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Pet Forum / Aquaria / Marine Reef / April 2004Patience/Frustration I need your help
All, I am having terrible problems with red slime algae no matter what I do I can't get rid of it. I am using RO/DI unit brand new to top off with, the tank is 8 months old. I have spent a ton of money to try and do this right but this red algae is really testing my patience what sucks is I use the same water from my RO/DI unit to top off my freshwater tank from time to time also and I get no algae at all in my fresh water tank. This morning I spent brushing my live rock with a brand new tooth brush never used before to get this stuff off my rock. Here is my setup below along with water parameters any help would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah I have shrooms and polyps in this tank that are growing like crazy. You can see a picture of the slime I am talking about at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/1.JPG/ I was using a modified seaclone at one time because it was given to me and on the pics page you can see it pulled out dark skim, but I decided to buy a cpr bakpak 2r which does a much better job in my opinion. I feed twice a day a mixture of foods Mysis Formula One Pygmy Angel Formula And I feed thawed shrimp to the anemone's, I started with one but it split Water Parameters taken this morning salinity 1.024 ph 8.0 ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 5.0 Ca 445 As I stated any help would be greatly appreciated. My Setup 55 Gallon 60 pounds Live Sand about 3 1/2 inch bed 80 Pounds Tampa Live Rock 1 150watt Heater 1 100watt Heater 3 MaxiJet 1200 for water circulation 1 ProQuatics 1600 Canister nothing in it besides using phosban every now and again. 1 CPR Bak Pak 2r 260 watts of lighting 10hours a day by timer 2actinics 2 10,000 white. Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to taking newer pictures soon I hope. Oh yeah one more thing the 3 maxi jets are on a red sea wavemaster pro. I also have a sand sifting star along with many snails and hermits, I even have 2 green emerald crabs. But this red stuff gets on the rocks and the sand bed and is real thick but when you try to scope it out of the sand it breaks up very easily. > All, > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > taking newer pictures soon I hope. Sand sifting stars eat the beneficial microfauna you want, killing your sand bed. That could be a part of the problem. If you don't have a refugium, you should consider it because the Macro algae will outcompete microalgae growth in the display tank. Marc > Oh yeah one more thing the 3 maxi jets are on a red sea wavemaster pro. > I also have a sand sifting star along with many snails and hermits, I even [quoted text clipped - 62 lines] > > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > > taking newer pictures soon I hope. -- Personal Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/oanda/index.html Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com Here's my maybe peculiar experience. I had no red algae at all, never even a hint of it. Then I got the cpr hob refugium and put a little pc over it, sand and rock and green stuff in it. Days later, the evil red slime came on with a vengence. The refugium, especially, was totally coated. Fortunately, it occurred to me that the light might have been excessive. I turned it off, cleaned up the little 'fuge and it all went away. Now I turn on the light twice a day for an hour or two and I have no problem. I don't know if any of this applies to your situation, of course. rtk > All, > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > taking newer pictures soon I hope. > Here's my maybe peculiar experience. I had no red algae at all, never > even a hint of it. Then I got the cpr hob refugium and put a little pc [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > rtk My guess is your and Layer3guru lamp maybe shift to bad spectrum. I have my lamp running about 10hrs each day without problem with any type of algae. BTW, I had to overfeed to get some algae start growing. CapFusion,... Cyano is usually beaten when Phosphates are close to zero, and circulation is good. The stuff you showed in the picture (remove the / at the end of the URL for it to work) should by siphoned out of your tank with airline tubing. Get as much of it out of your tank as you can see and reach. If you need to, attach a piece of rigid tubing to the flexible kind, to have better control. I'm not a fan of the toothbrush method, because it just spreads stuff elsewhere. You might try feeding only once a day. Marc > All, > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > taking newer pictures soon I hope. -- Personal Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/oanda/index.html Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com I was told because my sand bed is so shallow that I need to be siphoning it when I do water changes. It was recommended that I siphon the bed and then add more sand to at least get 4 to 6 inches of depth all around. What do you all think? > All, > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > taking newer pictures soon I hope. I have used Chemi Cleam a few times and it has done a pretty good job each time. It is not cheap though...