Believed to be red slime algea? (1 Viewer)

[Kemah]

I have this red algea growing in my tank it seems to be creaping down the rock and now over parts of the sand bed. My initial thought was to go buy like 4 or 5 conchs because I heard that they will cler it up but I'm not sure what I should do. I will try to post some pics of it later today but in the mean time here is a brief description of what it looks like.

Dark red, hiry, produces a lot of air bubbles. Some times the air bubbles start to go to the top and they stretch the red stuff out with them aout a inch till they break free then it just falls back down.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

Thanks,
Brenton

 

[CBBSteve]

Hi, Kemah.
What you describe sounds like cyanobacter. Its a common problem in our tanks. Do a search on cyano, you'll get lots and lots of discussions. I had a nagging problem with it and followed everyone's suggestions, but never could get that last little bit cleared out. Then I tried Boyd's Chemi Clean, got rid of it overnight.

good luck,
Steve

 

[Kemah]

That stuff looks pretty sweet, but does it effect any other types of algea?

 

[Guest]

I've used it a number of time and coraline and other algea I want was not effected at all. Cyano is a bacteria slime not algea though it does use waste product in tank for food in the same manner. I would recommend to leave the lights on for less time as your treating to make sure you don't feed the bacteria as much.. Blowing off the slime on rocks and sucking it out to a bucket to toss will help out alot and scooping the top layer of sand to treat directly will end the slime on sand. When treat is in tank be sure to stire up the sane a bit once in a while and use a turkey baster to blast inside the rocks. Just my two cent from my experience with it and helping alot of people with the same issue.

-Joseph Le

 

[Guest]

I just got through fighting with cyano in my tank. I left the lights off for about 3 days and it's all gone now. The only ill effects to my corals were that two of my anemones decided they needed to re-locate...so now I'm trying to encourage them to find a safe resting place.

 

[Guest]

I just did a 3 day "lights out" on my 75 to deal with a nasty outbreak of red slime, and it worked wonders. Not a trace of it to be found now.

 

[Kemah]

yeah I had thought about going with the lights off but I have several pieces of sps that I am worried about.

 

[SeanM]

Don't worry about the sps, 3 days w/o light is not going to hurt them. I have seen several sps tanks use the 3 day light outage with no ill effects.