Red Slime Battle-need advice

[Hess]

We have had our bio cube 29 for about 5 months, and can't seem to shake the red slime on both the live rock and on the rock floor. Our livestock includes a Percula Clownfish, Six Line Wrasse, Chalk Bass, Cleaner Shrimp, Sally lightfoot crab, blue hermit crabs, candy cane coral, 2 zoas, mushrooms, and a pink tip anemone. If anyone has tips for us before we start this process, please let us know. Any pecautions that we need to take? Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Hess]

?

[phiber_optikx]

I am going to pretend like your levels are all perfect because I don't want to type much. There are products (actually medicine) that you can add to your tank that can all but eliminate it. Also, your levels are not perfect otherwise you would most likely not have red slime. Something died or you just have WAY to much nutrients in the water. Eliminate the nutrients, siphon out as much as possible, and then medicate. Repeat steps 2-3 as necesary

[Hess]

Thanks and yes all my levels test good. Maybe the snail that was MIA did die. And my wife likes to feed them a little to much.

[colinadam]

How to use Chemi-Clean in an All In One Nano:

 

1) Remove ALL Filtration (Carbon, Purigen, Chemi-Pure, Filter Floss, etc....)

 

2) Wait until your light go out in the evening. Dose 2 of the scoops (They are very little scoops). You have closer to 20 actual gallons of water in your tank and using a bit less is better than to much.

 

3) Add an airpump with an airstone ($10 at any petstore) to the display. Keep this on the entire time you dose your tank.

 

4) The treatment is a 2 day cycle, keep your lights off for the entire time. Also do not feed anything.

 

5) After 2 days do a waterchange (about 5 gallons), the next morning start your lights again and run them on the usual cycle.

 

6) Good time to add new filter media (Carbon, Purigen, etc....)

 

Tada!

 

You might have a little leftover when the lights first come back on but it will quickly go away.

 

BTW how are you back chambers setup and what is your water source?

[hazmat]

I didn't use an airstone when I treated and everything was fine. You just need to watch your oxygen level and it can drop your pH (again, because of the oxygen level). But better to have it on hand in case something happens.

 

I know it's splitting hairs but you do a 20% water change so up that to 6 gallons!

[zprhead]

I swear by Marine SAT, it cleans out red slime quick. I had a break out a few months after setting up my 14 gal cube. Took care of it in three days!

[dewey1982]

are you using RO water to top off/ water changes?

[vangvace]

Thanks and yes all my levels test good. Maybe the snail that was MIA did die. And my wife likes to feed them a little to much.

 

This can and will be the continual cause of your problem.

 

Increasing flow will hide but not slove the problem as well.

[davidncbrown]

Ok. 90% of all red slime algae remover is erithromycin, an antibiotic. Being an antibiotic it will: kill cyanobacteria (red slime), kill all your nitrogen fixing bacteria (if you use too much it will cause your tank to re-cycle), and it will kill all sorts of other beneficial bacteria. Red slime remover is like putting a bandage on a wound, and if you use it too much the cyano will develop a tolerance to it. The best thing to do is more frequent water changes. Also cut down on your photoperiod a bit while trying to get rid of it. When doing water changes try to suck up as much of it as possible. This is what I did when I had cyano and after a couple weeks it went away (my blue leg hermits helped finish it off too). The other method(s) I've heard are dosing sugar or vodka. I have never tried these so I can't say how well they work. The theory is that the sugar or vodka feeds the beneficial bacteria, to increase their number in order to increase the rate at which nutrients are removed. I dunno if I by that but there are quite a few threads on here about it. But the last bit of advice I have is to try to get your wife to not feed as much... I know its hard, trust me, but it will help you so much. If you can't do that id suggest maybe a skimmer or some macroalgae to remove some of the excess nutrients.

[bdare]

You could also pick up some GFO (Phosban) and put it in a filter bag.

[Hess]

Mrs Hess Here- The Mr is in charge of the Nano, he can blame me if he wants

 

Ok. 90% of all red slime algae remover is erithromycin, an antibiotic. Being an antibiotic it will: kill cyanobacteria (red slime), kill all your nitrogen fixing bacteria (if you use too much it will cause your tank to re-cycle), and it will kill all sorts of other beneficial bacteria. Red slime remover is like putting a bandage on a wound, and if you use it too much the cyano will develop a tolerance to it. The best thing to do is more frequent water changes. Also cut down on your photoperiod a bit while trying to get rid of it. When doing water changes try to suck up as much of it as possible. This is what I did when I had cyano and after a couple weeks it went away (my blue leg hermits helped finish it off too). The other method(s) I've heard are dosing sugar or vodka. I have never tried these so I can't say how well they work. The theory is that the sugar or vodka feeds the beneficial bacteria, to increase their number in order to increase the rate at which nutrients are removed. I dunno if I by that but there are quite a few threads on here about it. But the last bit of advice I have is to try to get your wife to not feed as much... I know its hard, trust me, but it will help you so much. If you can't do that id suggest maybe a skimmer or some macroalgae to remove some of the excess nutrients.

[redfishsc]

And my wife likes to feed them a little to much.

 

 

Um, there's your problem right there. I'm lucky in that my wife will not do anything but look at my tank.

 

NOBODY that knows little about a reef tank (or plant tank, or cichlid tank, or etc..) is allowed to do anything on any of my tanks unless I have dosed out the food already for them and I'm out of town.

 

Now I know that sounds harsh, but overfeeding is probably what's a major part of the problem.

 

Oh, and Mrs. Hess, I can understand how you want to feed the fish. Just be sure that only one of you is doing the feeding. A hungry fish is a happy fish for the most part!

 

 

 

 

Now, that issue aside. Are you using RO/DI water? Are you using it to top off your tank as well?

If not, you are probably fighting a lot of this in vain and also getting a ton of diatoms to boot (silicates). I saw a silicate bloom happen nearly OVERNIGHT in the holding tank I currently have set up. I ran out of RO/DI top-off water and just used treated (amquel+) tapwater. Boom! Diatoms everywhere and they got worse for several days, only a week later to start dwindling slowly.

 

The same can happen with cyano.