The red slime in my tank is driving me nuts!Please help?

Question

The tank gets a red slime algae on the sand. I syphon it off regularly.

The water changed regularly and the quality is excellent

No phosphate

No ammonium or ammonia

No nitrite

Nitrate<1mg/l

ph 8,2

waterdensity 1025.

I can take it out today it WILL be back tomorrow.

Im sure it can be overcome.

t is a 24g nano 2 months old.

No -I don't overfeed

Answer 1

i had the same problem, one issue the aquarium shop told me is from the blue light stays on for a long period of time, the shop owner told me to cut the hours back to 4 hours instead of all night. the product i use to get rid the algae which i have been using now for 2 years is Al-gone you could find it at  www.algone.com within a week the red slime will be gone and you don&#039;t have to remove any carbon from the filters. just place in tank and it works wonders. i do not agree in putting chemicles in the tank as fishguy mention it is very harmful for the fish and coral. algone is all natural good bacteria that does not affect your fish or water.

Answer 2

It is not algae, it is cyano bacteria.

All you can do is keep removing it, do water changes, and don&#039;t feed your fish for 3 days, that is what I did.

Answer 3

&quot;No -I don&#039;t overfeed&quot;

Unfortunately, you do. The red cyanobacteria problem you have is caused by one factor and one factor only...too much organic material (food, p**p) in your tank.

There are 3 ways to get it to go away, after you adjust your feeding, and they are:

1-Partial  water changes everyday or every other day while removing as much detritus as possible until the slime goes away.

2- There is a product called Purigen that works absolute wonders on Cyano. It is a chemical media that is placed in your filter or some other area of your tank that has a high water flow. It is white when it is new and changes color as it becomes depleted. Within a couple of days, you&#039;ll notice it will turn red and the Cyano will start to go away. You can then clean the tank and do a partial change and then the Cyano will not return. Once the Purigen turns red, you need to remove it to keep it from leaching back into the tank.

3 - Eurithromyacin tablets (Brand name &quot;Maracyn 1&quot; by Mardell labs) added to the tank daily at 200mg per 20 gallons of water will do the trick also. This is an antibiotic treatment used for fish with bacterial infections, but it does wonders against Cyanobacteris as well. Remeber to remove carbon and turn off UV sterilizers while treating with eurithromyacin.

         Most people will give me a thumbs down for this option, however, because they have read in books and believe anti biotics to be harmful to a saltwater tank. If the tank is established and there is no ammonia present, experience has tought me that there is very little if any danger to using antibitics in reasonable doses on a saltwater tank.

Edit-DjHaze(below me)&quot;Al-gone you could find it at www.algone.com within a week the red slime will be gone and you don&#039;t have to remove any carbon from the filters. just place in tank and it works wonders. i do not agree in putting chemicles in the tank as fishguy mention it is very harmful for the fish and coral. algone is all natural good bacteria that does not affect your fish or water.&quot;

I told you amatuers would be giving me thumbs down and talking about things they know nothing of. You DO NOT have a ALGAE problem, as such, algacide will NOT work. You have CyanoBacteria, which is a photosynthetic bacteria. It acts like an algae, so some people call it &quot;slime algae&quot; but it IS NOT ALGAE.

I&#039;ve only taken care of literally hundreds of thousands of saltwater tanks professionally in my life...

Answer 4

its the fishes p**p

Answer 5

You probably need more appropriate lighting. Use aquarium lights and try different spectra out.