Disaster!!!

[mattdog]

After a five day vacation, I come back to a tank overcome with this red, stringy, slimy, filmy, etc. coating over my sand, liverock (including corals), and my tank (accessories incl.). My yellow-tailed damsel looks like something took a piece out of it's side and my clowns are looking pretty dismal.

 

Everything in my tank was on timers or set-up for automation(lights, feeding, top-off). The timer was working fine, the auto-feeder had the correct amount of food in it and the top off kept the tank, well, topped-off. These factors are the same everyday because I don't like a tank to be constant maintenance. I do my water changes and fix things when they need to be fixed but other than that, all is automated.

 

I wish I had a picture of this slime so someone could give me a + I.D. on it. Chris Marks described it as sounding like hair algae, only red. It is as described above but it has bubbles in it. It's definitely not dynoflagellates though. I'm trying to figure out what caused this sudden influx of problems.

 

I was able to find out what happened to my damsel. Last night, I check on my tank, and I see what I thought was my peppermint shrimp poised on a rock, but my pepp was over in the other corner. I look closer and this is a mantis shrimp that is less than 1" long and is bright red. I saw him go after my damsel. The thing is, is that I've had this setup for well over 6 months and have never had any signs or ever seen this guy before. He's dead now, he became fish food, thanks to the powerhead blender method. I hope my little damsel makes it. I've grown quite attached to it.

 

How do I get rid of this stuff though. I've cut back my light cycle and have scrubbed the rock the best that I could tonight. Is there anything that can be done to save this setup, or am I going to have to start over again.

 

Any Help Would Be Appreciated,

 

THANKS,

 

Matt

 

[Kapelakin]

Are you sure it's not red slime? It can look stringy sometimes, but the bubles make me think that's what it is. Slime algae is actually a colony of photosynthetic bacteria, so the bubbles you're seeing are probably gas from respiration. You shouldn't have to re do anything, just double up on water changes and take out as much of the algae as possible for awhile, keep the circulation up, and make sure the tank is well-aerated. Your clowns may be looking bad from lack of oxygen. Red slime can suffocate a tank if it really gets out of hand.

[ross76053]

Have u checked phosphates since you've been back? High phosphates can = algae bloom.

[printerdown01]

Yikes! Glad to hear that you got the mantis!! Let us know what happens to the damsel .... I hope you are right on the dynoflagellates call! Anyway, I would run activated carbon and/or skimmer if you have one. IMO it shouldn't be a phosphates problem.... just some stuff that decayed and caused a bloom. Don't expect miricals, and don't push it... just allow the algae to clear up slowly. Your clean-up crew, a food cut back (if you can), and some activated carbon should help. You also might want to pull some of the stuff by hand (if it grows back by the end of the day, don't waste your time yanking it -it will only send you to a mental ward ). -seriously though, keep us (well at least me) up-dated as to what happens to the damsel!

[Pikelet]

I presume you were feeding flake food while away. What type out of interest?

[mattdog]

Thanks for the tips guys. You're right, it was flake food. I was using Omega One. I've always used it with no problems. You think the mantis could've killed some snails and not have eaten them and that caused the algae bloom?

[mattdog]

Well, I siphoned a lot of the crap off the sand and off the rocks and am running carbon right now. I'm also, at the advice of Espi, leaving the tank lights on for at least 24 hrs straight, in hopes that it will burn this stuff out.

 

My little damsel looks like he's doing fine, as if nothing happened. Just hard to imagine how with the hole in his side. I'm glad that sites like this (especially this one) exist. Without it, I feel that I might have a total failure of a tank at this point. Now I know that everything will eventually be alright.

 

 

Thanks Guys,

 

Matt

[Djm9288]

Ya , once i had that same type of "red hair algae" it just went away one day. Hope that yur tank gets better.

Daniel

[hhasty79]

Shoulda caught the mantis. Some people might pay dearly for a red one! Sounds pretty! (In a dangerous fish-mutilating monster kinda way...then again...just my kind of broodling...)

[flaunt]

it could be phosphates IME. i was running phosguard in my hob which did a fine job of removing phosphates from the water and keeping the micro algae down, but it seemed to be harming one of my stony corals so i took it out and am now trying to export nutrients via macro algae in the same hob. anyway, once i took out the phosguard i had a bloom of red slime and green hair algae. mine always seems to begin in the sandbed, so i try to keep it stirred up before it can begin growing on rocks and then... gulp... corals you'll probably have to do it once a day atleast as the stuff grows like madness (how come the bad stuff always grows so fast?). i'm paranoid about siphoning any sand out, so instead i've found the thing that works best is to poke the patches of red algae down into the top sandbed layer and covering it up with sand. this will keep it from growing back *as quickly*, but it will still definitely grow back. IMO methods like these are just temporary measures while attempting to chemically alter the conditions allowing the growth of the nuisance algae.

[mxpro32]

sounds like red slime to me. get some red slime remover and it will do the trick. it gets rid of it in one day.