New Discovery? Brown/Black Slime Algae Killer

[Beaches]

OK, I just need to know if anyone else has heard of this--to get rid of brown/black slime algae add one dosage (as indicated on the package) of "freshwater" Maracyn to the tank.

I've been telling my lfs owner about my algae/slime problem and he told me another owner had told him about this remedy, but he had not had the opportunity to try it yet. But the person swore it took care of it within 48 hours--use only one dose, no more.

Well, I was skeptical, but desperate, so I tried it a week ago...it worked! Everyone/thing in my tank is fine and it did clear up within 48 hours...I still have green algae on the back of the tank and purple coraline algae on my lr.

Believe me...I tried everything to get rid of this stuff (water changes, lessening feeding, changing light times, etc.)...nothing worked.

What do ya'll think? Have you every heard of this before?

[Geoff]

this does work, but it does not get rid of the underlying problem of why it is there. i used to use it in my early years when i had mainly FOWLR tanks. i used to use it at half strength. i was still afraid it would kill off other beneficial bacteria and cause another recycling of the tank.

G~

[Jimbo]

Reefcam has used something in the past to get rid of slime algea, but not sure what it was.

[hooked]

I have not used it but I have had many people also say its good stuff. But I agree with Geoff about the problem at hand. I went through a red cyano outbreak for about 3 months and was going to try the Maracyn but didn't really want to put the chemical in my water. I did lots of water changes added a powerhead and used a turkey baster and I have won the battle.

[dark horge]

There should be no surprise that an antibiotic will kill cyanoBACTERIA.

But beware, reeftanks depend heavily on nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, which, in conjunction with micro and macroalgae, mop up nitrogenous waste.

You run the risk of hurting your so-called "biological filter", insofar as its bacterial component is concerned.

Furthermore, many sessile inverts, from anemones to stoney corals, gorgs and other softies, 'farm' protozoa in their mucus for food. An antibiotic could either wipe out the farm, or knock out the weaker protozoa and imbalance the diversity of said mucal fauna.

Por ejemplo...
Vibrio is normally a harmless resident in invert mucus, and so long as it is kept in check by other resident populations of competing bacteria, never becomes a problem. But if those competing neighbors get wiped out by antibiotics, and the Vibrio survive, thn it can proliferate to the point of being pathogenic. Heck, the Vibrio could maybe even develop resistance to antibiotics in that nightmare scenario.

There are lots of cheaper and safer ways to deal with cyano, from manual teasing-off and siphoning to a number of select gastropods. Providing the cyano stiff competition for resources also helps, by way of cultivating crtain ornamental macroalgae (Halimeda and Avrainvillea come to mind.

Of course, restricting the very availability of nutrient resources is important. Eliminate excess import of food, additives and other sources.


hth

[tdwyatt]

Hmmmmm....

Why would you do this to your system?


You spend months getting your tank to mature, to develop multiple layers of food chains that depend on a large number of bacterial populations and species to feed the higher levles of the food chain, then you dump a broad-spectrum antibiotic into the system to kill all that off...

I dunno, but {the advice of this particular LFS} is not the kind of advice you need to be following. Cyano is a normal part of the flora of a marine ecosystem. It only blooms when there is either an excess of unutiliized nutrients or there is not a "next level" of cyanobacterial consumer that will utilize the nutrients and energies stored in the cyano biomass to feed its growth and development (to feed its own 'next level" of the food chain...)

Patience and good husbandry skills would be in order here, rather than a antibiotic treatment to remove the bloom (temporarily) without treating the underlying causes. Were it not so late (3am here) I would expand on this, but the info is available in the archives, I am sure that you can find it with a search using "cyanobacteria" and any number of names listed here (me, Horge, Dr. Spankster, etc...). Your system is a balance of biological and chemical systems that depend on a slow maturation process to become fully capable of handling most of the nuisance algal blooms in time.

Good post from Horge, think long-term solutions rather than cosmetic quick-fixes.

