red slime

[Markus]

I know its a quick fix but has anyone had any experience with a product like Poly Ox or similar to remove red slime algae? Is it safe, does it work well?

[fchidsey]

How bad is the slime? I have been told to leave it alone if it is not over taking the tank. no water changes or anything. this will starve the bateria and cause it to die off. whn it is all dead than water change and problem is gone. it has worked for me so far. obvously dont trash your tank if the nitrates get to high change the water.

[Markus]

Well it's not that bad yet. Maybe 30% of the substarte is covered. Nothing on rocks or anything though. It comes and goes as the lights go on and off. Nitrates are between 5-10. No phosphates. You have just been leaving it then. With the lights on or off?

[pastina]

i left mine and it was gone on its own too. sometimes the more we do the worse things get.
i had the front middle sand taken over by red slime, after a few weeks of me doing nothing it just disapeared

[fchidsey]

Mine was 40% on sub and 10% on LR I left Lights on regular cycle 12 hours blues and 10 hours all I run 1 t-5 4 blubs and 1 64w PC blua att. I left it alone and it will go away. if it begins to take over then goto red slime remover. How long has the tank been up?

[Markus]

Tank has been running for 6 months. And this has been the first bad break out of cyano. It just looks so terrible.

[Doug1]

Originally Posted by Markus

Well it's not that bad yet. Maybe 30% of the substarte is covered. Nothing on rocks or anything though. It comes and goes as the lights go on and off. Nitrates are between 5-10. No phosphates. You have just been leaving it then. With the lights on or off?

You arent getting a phosphate reading because the PO4 is bound up in the cyanobacteria on the sand.
PO4 is introduced in feeding, normal liverock dieoff, and organisms waste, as well as from well or municipal water supplies

Start off with RO/DI water, use it to mix new SW and for top off to replace water lost to evaporation. If you arent using the best quality water you can, then you will prolong the misery depending on the PO4 level in your water
Watch your feeding, most prepared foods are high in phosphates so feeding will raise the levels, most people have a tendancy to over feed and under skim.
Anything added to the tank will tend to stay there unless you aggressively work on getting it out

Siphoning as much off the sand and rock and removing it with a water change will help export the nutrients bound in tha cyano, eventually it will reach a level where the cyanobacteria arent at plague proportions. Cyano is an important brick in the food chain, it will always be present, its only a problem when the food available allows it to grow out of hand. Using antibiotics and chemical cures will make it go away temporarily, but when the cyano dies off it will release all the nutrients locked in the cells, back into the water column so the problem is still there, and now when it comes back it will be more resistant to the antibiotic, making that option less effective on the next go around. Not to mention that the antibiotics can seriously impair the normal bacterial proccesses you depend on to keep a SW tank running

[Markus]

Okay so no antibiotics. Hard to siphon, I dont want to suck up the sand. Would kicking it up andthen running a net through and skimming aggresivley work too?

[pastina]

i stirred my sand with the red slime, it looked great nice and white again.
i went back upstairs an hour later and the slime was back redder and thicker than ever!!
i couldnt believe it, it was almost like a fire, you think you put it out but it sets ablaze again
thats when i gave up, and it went away on its own. luckily it stayed in one area, it didnt spread
some critters are said to eat red slime, i havent tried them tho
the mexican dwarf hermit crab, nirite snail and cerith snails all make claims to eat red slime

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Doug1

You arent getting a phosphate reading because the PO4 is bound up in the cyanobacteria on the sand... ...Anything added to the tank will tend to stay there unless you aggressively work on getting it out

Siphoning as much off the sand and rock and removing it with a water change will help export the nutrients bound in tha cyano, eventually it will reach a level where the cyanobacteria arent at plague proportions. Cyano is an important brick in the food chain, it will always be present, its only a problem when the food available allows it to grow out of hand. Using antibiotics and chemical cures will make it go away temporarily, but when the cyano dies off it will release all the nutrients locked in the cells, back into the water column so the problem is still there, and now when it comes back it will be more resistant to the antibiotic, making that option less effective on the next go around. Not to mention that the antibiotics can seriously impair the normal bacterial proccesses you depend on to keep a SW tank running

ABSOLUTELY.

The only thing I would add is that the benefit of siphoning is to remove the mess as well as the export of the cause of the problem, so it will be your best means of controlling the issues associated with your nuisance bloom. Herbivory will help, but unless it is tied up in HIGH EFFICIENCY creatures with a good bit of their own biomass, the bulk of its nutritional content will just be moved further down the food chain as the algae is converted into whatever critter poo has consumed its 10% before passing it on.

In addition, the use of antibiotics builds resistance in not only the cynobacteria, but in all the bacteria, both non-pathgenic and those that cause disease in humans (yes Virginia, there ARE pathogens in the tank... ). If you're using erythromycin or any number of tetracycines that are used to control cyano as a casual-use drug for aquariums, then you weaken their ability to fight these pathogens should you acquire an infection from your tank...


...something to consider when using antibiotics to treat cyanobacteria so close to home. Consider this when you are paying $12 a hit for Levaquin...


JM2CW

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by pastina

...some critters are said to eat red slime...

bristle-tooth tangs, some species of cukes, and queen or Fighting Conchs (Strombus spp. )

[pastina]

i tried to siphon and it was stuck to the sand and took the sand with it, and it just came back anyway
in my case i blame using phytoplex, things were fine, i added that product and the next day things were slimy

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by pastina

i tried to siphon and it was stuck to the sand and took the sand with it, and it just came back anyway
in my case i blame using phytoplex, things were fine, i added that product and the next day things were slimy

Yes, unfortunatly in tanks with heavy cyanbacterial growth, there is usually (much) more phosphate than will be removed by a single siphoning. The trick is to siphon at the end of the photoperiod when the cyanobacteria growth is its heaviest, and to do it every evening at this time for several days consecutively. It is OK to siphon up some of the sand with it, as the sand in close proximity to such growths is usually saturated with phosphate and most likely is hiding some detrital accumuatin just under the surface, so this is a good thing.


The bloom will stop when one of three things occurs: either a succession in algae growth occurs, such that the cyanobacteria has competition for the nutrients that trigger its bloom, or there is a bloom in herbivory (usually copepods, or microbial blooms of cyanovores, or potentially some inclusion of top-down herbivory such as tangs, conchs, etc), or the phosphate levels are artificially reduced by siphoning or through the use of chemical adsorbants like GFH or the aluminum-based oxides/sponges. Theoretically, good wet skimming will reduce a good bit of the nutrient base that triggers nuisance algal blooms, but this is most often nitrogenous or carbon-based wastes that are being skimmed off unless you're skimming off algae (after scraping the glass or or after heavy use of live phytoplankton while the lights are on with wet skimming). The real trigger nutrient in closed systems is phoshate, as most cyanobacteria are capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen as nitrates for their nitrogenous needs. Phosphates can be skimmed out of the water column, but for the most part it requires that they be free ions in the water column (unlikely in the presence of calcareous substrates and bacteria in the system), and that kalkwaser or some other substance that will precipitate in the presence of free phosphates be introduced into the skimmer near the intake (or inside the skimmer reaction chamber). This will occurs to some extent with the use of kalkwasser, and it IS a start, but without free phosphate ions, nearly none of the chemical or physical phosphate
extraction mathods will work at tank pH.

The upshot is that phosphates and nitrates are both fixed inside the biomass of the cyanobacteria, and other methods of phosphate nutrient removal are spotty or of limited benefit at best, so siphon removal of algal biomass is the ideal means of removal of these substances.


Strike while the iron is hot!