What is this and what causes it?

[Company101]

It's not a great pic. But it's a slime it looks like that covers all the coral.

Thanks for the help!!!

 

[FishLipz]

Tough to tell from the pic. What color is the slime? How old is your tank? If your tank is relatively new and the slime is brown it could be a diatom bloom. It's a natural part of the aging of a new tank and will clear on its own. If it's a red slime, it's most likely Cyanobacteria. It usually occurs in areas where you have a build up of detritus or nutrients. I get it in areas with poor water circulation sometimes. If it's green it's likely some sort of algae and it's usually caused by excessive nutrients (nitrate or phosphate).

 

[3Twinklets]

Looks like the dreaded Cyano.

 

[Company101]

It's kinda reddish. It's gets all over the tank. The tank is 6-7 months old. I have been blowing off as it builds up. Should I be doing that? It looks like is chokes the coral .

 

[Company101]

I don't understand. I have lots of hair algae. Got 13-15 snails. Some blue legged and a few red legged hermits. Also running a gfo carbon reactor.

 

[FishLipz]

If it's reddish, it's Cyanobacteria. Some helpful info here

CYANORRA SUCKER: Getting rid of cyanobacteria algae - REEFEDITION

 

[Reef4Life]

Looks to be most likely cyano I would recommend taking prices off during water changes and reduce your feeding and higher the flow in tanks cyano isn't really a algae it's actually a bacteria and with a little higher flow and keeping your nutrients down should get rid of it

 

[Company101]

I feed once a day. And that has only been recently. I used to feed once or twice a week. But I have fish so it wasn't fair to them.

 

[Reef4Life]

What's the flow rate in your tank and your parameters?

 

[Company101]

Not quite sure what size return pump I have. It's a eheim pump. It's Y on the return. And have two 600 power heads on a wavemaker. Though I don't see much of a wave honestly.

My phosphates were .25 this morning. And I did a 5 gallon water change on a 70 gallon system.

 

[prsnlty]

Are you using rodi water for top off and water chanfes?

 

[prsnlty]

Changes*

 

[Reef4Life]

Using RODI water is also a big part when I used to make my own saltwater from Red Sea coral pro salt i used tap water and it made my tank have a huge cyano out break

 

[Company101]

Yeah I use ro/DI water. With a 0-1 on a tds meter.