Red Slime all over sand bed

[Tj305]

Hello,

I have been fighting red slime for a couple months now and nothing seems to work. Maybe someone here has some insight.
I have dosed my tank with Boyd Chemi-Clean Red Cyanobacteria Aquarium Treatment as suggested by the direction and nothing happens.
I have lowered my lights to about 30% and only run for 6 hours a day.
Also increased the speed of the wave maker to 100% thinking its because of water movement.

as for what I have in my tank. its a red sea 350. I have a protein skimmer and also a 9W UV light. I feed the fish 3 times a week, and I dose with C balance once a week.

I have also bought a star fish and that hasn't really helped, and bought 2 Sand Sifting Goby but died in less than a month.

any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[brandon429]

Uv would fix that I bet. That’s not any imbalance that’s normal reef fare which scuba divers would see much more of in the wild. Nice tank

For the minor tuning to zap that for the look we want, cheap uv off amazon it’ll help again one day. Doesn’t have to run 24 7

Your sandbed cross section is clean there’s nothing wrong with the bed

 

[Tennyson]

What are your tank parameters? Particularly nitrates/phosphate? Your slime problem is not severe, so I would not make any extreme changes.

My guess is phosphates might be high (above 0.25). Nitrates may also contribute to your problem. I'd recommend a nutrient export regiment. Some things you might not have tried yet:

- More frequent / larger water changes (Make sure you change with di water, not tap).
- Running chaeto/macros or a refugium
- Running gfo (granular ferric oxide) to reduce phosphates
- Running carbon
- Buying a sand sifting goby for beginners and making sure it is adequately fed (3x/week might have starved it).

 

[Tennyson]

Just noticed, your sand bed is very thin too, this might be why the gobies died.

 

[LesPoissons]

honesty it doesnt look bad at all. check your phos and maybe get a lower gph powerhead to improve circulation nearer to the sand bed. Your corals look beautiful.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Doesn't look that red from the photos, to me it looks like diatoms, only my opinion though. I had a thick dark red slime on mine that matted on the sand mine was phosphates related, so a reading of phosphates and nitrates would be helpful though. As if cyano its normally an imbalance.