Never ending red cyano battle

[Jonesyg]

My tank is 6 months old and recently I have been battling red cyano, Initially i thought this was due to the high phosphate reading of 0.4, so I cleaned the tank of all the red slime including the sump and fitted a reactor with rowaphos. Now my phosphates are 0.0-0.1 using salifert test kit. However my nitrates are around 20, which i think is feeding the red slime? It grows overnight which suggests its not the lighting. The re growth has been slower however with the lower phosphates. Any advice is welcome its driving me crazy!

Tank 525xl
Nyos skimmer
rowaphos reactor
UV filter
Baffle filter sponge removed
Roller fleece clarisea filter
2 x AI wave pumps
1 x cube a day of frozen food
1 x feed a day of pellets
50L water change weekly

Parameters:
Ammonia: 0
PH: 8.2
Nitrates: 20
Phosphates: 0.0-0.1
Salinity: 1.024
Nitrites: 0
Alkilinity: 8 dkh
Magnesium: 1170
Calcium: 420

Thanks in advance!

 

[twilliard]

Grab a good size portion of the red mat and put it in 1 cup of tank water. Add 10ml of H2O2 (no stirring or aeration) wait 24 hours and let us know if it changes color tomorrow.
This will tell me if it's spirulina or not.

 

[Jonesyg]

Unfortunately I don't have Hydrogen peroxide to hand, here are some pictures which might help, thanks:

 

[Krully]

Dry rock? There's 0 science behind what I'm saying but I started with MarcoRocks last year for my first tank, a few months after boom cyano, battled it for a few weeks (maybe 2 months?) vacuuming the sand and blowing off the cyano whenever I could and it went away at some point.

Now I set up another tank a few months ago using the exact same method (same rock, sand, starting products) and surprise, I got cyano on my sandbed once again. I'm just blasting it off whenever I can and doing regular water changes, I'll give it a few months if it stays manageable and hope it'll just disappear again. But it could be just part of the ugly stage.

 

[Jonesyg]

Interesting, yes this was all dry rock, I had issues with hitchhikers and aptasia in the last tank so went this way as i thought it would create less issues! Maybe I was wrong!

 

[Krully]

I think you did good, it's just a different challenge. I would try using a turkey baster everyday to remove the slime and then you can siphon it into a filter sock or something!

 

[Jonesyg]

I have a battery powered vacuum which does the job. Just takes a while!

 

[brandon429]

.. 525l I just saw, had asked about gallonage of tank

get a nice uv sterilizer

clean up the cyano, its less likely to come back

 

[Jonesyg]

I have had UV running from the start, have cleaned it all up 2-3 times now, much less this time round with the reduced phosphate though

 

[deerhunter06]

its probably a combo of excess lighting, your nitrates, and excess feeding you reduce all 3 for a short time (week or two) and i bet it improves, and maybe up your flow if you can.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

I just added cyano rx to my tank, 72 hr wait now.....no skimmer or carbon
This is my third attempt, 1st with a new container. Hopefully it gets rid of it.

 

[dwest]

I did what you are doing after I started up my latest tank. I drove my phosphates low with gfo. The next thing to happen was dinos. For over a year. They killed almost everything.

A year and some change later, I vacuum some red slime ( a little less each time) monthly but dinos are gone and the tank is great. I guess what I am trying to tell you is being very careful with phosphate remover. In fact, I would not use it. Your red slime will naturally go away very slowly by maintaining your tank.

 

[Robertellis30]

Have you tried using chemi-clean!

 

[Jonesyg]

Have you tried using chemi-clean!

Yep wasn't impressed with the results and came back as I havent cracked the source of the issue

 

[Texas Rick]

UV sterilizer takes care of it. Just bought one, been running it a week. Haven’t seen it come back. Along with some other issues

 

[Robertellis30]

What type of lighting are you currently using?

 

[bigjgmac]

I used Chemi-Clean and followed the directions verbatim. It worked as advertised. Than Thien at Tidal Gardens is a proponent, which is a good enough backstop for me. That dude is next-level. Give it a shot. Dose as recommended. It worked for me.

 

[Robertellis30]

When using chemiclean I would say clean up as much as you can manually followed by a large water change. Then use the actual tank volume instead of water volume when treating. Then possibly use vibrant to help battle it.

 

[Jonesyg]

What type of lighting are you currently using?

I have chinese leds, checked with a par meter when i installed and have no complaints so far, couldn't justify AI's prices at the time. I have most growth of the red slime at night, I don't know if this is a delayed reaction from the light during the day though.

I have increased my return pump flow, Ill kill the lights over the weekend and clean as much out the sump and tank as I can. I have a 24W UV lamp with built in pump, debating if that is big enough now though.

 

[K7BMG]

I am not the scientist but my battle with red slime I found it to never grow in the dark.
In fact in the morning when the lights first came on it always had reduced.
It would grow and sometimes double growth during the day to make up for it though.

I am not a fan of additives so I got rid of it by doing the following.
Eliminating all the white light spectrums.
Went with 100% blue spectrum lighting.
Reduced the lighting schedule by 1 hour a day.

I feed frozen foods, so I take PE Mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, LRS herbivore, Spirolina, Selcon, and Garlic. Mix it into a paste spread that into silicone 1/4 inch cube ice trays and freeze it.
I take 6 cubes melt it in a small cup of tank water and dump it in twice a day.
However to rid myself of Cyano I melted the food and then sifted it through a fine net removing the liquids and just feeding the solids.

I also upped the game in my sump and built an algae scrubber with a Kessel 360.
Literally in two weeks it was gone 100%.