Red Algae Solutions?

[samwrang]

I have red algae (grows in "sheets" and covers everything) in my tank which my husband says is from phosphate so we put more stuff in the phosphate reactor to take care of the problem and we did 2 water changes back to back. Some of the red stuff is turning brownish and is turning "hairy" when it does so. This has been going on for awhile and I thought the algae was dieing off. Now some is still like that but new red stuff is growing and is once again covering everything and killing stuff because of it.
Thoughts? Solutions?

[tspors]

Red algae how old is the tank? The best way is kill the lights for three days. No light complete darkness. Wrap the tank if you have to. Then clean tank firsy and suck out as much slime as you can. The 3 days lights out. You have to find the source it usually is from food. Forzen food nutients that do not breakdown well. Tell more age if tank?

[danielsbees]

The problem is your phospates are hi and you need to get rid of them with some sort of good phospate media .Its also not a quick fix it takes time to get rid of these phospates so be patient do the water changes and feed less my cyano took 3 to 6 months to get rid of so be patient and avoid the chemicals the lights off for a few days will kill whats there but they will return until you get rid of the phospates.Good luck be patient.

[f350power]

I've had good luck with UltraLife Red Slime Remover. I tried a few other brands, but this was the best of them all. Remover made my skimmer go crazy (had to adjust a few times) but algae was gone in two days. But definitely you need to get ride of the phosphates.

[BioMechanical]

I am having the same issues right now as well. I am new to this hobby (8 months) and learning as I go. What would be the best phosphate remover? I have PhosBan in my C-360 canister filter and a hangover skimmer that bubbles whenever it feels like it. I have seen at my LFS the Seachem PhosGuard that states "rapidly removes phosphate and silicate from marine water". I understand to scrape and remove as much as possible and calm down with lighting until the situation is under control but I'm not sure of the main cause. When I feed my fish (2 times a day - frozen) I put in enough that I see everything consumed. Would flake food be a better choice?

[Percula9]

Don't run skimmer when using slime remover. When the treatment is finished perform a water change and run carbon. Then put skimmer back on to help remove the remaining medicant.

[JacobO]

I'm currently having the same battle. My water parms are nearly perfect. undetectable ammo, nitrite, nitrates, and phos. dKh is 12 and Calc is 21(420) ph is 8.2. I do have 30w of T5s over a 10 gal tank for 11 hours/day, could this be my problem? Both bulbs are brand new. I've cut back on feeding the tank a lot lately and it still hasn't helped. Yesterday I did a WC and manually removed as much as I could. Took the LR out and scrubbed it down. Today it's back just as bad. I took my activated carbon out of my HOB filter and continued to dose AlgaeFix Marine (2 weeks into the dosing already :/)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Tank is fully cycled and has been for about 3 months - cycled in about 2 weeks with BioSpira and been up for 3 months total.

[Mark 75g]

Bio Mechanical, I have a 175gallon and have 2 clowns, yellow tang, 4 anthias, flame angel, Blue hippo, 6 line wrasser and I only feed once every day to 2 days and my fish are very healthy looking. I mix between ROD's Frozen blend and the algea pellets and also flake food. Try cutting down on the feedings.

You might want to buy the dual phosban and carbon reactor from Bulk Reef Supply. You should be running water thru the reactor at all times and they give you instructions that the media should not but turning too much.

[samwrang]

Thanks for all the tips. The tank is about 4 years old.

[Vin7250]

cyanobacteria is caused by many factors:

1. phosphates
2. nitrates
3. low flow
4. excess feeding
5. frozen foods

your phos and nitrate levels may show normal because the cyano is eating them all up. Phosphates may have infiltrated your rocks and may slowly be seeping out. You need to check your feeding habbits, rinse all frozen foods, increase your flow to eliminate dead spots, run a GFO, and do a series of water changes over the course of a few weeks. Shutting the lights off will not fix the problem, neither will a red slime remover if you dont address the cause of the issue.

[Reverend Reefer]

Originally Posted by Vin7250

cyanobacteria is caused by many factors:

1. phosphates
2. nitrates
3. low flow
4. excess feeding
5. frozen foods

your phos and nitrate levels may show normal because the cyano is eating them all up. Phosphates may have infiltrated your rocks and may slowly be seeping out. You need to check your feeding habbits, rinse all frozen foods, increase your flow to eliminate dead spots, run a GFO, and do a series of water changes over the course of a few weeks. Shutting the lights off will not fix the problem, neither will a red slime remover if you dont address the cause of the issue.

i agree with vin there. cutting lights doesnt seem to bother cyano. i wouldnt recommend the red slime remover either, its a broad spectrum antibiotic which will kill some beneficial bacteria as well. ive read horrible things with tanks crashing becuz of this stuff. plus, once the magic potion wears off, you still have the excess nutrients to deal with.

honestly, from my experience with cyano, it disappeared once i added more powerheads/more flow to my system. those florida fighting conchs eat the stuff too, at least from my experience. i got 3 conchs runnin around the sand bed, 2 powerheads, sucked up the cyano with a turkey baster, and in a month it never came back....

[Firedog1962]

I agree with the reverend more flow. I had a problem and treated it. It was fine for several months, a week after decreasing the flow through my polario it came back. I bumped up the polario sucked out the ciano and no problems since