help!!!! red slime algae

[will8]

hello all i could do with some help as i have only been keeping marine life for 6 months. i have just upgraded my 165 litre fish only tank to a 440 litres hoping to turn it in to a reef tank. i added 45 kilos of liverock and a red sea skimmer. In the old tank i had a bad out break of red slime algae, didnt do anything about it as i was waiting for the big tank. Put the fish in about 3 weeks ago things was ok even added a flame angel. but noticed today the red slime is coming back. what do i have to do to get rid and keep it away. my nitrate is 10ppm
my phosphate is 0.5ppm
i have 4* T8 bulbs on at 11am to 9 pm and a TMC Aquabeam500 on at 8am to 10pm i know this might be a long time but there is no timer on it. thanks for any advice. will post some pics next.

 

[Ziggy953]

Welcome to AA!

Cyano is a bacteria that feeds on excess nutrients in your water. How many fish do you have total in the tank? If you are getting a phosphate reading then you have too much in the system. What are you using for your source water? RO/DI? Tap? How often are you doing PWCs?

Do you have a sump on your system? Can you add one if you don't? Adding a sump with a refugium will help maintain lower levels of excess nutrients. The macro algae that we keep in our fuges eats up the nutrients and helps to hinder bad algae growth.

 

[will8]

thanks ziggy for your reply. i use RO water, change 45 litres every 2 weeks. as for fish i have 1 flame angel, 1 powder blue tang, 1 humbug dansel, 1 coarl beauty, 2 clown fish. 8 turbo snails, 1 cleaner and 1 blood shrimp, and a arrow crab. no sump and no room for one. look forward to your reply

 

[Ziggy953]

Hmmm...Do you have a skimmer on the system too?

You may want to increase the amount of PWCs you do both in frequency and amount. I had an issue with cyano and what solved it was agressive skimming, adding a large refugium and large PWCs. How is the flow in your tank? How often and how much do you feed your fish? What are you feeding them?

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Agree with Ziggy... a 10% water change every two weeks is not much - even if you weren't having any issues. I do 10% weekly as standard procedure. If you're battling cyano, I'd be doing water changes at least once a week - possible more often. And I'd probably be doing about 20% changes each time.

A phosphate reading of 0.5 is high... really high. Especially if you're using
RO water. Have you tested your RO water before adding salt? Yeah... it's supposed to be pure, but if you're not making it, or your filters/membranes are messed up, those phosphates could be sneaking in there. Even with overfeeding, 0.5 seems high. Like Ziggy mentioned... how often are you feeding?

 

[melosu58]

Cyanobacteria, AKA Red Slime Algae

 

[will8]

yes i have a red sea skimmer. not sure on the flow think the external filter is 1350l per hour. i have the rowaphos in the filter. waiting on a dual reactor from my local store. feed the fish twice aday, once with marine flake and once with frozen/live brine shrimp. maybe do 45litres weekly PWC. also with the lights i have, will i struggle to keep some corals? after i sort my problem out of course. thanks for your replys

 

[cmor1701d]

Cut your feeding to every other day. I don't see mention of any power heads, if you don't have any I would suggest getting two to increase the flow in your tank. Cyano can't take root when there is too much water movement for it. Follow the advice given above by Ziggy, Kurt and Mike.
It can be beat but it takes time and diligence.

 

[will8]

got one power head, a hydor koralia 3, will cut feeding down, and increase my pwc to 10 % weekly. will let you know how i get on . thanks for all the help.

 

[will8]

up date on the PO4. checked the levels today they are 0.2ppm. i also checked the water coming out of my RO/DI unit it was 0.1ppm. I thought it was meant to be pure. brought it new 4 weeks ago. Using Red Sea test kit. Starts at 0 then 0.1 0.2 0.5 1.0 2.0. So its not very pericise.

 

[Ziggy953]

The fact that you are getting a reading at all for phosphates says there are too much in the system. Check your tap water before the RO/DI unit and see what it is. You may need to use some Rowaphos to get the phosphates under control.

What kind of salt mix are you using?

 

[kay-bee19]

...i also checked the water coming out of my RO/DI unit it was 0.1ppm. I thought it was meant to be pure. brought it new 4 weeks ago. Using Red Sea test kit. Starts at 0 then 0.1 0.2 0.5 1.0 2.0. So its not very pericise.

Do you have a total dissolved solids (TDS) meter to test the purity of your RO/DI water? With 0.1ppm PO4 in your RO/DI water it would be interesting to know what your TDS reading is (ideally it should be 0ppm).

You may also want to switch to a different phosphate test kit, since ideally in a reef tank PO4 should be kept in the 0.03-0.05ppm range if not lower. A test kit that only measures down to 0.1ppm (excluding 0ppm of course) isn't precise enough, as you're already aware of.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

...
You may also want to switch to a different phosphate test kit, since ideally in a reef tank PO4 should be kept in the 0.03-0.05ppm range if not lower. ...

I think I know what you meant, but just wanted to say it a different way: Phosphates should be kept at zero, or as close to zero as your salt mix lets you. The maximum I've normally read for reef tanks is 0.03 ppm. It almost sounded like you were recommending that some level of phosphates in the water were recommended.

will8... If you're getting 0.1 ppm phosphates out of your RO/DI, something's obviously wrong. It is plumbed up right... right? I've heard about some folks accidentally using the discharge water. Also... if you can test the RO output before the DI resin, that'd be a good thing to do to help troubleshoot. The DI resin should take whatever impurities come from the RO stage completely out. If your levels are the same between the stages, I'd say your DI resin is shot. Agree that getting a hold of a TDS meter would probably aid in figuring out what is going on there.