Food?

[Grease]

I have red slime all over my lr. I'm thinking it's bc I use frozen food. Is there good nutritious food out there that isn't frozen?

[all4wheels2]

Do you thaw the food before you put it in the tank? I use frozen cubes, thaw them and mix it with the flakes, then put it all in a syringe and feed my different tanks.

[scottayy]

Thaw it out a bit on a napkin before you feed. Though I don't do this, I read that the frozen liquid contains some phosphates and the thawing liquid will be absorbed more into the napkin than directly into your tank.

Also don't overfeed.

What are your nitrate and phosphate levels?

I guess it depends on what kind of fish you have. I feed pellets, flakes, frozen brine, formula 1 frozen cubes, and seaweed/marine algae.

[Grease]

I thaw it out then rinse it off with ro water. I have it in a brine shrimp net. then I put in net in the tank n slowly let the food come out of the net

[Fishguy2727]

Red slime is frequently caused by a lack of flow. In many cases all it takes is increasing or even just rearranging your flow.

IME testing for nitrate and phosphate when you already have algae problems is usually a waste of time because the algae you are already seeing is using it up. If there is enough excess to grow algae there is too much, whether it shows up on test kits or not.

[Grease]

I have enough flow. The slime is always moving n never just sitting still. It seems the slime is only growing on my rock where the lighting hits it. I only have the lights on for 7 hrs a day, so it's not on for long periods of time. Could that have something to do with it?

[Fishguy2727]

How do you know you have enough flow? Red slime is a low flow algae and simply blows away with too much flow.

Any algae requires light, so of course it will only grow where it can get light.

Algae problems come down to two things: nutrients in and nutrients out. You do not have enough nutrient export for the nutrient input to your tank. Nutrients input comes from two main sources: the water itself if you are not using RO/DI water for topoff and to make saltwater and from food. If you are using RO/DI water for both topoff and making saltwater then it is the food. This means you are either feeding two much or feeding low quality foods.

Nutrient export is done mainly with water changes. What is your water change schedule? It can also be done with a refugium where the macroalgae uses the same nutrients that bad algae will use, therefore starving the bad algae. This method requires you to physically remove the macroalgae as it grows, otherwise the macroalgae simply locks up nutrients but doesn't actually remove them from the system.

Live rock itself can remove nitrate via denitrification.

Most likely if you re-examine your system you should be able to find what is causing the imbalance.

[Grease]

I use ro water for water changes n to top-off. I have a 45g tank. Water changes every Sunday. I take about 10g out. If I get some macroalgea n put it in my dt, would that help? Whats a good quality food to feed them? I use ocean nutrition frozen foods n some pellets.

[Fishguy2727]

I wouldn't put macroalgae in the DT, it can take over way too easily. If you can setup a refugium of some sort that would be ideal. If you ever add a sump make sure you have a section for one. I had a 45 and ended up adding a ten gallon sump and I am very glad I did. Even something like a HOB fuge or even a modified HOB filter.

I only feed and recommend New Life Spectrum. IME it is by far the best food out there right now. If the fish will eat it I would feed it exclusively. The problem is that many saltwater fish will simply not eat prepared foods, in which case a variety of frozen foods is a great second option.

[all4wheels2]

I'm actually thinking proper filtration is the issue here - not what you feed or how you feed it.

Forgive me if u already said...
What type of filter do you use and how many lbs of live rock are in your tank?

[Grease]

I have a aquaclear bio filter with chempure elite nylon bag in it n a bh1000 reef octopus protein skimmer. I have between 40-50 lbs of rock in it. Where do u get new life food from? I don't think my lfs sells that

[steez]

New Life International Inc- Fish Food, Books, Aquaculture and more! - Home

Just google it. "New Life Spectrum".

Petco sells it.

[Fishguy2727]

That is not enough flow. A HOB filter and skimmer is not enough, my guess is that is the cause of the red slime. I would add a good strong powerhead, 300-400gph. If you get one of the open powerheads (like the Koralia Evolutions) you will need a lot more gph.

[Grease]

What do u get new life marine formula pellets? I have two ocellaris clownfish, coral beauty angelfish n diamond goby

[Grease]

I have two mp10w vortech powerheads too

[Fishguy2727]

You may want to specify that.

Don't get the marine formula, get the Thera+A formula. It has enough garlic to kill some parasites. The other formulas have garlic but only enough to increase palatability.

[Grease]

The vortech powerheads have an adjustable flow rate. They go from 200-1500 gph. I have it probably around 800 or so. It's hard cuse they tell u how much its actually pushing out cuse it's on a dial system.

[Grease]

I read that u should feed them a variety of different food. What do u think about that?

[Fishguy2727]

I think the goal is to provide a complete and balanced diet. In most cases that does require variety, but NLS has managed to make a food that does that on its own.

[Grease]

Awesome. Thanks for the good info. I'm defiantly gonna go get some of NLS. I was really trying to find a food that wasn't frozen. I knew that the frozen had a lot of phosphates in them. I really appreciate it