problem, it sure makes things look better while you find the solution.. I think you already have, by the [acronym:aaa945adb9="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:aaa945adb9] and not [acronym:aaa945adb9="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:aaa945adb9]/[acronym:aaa945adb9="Deionization"]DI[/acronym:aaa945adb9]. The [acronym:aaa945adb9="Deionization"]DI[/acronym:aaa945adb9] part of the filtration removes more phosphate, nitrate and silicates that the [acronym:aaa945adb9="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:aaa945adb9] lets through.. Try getting a Nitrate and Phosphate sponge and see if that helps... The problem I found is, while it takes the Phosphate and Mitrate out of the water column, it is still abundant in the substrate and is constantly leeched out into the water column.. After a while, the substrate will be rid of the [acronym:aaa945adb9="Phosphate"]PO4[/acronym:aaa945adb9] and [acronym:aaa945adb9="Nitrate"]NO3[/acronym:aaa945adb9], and the red slime will decrease.. I am battling it also, and I believe this to be the case....JME

PS. Maybe one of us can mail it to you

[loganj]

Originally Posted by timbo2

PS. Maybe one of us can mail it to you

Great minds think alike or something to that effect

[ReefRaff]

I use chem-clean myself. It seems to work ok, and is cheaper.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...=6&pCatId=4122

[Salt4Us]

Ok thanks! I don't understand why they won't ship it to California, but then I know they said that about Clout too and I ordered it and they sent it to me, weird.

[acronym:ace673febf="Laughing out loud"]LOL[/acronym:ace673febf] thanks Logan and Tim!

Reefraff, I think we may go that way, being we can't afford a [acronym:ace673febf="Deionization"]DI[/acronym:ace673febf] thing on our [acronym:ace673febf="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:ace673febf] system right now.

Thanks everyone!

[Hara]

i think medicating the tank is a big mistake imo....i battled it for ages, but perserverence pays off. use airling tubing and do a thorough job of sucking it all up, then leave your lights totally off for 4 days. Then half lighting for a couple more days.

[michealprater]

I always had great luck by just adding more actinic light. Red slime does not grow well in blue spectrums. I have always kept a ton of actinic light on my tanks and have not had a problem with red slime since.

[ReefLady]

I'll just throw in my 2 cents here....

We fought [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Cyanobacteria"]cyano[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] in a *major* way a few months back. Reducing feedings didn't help, changing/adding water flow helped minimally.

First, check your phosphate level. If your phosphates are at all elevated, your [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Cyanobacteria"]cyano[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] problems will be endless.

Also - age of lights? Part of our problem was letting our [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Very high output fluorescent"]VHO[/acronym:cb39b0adb2]'s get too old. Our main problem was not knowing that our [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Reverse osmosis"]RO[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] membrane needed to be replaced (failure to TDS test often enough - lesson learned).

ANYWAY, we fought a looooong battle, finally threw in the towel, and dosed Ultralife Red Slime remover.
Worked great -- [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Cyanobacteria"]cyano[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] dissapeared totally ... for a few weeks. Yep. How horribly discouraging.

If you don't eliminate the cause, the antibiotic will NOT help you. The only thing that finally solved our [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Cyanobacteria"]cyano[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] issue was continual, rigorous maintenance, we did twice-weekly 10% water changes, siphoning out any existing [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Cyanobacteria"]cyano[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] for almost 2 months. Make sure your bulbs are not old, water flow/current is good, feeding is no more than necessary. Use a refugium for nutrient export if you can, and skim like the devil.

Just a side note. If you do dose with a [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Cyanobacteria"]cyano[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] remover - be prepared ... you will need to turn off your skimmer, and you will need to find a way to somehow maintain your pH. Ours dropped out of sight. We had to kill the [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Calcium"]ca[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] reactor, drip [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Kalkwasser"]kalk[/acronym:cb39b0adb2] like it was going out of style, added a couple [acronym:cb39b0adb2="Powerhead"]PH[/acronym:cb39b0adb2]'s to the display - and even threw venturi tubes on those for oxygenation - even then, we barely saw a *high* pH of 7.9.

Good luck! Cyano has got to be one of the most frustrating things in this hobby.

[Salt4Us]

Before we start adding/dosing the tank we'll try running just the actinic lights & increase the wave timing for the power heads. We already increased the timing for the [acronym:74751d8fdf="Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions"]ph[/acronym:74751d8fdf]'s & it seems to be helping a little bit. Our lights aren't that old. We just replaced both [acronym:74751d8fdf="Power compact fluorescent"]PC[/acronym:74751d8fdf]'s in the last 2-3 months. We'll also try to keep on top of cleaning the slime off in hopes of eventually getting rid of it.

[beachbumin]

I had lot of luck with the CHEMI-CLEand did not notice any ill effects. I am also against using excess chemicals but this was a necessary evil!! Good luck with the slime!