Purple Slime Algae ... HELP

[RedDmon]

OK, this is a problem a friend is having with his 90g. We're hoping that someone will be able to ID this nasty purple algae.
He tells me that his water chemistry is great, PH 8.0, Cal +420, Phos. just bearly registering. (2 weeks ago he added a Phosban Reactor). His lighting is 2 250 MH with 2 Actinics. He's reduced the lighting to just a few hours a day the the MH.

Below are a few pics hopefully someone will be able to ID these an make suggestions. I told him to do a couple of 10 to 15% water changes a week. We think what might be feeding the algae is phytoplankton from over dosing the tank, is this possible?















Thanks in advance for your input.

Red

[D to the P]

The purple slime algae is exactly just that. Although its more commonly called red slime algae or cyanobacteria or blue-green algae. Like most algae it is to be thought of as a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. This is a very resilient algae and usually grows even when most others can't. His tank has either/or both nitrates and phosphates. They may not register on his tests, but it would be impossible for the algae to exist without them. There are many things that could be causing these higher levels, so I'll have to ask you a series of questions to troubleshoot.
1. How old is the tank
2. How many fish
3. What type of fish
4. What do you feed the fish
5. Do you have a clean up crew, and what does it comprise of
6. What are you using for flow in the tank
7. What are you using for filtration
8. Any other supplements being put in (coral food etc.)
9. What is your water source
Answer these and we should be able to find the problem and offer a remedy. In the mean time he can use products like Chemi-clean to temporarily remove the algae.

[RedDmon]

Oh, it's a 110g... not 90 as I stated.

Here's the answers to the questions:

1: 3 Months old
2: 20 fish
3: Wrasses/clowns/firefish/goby
4: 4 cubes of brine plus every night
5: Cleaner Shrimp / bloods red Shrimp /turbo snails and blue legged Hermit crabs
6: 2-MJ 1200 / 2-MJ 600
7: Wet dry w/protein skimmer/just installed phosban reactor
8: Was putting in zooplankton and phytoplankton every other day, I just stopped it 5 days ago
9: LFS Water (Big Al's)

Hope this helps.

[che25]

Bump. I'm having the same trouble with my tank. This seems to be a common and annoying problem.

[k9gunner]

Well it sounds like you are overfeeding. Also the phosban reactor will help a lot. Cut your food back and let us know what it is like in a few days after the phos reactor has time to work. Also as that dies off, remember to do your water changes.

[RedDmon]

We discussed cutting back on the food, and increasing the water changes.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Any other suggestions?

[D to the P]

Originally posted by RedDmon
Oh, it's a 110g... not 90 as I stated.

Here's the answers to the questions:

1: 3 Months old
2: 20 fish
3: Wrasses/clowns/firefish/goby
4: 4 cubes of brine plus every night
5: Cleaner Shrimp / bloods red Shrimp /turbo snails and blue legged Hermit crabs
6: 2-MJ 1200 / 2-MJ 600
7: Wet dry w/protein skimmer/just installed phosban reactor
8: Was putting in zooplankton and phytoplankton every other day, I just stopped it 5 days ago
9: LFS Water (Big Al's)

Hope this helps.

Three months old and 20 fish is a horrible partnership. Your tank is not nearly mature enough to handle such a bioload. Putting fish in the tank needs to be a gradual process where you are balancing the waste in with the waste out. By adding all of those fish before your tank has even reached maturity, you essentially allowed for the build up of organic waste. And I don't mean this to sound condescending, so don't take offense. It also seems like you are over feeding. Do not rely solely on your clean up crew to take care of all this food. I would cut back to maybe 2 cubes a night. Your clean up crew is a little skimpy though. I would try and purchase some nassarius, and cerith snails. You could also look into getting a tiger tail sea cucumber, but you'll need to make sure your fish won't harass it by doing the research and figuring out the tendencies of each species of fish that you have towards invertebrates like that. I would get more flow in the tank. First I would go on Drs Foster and Smith's website and look up the sureflow (I think it's called) mod for the maxijets. This way your flow is more dispersed and not just a jet. Then I would look into getting either one koralia 3 or two koralia 2s. You'll need to position them in the tank so that there are little to no dead spots (area without flow) in the tank. The reason you do this is because unless your fish's waste and food etc are floating around in the water column, they are not being filtered. In turn the waste settles to the bottom and cyano will grow all over those spots. You'll also want to monthly or more frequently take a turkey baster or powerhead and shoot it into the rocks. This will get all the dirt off of it that may have settled on it. These are also spots where nitrates and phosphates will leak from and allow cyano, amongst other algae, to grow. I'm not sure which protein skimmer you have because you didn't mention a brand, but make sure that it is over sized for the aquarium. And don't base it off of what the box tells you. Stop putting in so much coral food too. The phytoplankton is not necessary more than once a week at the most because unless you have non photosynthetic corals in your tank, none of the corals will use it. All it's doing is feeding either feather dusters, or copepods. Now the copepods may end up being food for certain things in the tank, including some corals, but it is not necessary to put it in that often. The zoo plankton I wouldn't put in more than once a week either. Using a good titration test kit (not an all in one dip stick, or any dip stick for that matter) check the nitrates and phosphates of the water from Big Als. I'm not knocking the store, but you need to make sure that their water does not have either of those in it, otherwise it is not worth buying. Sometimes places will test it and show you the results, and sometimes they are reluctant to do that because they don't want you to know that they are skimping out on changing their filters so they can make more money. Not saying that's the cause with Big Als, but you need to cover all your bases. Hope this helps, and again I'm not trying to be condescending see I even smiled. Good luck with your trouble shooting!

[RedDmon]

D to the P ... Thanks very much for your input, your knowledge, I just want to make sure you understand this is a friends tank. Mine is Understocked and doing just fine. I will make sure my buddy hits the water changes hard, as well as tests the new water. I have a great source for the Koralia 3's Cheapest place on the net ($40 a piece). With all of your help we'll get my buddy's tank back to where it should be.
Thanks again ... hopefully we'll have some good news in a short time.

[D to the P]

Yeah I know it was his, but for some reason I ended up talking like it was yours . Well good thing you're doing the home work for his tank

I hope it all works out for him. Feel free to PM me if any questions come up.

[RedDmon]

Will do, and thanks again.

[abulgin]

+1 to D to the P. I would also mention a couple things about your fish food. First, brine shrimp is the equivalent of potato chips. You should definitely phase brine out of the diet and replace it with something more nutritious, like New Life Spectrum pellets, mysis, etc. Second, frozen foods tend to contain a lot of phosphates, which is why you should always allow them to thaw, drain the water and rinse.

[RedDmon]

I had heard that about the frozen food, I was told to rinse in RO ... never heard about the thaw, drain and rinse. Can I ask what you use to do this, say with something as small as brine shrimp? A very fine filter bag?

[Harry_Fish]

Feed Less, skim more, increase flow.