JM2CW

[cyberchef]

I can testify that "quick" fixes are not the way to go. There is another "chemical" cure that is supposedd to be reef safe, well it wiped out 3 SPS and bleached 2 others as well as an anenome. Luckily the anenome and one of the bleached SPS made a comeback, but the loss of the others definately made it a costly fix. Not to mention that my tank became unstable and took another 3 months and frequent water changes to straighten out. Also the addition of "new" LR and LS to give the nitrifying bacteria a jump start to get it back up and going again. I was new to Reef Tanks and only had the LFS to deal with... Thank goodness I found TRT and the ARC. They both helped me to get back on track and overcome the setback.

[Jack G]

Myracin is Eurithromycin(sp). It will kill your cyano(but not in one dose), and it does not significantly effect your nitrifying bacteria.
That said, I do not remomend it except as a last resort. Make sure you run some carbon afterwards.
Jack

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by Jack G
Myracin is Eurithromycin(sp). It will kill your cyano(but not in one dose), and it does not significantly effect your nitrifying bacteria...

Sorry Jack,

Erythromycin is a broad-spectrum macrolide antibiotic that is quite effective in killing nitrifying bacteria as well as the cyano blue-green algae. It is frequently used in the base form in gut surgery preps for the very reason that is kills many of the species of bacterias that are thought to perform the mineralization of ammonia in reef tanks. Even as a last ditch effort, the use of antibiotics for this purpose does nothing to get rid of the problem, it only delays the cycling of these nutrients back into cyanobacterial biomass. Even if you were to completely sterilize the tank of Cyanobacteria spp., all it would take is the introduction of another fish specimen or piece of live rock or coral, etc., to reintroduce Cyanobacterial to your tank. Although these substances will kill Cyanobacteria, controlling blooms still comes down to getting a grip on the conditions that lead to the bloom. This means either eliminating the causes or introducing appropriate consumers of Cyanobacteria (both macro- and micro-biological consumers) in order to gain the upper hand. Cyano is STILL a necessary part of a biologically diverse and balanced system, a part that we do NOT want to totally eliminate if we expect to see our systems thrive. Not to harp on Jack, but the use of ANY ANTIBIOTIC will have systematic consequences on the microfauna. If we DO eliminate Cyanobacteria from a closed system, what happens to all those nutrients that WERE the biomass of the cyanobacteria???

There is no such thing as a biological vacuum in our ecosystems, there is always some creature that can capitalize on the presence of nitrogen, carbon, phosphates, water, and light. Removing parts of a food chain only divert them, and even then only temporarily, possibly fueling some other nuisance growth that we do not desire. Antibiotics are great if we could use them with more specificity, but in our closed systems, many of the cycles that we depend on to move energy and nutrients through our systems depend on the microbes (including Cyano) that are affected by these broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Just my 2 cents US...

...OK, I will shutup now and take my soapbox home with me...

[Geoff]

tdwyatt-if you want i could take that soapbox home with me. i do not know of a more knowledgable soapbox around.

G~

[Jack G]

>>>Erythromycin is a broad-spectrum macrolide antibiotic that is quite effective in killing nitrifying bacteria <<<
Notice, I said *significantly*.
In low doses it does not cause ammonoa or nitrite spikes or detectable increases.


>>>Even if you were to completely sterilize the tank of Cyanobacteria spp., <<<
Nowhere did I say you would completely sterilze the tank of Cyanobateria .

>>>Cyano is STILL a necessary part of a biologically diverse and balanced system, a part that we do NOT want to totally eliminate if we expect to see our systems thrive<<<
Show me where I say otherwise.

>>>Although these substances will kill Cyanobacteria, controlling blooms still comes down to getting a grip on the conditions that lead to the bloom<<<
I agree completely.

>>>There is no such thing as a biological vacuum in our ecosystems, there is always some creature that can capitalize on the presence of nitrogen, carbon, phosphates, water, and light<<<
Thank you for Bio 101.

>>> Removing parts of a food chain only divert them, and even then only temporarily, possibly fueling some other nuisance growth that we do not desire<<<
Quite right, but I for one would rather have regular green micro algae growing on my glass than cyano.

You read alot more into my post than was actually there.
As I said, I do not recommend it, but ONLY AS A LAST RESORT.

Jack

[foobuddha]

That's right! Can't miss, garuanteed magic pill for removing unsightly cyano blooms. The best part is you can mix this stuff at home and it's darn near FREE!!!!

