Red Slime Removal

[X the Outsider]

I seem to be on the losing end of a battle with Red Slime. It seems like it goes away to a point, and then it gets worse. I've cut the lights down, and it isn't in front of a window. I feed once a day. I added a phosphate filter pad to remove phosphates, and have been putting in Marine Success Trace. I have one PH moving 150 gph. My water parameters are this
PH-8.4
A-0
Nitrates-20
Nitrites-0
Salinity-1.024
I don't know what my phosphate level is, but I'm going to get a test kit for that Monday. I don't want to use the chemi-clean stuff, because red slime is a bacteria so my beneficial bacteria will get wiped out as well. So what do I do? TIA!

 

[mastershake]

actaully your beneficial bacteria will be fine, ive used it as well as many others, its highly recommended by me and my lfs(where i work) but the thing is it doesnt kill the stuff, it more of keeps it from coming back, so what youd wanna do is siphon out as much as possible, and then use the chemi clean.

Another thing to consider is it may not be phosphates, its gonna feed off of whatever it can in the tank as far as nutrients goes, trust me, the only thing you cna do is siphon it out when it gets bad, and maybe use chemi clean to help prevent its return,

i have jsut battled this and so many people come into the store with the problem, i also thought that phosphates were the problem, i got a kit and tested my tap and my tank, the tap had absolutely zero, and my tnak had minor minor traces of it, so the algea was living off of soemthing else.

The best advice i can give you is that your tank will go through this as well as many other blooms of algae, especially within the first year of set-up, so the key is not eliminating them but controlling them, since you will never totally rid your tank of every kind of algae. in about a year or so you will still ahve all these same things, but they will just balance out and when that happens it will seem like they are all gone, but they are there just balanced and wont seem as rampant HTH

 

[lando]

PO4 is a good place to start. Are you using RO/DI water for changes and top-offs? Do not be afraid of Chemi-Clean. I have used it with great results. Just be sure to identify and correct the source of the cyno or it will keep coming back.

 

[RMPD109]

I had a small outbreak of cyano and was cleaned up very quickly by way of chemi-clean. Great stuff

 

[LuxorCaw]

I had this same problem, from the advice here I used Chemi-Clean and it worked great.

What I found out was my problem, was the food I was using. IF you havent already done it, try changing your food. Who knows it might help.

 

[X the Outsider]

I don't use RO/DI water. I'm looking into getting that but I don't have the money right now. As far as the food I've been feeding mainly Marine Cuisine. My fish love the stuff so I've stuck with it. On occasion I use a vegi-flake food for the clowns, but once a week.

Since the chemi-clean doesn't kill my beneficial bacteria; I'll go ahead and try it. Thanks for the advice.

 

[JPloman]

I will tell you the Chemi-clean has worked okay for my major red slime bloom but it was not what has helped the most. The protein skimmer was the best perma fix for it.