losing the battle to red slime HELP!

[Hallowhead]

Howdy...

I'm losing the battle to red slime and what seems to be red hair slime

I've done two doses of chemiclean with zero luck.

I keep my nitrates and phosphates elevated to avoid dinos.

I've lost loads of high end zoantnids due to smothering algae !

Someone help ! Any suggestions at all

 

[supernanoguy]

What’s your CUC look like? Do you have a UV scrubber?

 

[Hallowhead]

What’s your CUC look like? Do you have a UV scrubber?

It's a bare bottom frag tank - 34 gallons with 13 gallon sump.

My sump has marine pure spheres and that's it rn. I battled low nutrients for a long time so I didn't add a fuge.

Clean up is one trochus bunch of astrea and one scarlett hermit ?

No UV

 

[vetteguy53081]

Pictures really would help to determine what you describing. Cyano also love lights so lower to 10% or turn off the white lights. reduce blue to 25%. .. do this all for 4-5 days. Prior to, blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up or net and discard.
Plan to clean filters every day.
Now. . . Possible causes-
- Are you using RO water or tap water from the faucet ?
- What is your phosphate level ?
- If you can increase water flow downward towards mid tank.
- Ultra Life Red slime remover is a great product and does work. Get a hold of some. Also chemipure elite will keep Phos in check.

 

[supernanoguy]

I’ve heard light starvation and uv scrubbing temporarily helps. Other than that a good scrubbing of any surface you can get out of the tank safely might help.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It's a bare bottom frag tank - 34 gallons with 13 gallon sump.

My sump has marine pure spheres and that's it rn. I battled low nutrients for a long time so I didn't add a fuge.

Clean up is one trochus bunch of astrea and one scarlett hermit ?

No UV

CUC will not touch this stuff.

 

[Hallowhead]

Pictures really would help to determine what you describing. Cyano also love lights so lower to 10% or turn off the white lights. reduce blue to 25%. .. do this all for 4-5 days. Prior to, blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up or net and discard.
Plan to clean filters every day.
Now. . . Possible causes-
- Are you using RO water or tap water from the faucet ?
- What is your phosphate level ?
- If you can increase water flow downward towards mid tank.
- Ultra Life Red slime remover is a great product and does work. Get a hold of some. Also chemipure elite will keep Phos in check.

Phosphate registered zero for a long time

I change my media everyday and baste off rocks and corals.

I use RO water and I'm waiting for return of RO ati icp test.. maybe something is in the water ?

I think a third power head would help as corals don't have much flow as I'd like.

Nitrates are 10 ppm
Phosphate is less than .03 rn

 

[vetteguy53081]

Phosphate registered zero for a long time

I change my media everyday and baste off rocks and corals.

I use RO water and I'm waiting for return of RO ati icp test.. maybe something is in the water ?

I think a third power head would help as corals don't have much flow as I'd like.

Nitrates are 10 ppm
Phosphate is less than .03 rn

ICP is good. What is TDS of the RO water (you sould have a meter to determine this.)
Reduce white or white intensity.

 

[Hallowhead]

ICP is good. What is TDS of the RO water (you sould have a meter to determine this.)
Reduce white or white intensity.

It's 0 TDS coming out of unit.. so would be my storage container. 55 gallon food safe blue barrel.

When you say reduce white ? Should I just crank my blues ? I use neptune apex for two kessil a160we.. so I just want to crank the color to blue and lower total intensity ?

 

[John08007]

Even if phosphate tests 0 doesn't mean you don't have it, its being used by the cyano so there is none "floating" in your water to be brought up by your test kit

 

[vetteguy53081]

It's 0 TDS coming out of unit.. so would be my storage container. 55 gallon food safe blue barrel.

When you say reduce white ? Should I just crank my blues ? I use neptune apex for two kessil a160we.. so I just want to crank the color to blue and lower total intensity ?

Key is to reduce as much lighting as possible

 

[John08007]

Key is to reduce as much lighting as possible

But I don't see this being a long term fix, plus its a frag tank so he may not be able to do a blackout. Cutting the lights will kill the cyanocobalamin, but without reducing the phosphate it will come right back once he turns the lights back on. Am I correct? Mayne use some nopox

 

[vetteguy53081]

But I don't see this being a long term fix, plus its a frag tank so he may not be able to do a blackout. Cutting the lights will kill the cyanocobalamin, but without reducing the phosphate it will come right back once he turns the lights back on. Am I correct? Mayne use some nopox

Nopox will feed the cyano. Chemipure elite will actually reduce phos and nitrate and keep it in check

 

[Hallowhead]

So everyone thinks my phosphates are too high?

I dose phosphates daily to try and elevate them. I was under the impression that low nutrients cause algae to grow ?

I've had chemipure blue but never elite

 

[Hallowhead]

I've lowered my light intensity from peak 75% to peak 45 % and my whites max at 35% so they're mostly blue.. should I go lower ?

My plan is to kill the cyano and test water if it's high phosphates I can easily get rid of them. Personally I think my phosphates are good I just need to get rid of the bloom

 

[John08007]

The cyano is feeding off the phosphates, until you get them lower it will continue to come back.

 

[Hallowhead]

The cyano is feeding off the phosphates, until you get them lower it will continue to come back.

Than dinos will spawn ! I think by killing lights I'll kill the cyano than I can manage the high phosphates

 

[LeftyReefer]

Howdy...

I'm losing the battle to red slime and what seems to be red hair slime

I keep my nitrates and phosphates elevated to avoid dinos.

I wouldn't worry about dinos.... I'd go ahead and lower your nitrates and phosphates to get that algae under control.

My run low nitrates and phosphates and don't have any issues with dinos, or algae. As long as you have some detectable levels, you should be fine. Just don't let them drop to 0's.
my nitrates are .25ppm
phosphates are .03ppm

I run my nutrient levels low and feed heavily.

 

[Hallowhead]

I wouldn't worry about dinos.... I'd go ahead and lower your nitrates and phosphates to get that algae under control.

My run low nitrates and phosphates and don't have any issues with dinos, or algae. As long as you have some detectable levels, you should be fine. Just don't let them drop to 0's.
my nitrates are .25ppm
phosphates are .03ppm

I run my nutrient levels low and feed heavily.

My nitrates are about 10 ppm

Phosphates are not detectable right now which is my worry.. I feed half a frozen cube of food to a tank with 2 fish.

Maybe I'll try boyd chemipure elite.. nothing else to lose at this point

 

[AcanthurusRex]

Does not sound like cyano if ChemiClean did not kill it. I would be hesitant to try anything.
You can't get rid of cyano it is ubiquitous. You have to change the balance so it does not create mats that look bad.
I struggled with cyano for a long time. I installed a UV without success. I used ChemoClean which turned into a slow running disaster in my case. In the end the cyano came back. I tried MicroBacterClean and it worked for a few weeks.
I saw a video by @Coral Euphoria and Abe simply removed mechanical filtration. I removed mechanical filtration. The cyano is now in check.