Green slime on sandbed (microscope photos included)

Christian. · Apr 14, 2021

What make and model of microscope do you use?

Arthur_Dent · Apr 14, 2021

Christian. said:
What make and model of microscope do you use?

Amscope T490 with plan lenses. Canon EOS 60D in the trinocular port.

Stephers · Jun 27, 2021

Thank you very much appreciate the update. I'm currently dealing with a horrific outbreak of this (confirmed by microscope). I'm going to try your method and see how it goes. It's not only on my sandbed, but spots on the rocks and the worst is the glass. I put on a strong UV as you would for dino and there's been no results from that. Nitrate currently sitting at 6ppm and phos 0.02-0.03.

Arthur_Dent · Jun 27, 2021

Stephers said:
Thank you very much appreciate the update. I'm currently dealing with a horrific outbreak of this (confirmed by microscope). I'm going to try your method and see how it goes. It's not only on my sandbed, but spots on the rocks and the worst is the glass. I put on a strong UV as you would for dino and there's been no results from that. Nitrate currently sitting at 6ppm and phos 0.02-0.03.

Awesome. Glad this post helped you. Post results. Hope the approach I used works for you as well.

Note that while I was h2o2 dosing, I was very worried about my skunk cleaner shrimp. H2o2 affects them negatively, so I am told. My nems always looked ticked off for a few after as well. I have read peroxide breaks down super fast in saltwater, and I have a lot of surface agitation with my gyres. This accelerates the breakdown, I have read. Anyhow, no losses.

I don't know if it was the reduced lighting, the mb7 and mbclean that knocked them out, or the h2o2, but they were under control within a week and didn't come back.

GentlePuffer · Aug 8, 2021

Arthur_Dent said:
Update: light reduced to 10% (blue only), halving carbon dose (nopox), and dosing h2o2 at 1ml/10 gallons for a week at night, then MB7 dosing when lights come on and skimming wet got it under control for me very fast.

Here's an updated tank shot as of today:

What was your bacter7 dosing schedule please? I'm going to try it out with the peroxide dosing.

Stephers · Aug 8, 2021

I'm over 2 weeks out from getting rid of mine, and I guess I can claim success now. I tried the bacteria and h2o2 dosing for several weeks with no change. I started silicate dosing too. At my wit's end, I did a normal water change and manually removed as much as possible and then did a 48 hour black out and then blues only for a couple days and slowly ramped up my whites. They never came back after that, not even a small spec anywhere. I'm not sure entirely what worked in my situation but I'm glad it did.

Arthur_Dent · Aug 8, 2021

Stephers said:
I'm over 2 weeks out from getting rid of mine, and I guess I can claim success now. I tried the bacteria and h2o2 dosing for several weeks with no change. I started silicate dosing too. At my wit's end, I did a normal water change and manually removed as much as possible and then did a 48 hour black out and then blues only for a couple days and slowly ramped up my whites. They never came back after that, not even a small spec anywhere. I'm not sure entirely what worked in my situation but I'm glad it did.

Glad you got it sorted.