$19.99 for enough to treat about 200 gallons. Keep in mind that you usually want to dose it twice.....the seconds time 48 hours after the initial dose. Any turn your skimmer off during this time. Hope that helps. I know some gusy siphon their sand, especially when it is shallow. I would let nature do that for me, with Fighting Conchs and Nassarious snails. Marc > I was told because my sand bed is so shallow that I need to be siphoning it > when I do water changes. [quoted text clipped - 63 lines] > > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > > taking newer pictures soon I hope. -- Personal Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/oanda/index.html Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com I have like 6 King Nassarious snails. And they do bury themselves in the sand becausethe family likes to watch when I feed because it is like magic to watch them surface out of the sand at feeding time. > I know some gusy siphon their sand, especially when it is shallow. I would let > nature do that for me, with Fighting Conchs and Nassarious snails. [quoted text clipped - 73 lines] > Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com > Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com I've also used a chemical called Chemi-clean that killed the stuff overnight. I got my Chemi-clean from the lfs, but noone seems to have heard of it. -- reefman MC I thought you were gone from here? > I've also used a chemical called Chemi-clean that killed the stuff > overnight. I got my Chemi-clean from the lfs, but noone seems to have [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > reefman MC's Profile: http://www.reef-chat.com/forum/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=7 > View this thread: http://www.reef-chat.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=8394 No, I'm still alive and kickin. I got the administrator to check it out and he says he'll be checkin the site more often. So I'm a happy man, but lets not mess this guys post up with talk of this same junk. -- reefman MC Has anyone ever heard of Chemi-clean? -- reefman MC MC, If you would learn how to use usenet instead of posting and reading through a web site you could "administrate" what you see on the screen yourself. > No, I'm still alive and kickin. I got the administrator to check it out > and he says he'll be checkin the site more often. So I'm a happy man, > but lets not mess this guys post up with talk of this same junk. > > -- > reefman MC John N. Gretchen III Port O'Connor TX http://www.tisd.net/~jng3 > All, > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > taking newer pictures soon I hope. You indicate you have 3 water pump, circulation current flow to where the red algae? Is your lamp old? IMO, I do not think CPR will do a good job in a 55G. Try removing the canister and see if it make any dfference. Phosban should not be need since your have RO/DI unit.Your RO/DI should detect close to zero or non-detectable. At this current stage, you may need to use a vacuum while remove those algae. Do not simply scrape it off while in the tank. You simply will seed it somewhere else. Suck those algae out while being dislodge. Other than your obvious Nitrate, I do not really see any other cause except for above I meantion about that would cause algae issue. CapFusion,... My lamps are 3 months old and you think they need to be changed already? The 3 pumps I have one is close to the top, one is in the middle of the tank, and one towards the bottom or at least as close as I can get it without disturbing the sand. > > All, > > [quoted text clipped - 74 lines] > > CapFusion,... > My lamps are 3 months old and you think they need to be changed already? > The 3 pumps I have one is close to the top, one is in the middle of the > tank, and one towards the bottom or at least as close as I can get it > without disturbing the sand. Do you have another new lamp laying around by any chances? I do not know if the current lamp you have is bad or not. You will need to narrow or trouble-shooting the cause. 5ppm nitrate is not too bad of a reading. Of course it better when non-detectable. Try to aim your lower pump just about the top of your sand. The current should carry some nutrient to the PS to skim it out. Or try to make a current by wave to keep debris moving upward. Can you remove the canister and it content and see if that will make any differences. How much janitoral crew do you have like shrimp / crab / snail etc...? During the meantime, suck and scrap those algae out manually is the only immediate temperarly answer. The algae you have is feeding on something. I believe you already know the basic. Bad spectrium - red Nutrient - extra food from feeding. [main contribution cause]. Water - trace unwanted element like nitrate / phosphate etc... [Since you mention you have RO/DI, you should have not water issue]. But double check for it reading just incase. CapFusion,... IMHO, red slime is what we all have to deal with, it is caused by organic nutrients in the H2O, Kent marine has a product called PolyOx the stuff is aggressive and get ready to do a H2O change, this stuff will make red slime algae (cyno bacteria) manageable. Poor circulation will make the problem worse, direct your powerheads accordingly and maybe add more, the red slime does not like turbulent H2O. Aggressive protein skimming is advised to remove organic nutrients, I recommend a snailman clone, http://www.hawkfish.org/snailman/skimmer101.htm , at least read the page. My 2cents, BR549 > All, > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > Old Pictures Seen at http://www.digitalrage.org/tank/ I will get around to > taking newer pictures soon I hope. |
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