Ingredients:

1 part - Consistent husbandry of water quality
1 part - Attention to light quality
6 parts - PATIENCE!!!!

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by Jack G

Notice, I said *significantly*.
In low doses it does not cause ammonoa or nitrite spikes or detectable increases... ...You read alot more into my post than was actually there. As I said, I do not recommend it, but ONLY AS A LAST RESORT.

Jack, you take this as an attempt at flame, I only present the materials in view of the fact that there are MANY folks new to marine reefkeeping that read these posts as legit info. My posting is to prevent the dissemination of misinformation.

If the levels of the antibiotic in question (whether one of the macrolides or tetracycline or aminoglycosides, etc.) are sufficient to kill Cyanobacteria, they will definitely have an effect on the nitrifying bacteria as well. MIC's (minimum inhibitory concentration) of tetracycline (and erythromycin) to kill most species of Escherichia spp., Nitrosomonas spp., Nitrobacter spp., and Nitrospira and Niprospira-like spp. are well below the concentration that results from distributing 250 mg (a single capsule) in a tank of 200 liters (around 55gal). We are fortunate in our aquaria that most of the systems that represent biological filtration are indeed quite forgiving, and treatment of the water column most often does not mean that we sterilize the interior of the rock by the time that other organisms remove the antibiotic from the water column (or the antibiotic decomposes, which fortunately occurs rapidly with both tetracycline and erythromycin at pH 8.2 in the presence of water). To say that these substances do not have an effect on the biological filtration is both incorrect and a little careless unless you have specific data that supports this POV.

If you need more information and documentation on my point of view, Check out:

Dynamic Aquaria--Building Living Ecosystems: Drs. Walter Adey and Karen Loveland, Academic Press, Second Edition, 1998.

Interpretation of Diagnostic Tests-a Handbook Synopsis of Laboratory Medicine:Dr. Jacques Wallach, Little and Brown, publishers, Third Edition, 1988.

An Introduction to the Study of Disease:Dr. Wm. Boyd, Lea and Febinger, 1992.

Basic Clinical Pharmacokinetics: Drs. Michael Winter and Maryanne Koda-Kimble, Applied Therapeutics Pub., 1980.

Antimicrobial Therapy: Dr. Anthony Kagan, et.al., WB Saunders Co., 1990.

Drug Information for the Health Care Provider--USPDI:USP Publishers (reference monographs), 2001.


I hate to be strident on this issue, but the "Old School" use of antibiotic in REEF aquaria is unwarranted. Casual use of these substances leads to more harm than good, and impacting the mineralizing bacteria will always have an impact on water parameters. Whether it is a short-term spike or a long-term recycle will depend on the extent to which they are affected. Their use in FO systems is prolly warranted, as there is often not enough substrate nor biological capacity to remove adequate amounts of the nutrients involved with Cyanobacterial blooms.

Jack, this is not intended as a slam to you, so don't take it that way. Posting of misinformation on the reefs leads to perpetuation of those same errors over and over again.

It is time to put these errors to rest.

In reef tanks, treatment of Cyano still comes to removing the causes and increasing its consumption. There are many ways to do this, and how you do it best is a matter of much discussion, but it still comes to this for a system to continue to thrive.

"We treat the whole patient, not the symptoms..."

--Dr. William Plaxco. my mentor and friend, 1928-2000

[karlas]

i did pretty much the same thing as hooked did with my cyano i eventually got rid of it and it was a long battle was redy to give up. i didnt like the idea of adding chemicals like that to the tank some of the things you add can be absorbed by the sealent and re introduced to the system later thats why im not big on adding stuff

[Alice]

Reef tanks with live rock and sand are little ecosystems; they may not truly mirror the ocean but they do contain a host of organisms that feed upon each other, in one fashion or another. Adding a chemical to disrupt this "circle" can have effects we did not intend.

I'm fighting a battle with cyano now in my nano but I know that the cause of the problem is that it's overloaded on nutrients and the rocks have become a nitrate sink. I'm doing water changes and flushing of the rocks with clean saltwater. Eventually the ugly over abundance of cyano will lessen as I remove what it's feeding on. It is hard to look at though so I know why so many look for a quick fix.

This is a good discussion; thanks to all for participating-knowledge is our defense!

Alice