Hello to every one in the first state . This is my first time posting and need help. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what this red stuff is that is and how to get rid of it. It started as a little patch and has now taken over my hole tank. thanks in advance for any and all advice.
That is red slime a.k.a. cyano bacteria. There is a product made by Blue Vet which is so aptly named “Red Slime Control” that usually clears it up after a couple of days.
thanks. I guess it does not affect anything else in the tank.
+1 Cyano
Usually excess nutrients cause an outbreak. Not a good thing.
Read the directions carefully with Red Slime Remover. If you use the product pysically remove as much cyano as you can.It works but you have a lot of cyano and if it were to die all at once it will crash your tank.
Welcome to DRC.
It appears to by cyanobacteria, or red slime. It comes from to many nutrients in the water in addition to light. It will go away on its own if the nutrient (aka Nitrate) problem is solved. Using RO water helps alot, so does cutting down on the amount that is fed each time to make sure that your fish consume all of it. Water changes will also help to get rid of it (this works much better when using RO water). In addition to all of these, there is a product called ChemiClean that can help out as well. When treaded according to the directions, it is quite effective at killing it off. Unless the nutrient problems are solved however it will come back eventually, so first focus on that before resorting to ChemiClean.
Tell us a little more about your tank. Is it fish only, or a reef tank? BTW I’m glad you found us, hopefully we can help you get this fixed and your tank back to normal.
[quote=“a1amap, post:4, topic:901”]
If you use the product pysically remove as much cyano as you can.It works but you have a lot of cyano and if it were to die all at once it will crash your tank.[/quote]
Quite true. Siphoning it out with a small tube when you do a water change will help alot as well. It should come up fairy easily… in fact a little more flow probably couldnt hurt… when I had some in our tank I belive that it was partly due to not enough flow.
i have the same problem in my frag tank. today i desided i had enough and cut the light an hour early. i will do a water change in the next few days and i have some detox like luquid ill pour in there.
will changing the carbon the carbon help?
thanks everyone im glad i found out about you guys too. A little about my tank. I currently use ro/di water and test almost every 3 days. All levels are good i think.
salt 1.028
temp 80
ph 8.0-8.2 night and day
nitrate 0
ammonia 0
nitrite o
phosphate 0
calcium 420
kh 11dkh
The tank is a 55 gal with 20 gal sump and 10 gal refug.
i do a 15-20% water change every week.
So i can not see why i have excess nutrients. i have to be missing something.
I started by trying to suck most of it up while doing water changes but it seems to be growing back thicker and spreding. thanks again for helping.
Hmm… sounds like you are doing everything right. I had a similar problem a while back with green cyano. It seemed to grow no matter what I did. I finally kicked it with ChemiClean. It killed it off an it hasnt come back. I think the cyano was just using up the nutrients before the other things could take care of them.
P.S. What/when/how much do you feed? I cut that down a little more and I think that was part of the solution.
i do think i was feeding a little too much. I have cut it back a bit. Maybe that was the problem. I was just reading the post about the diff salts and affects of changing. I just switched from crystal sea to reef crystal do any of you guys think i will have any additional problems.
rc is a good salt i personally use it. i like it.
Cant say about the salt… we have only ever used two types for our tank and neither of those is one of them. You dont really have to cut back on feeding, I just cut back on how much at a time. I still feed about the same amount during a day, but more feedings of less stuff.
I’ve went through some fighting with cyano recently and still a bit because I’m not using RO/DI. I went the sans-chemical route. Sorry I hadn’t read through all the posts if you use RO/DI water. My research showed that your test results will all come out 0 for nitrates when you have cyano, because it is sucking it up as it is being created. It also revealed that cyano will feed off of its self and will take off as you can tell already. Nitrates and phosphates.
My methods were:
Suck it out every single day
Cut back the lighting a bit
Cut back on over feeding.
Sucking it out allows the cyano to eat most of the nutrients out of the water then you suck it out so it can’t spread. This will also cause you to do semi- water changes as you suck out water with the cyano. It sucks out super easy.
Sucking it out is the best method. Stirring it up just makes it spread IMO
i would agree with all that has been said. i also feel strongly with the flow issue. what are you using for flow?
I have 2 Koralia 4’s in the display they are at the top of the tank pointed straight out one in the front right and the other at the back left. The idea was to circulate the water at the top and it will whirl wind down to the rest of the tank. Should I point them down more and aim them at specific spots.
[quote=“edubs23, post:16, topic:901”]
I have 2 Koralia 4’s in the display they are at the top of the tank pointed straight out one in the front right and the other at the back left. The idea was to circulate the water at the top and it will whirl wind down to the rest of the tank. Should I point them down more and aim them at specific spots.[/quote]
The whirlpool will leave a lot of dead areas in the tank. Place a PH on each side of the tank focused almost at each other, this will create the most “random, chaotic” flow possible with 2 power heads. Adjust as necessary to try to eliminate dead zones.
Dead zones are where there is no flow and food and detrious is allowed to accumulate and create nasty algae sources.
I beg to differ; a whirlpool will move the most water of all water movement options. (researched it) The “chaotic flow” of crashing water into itself while more random will also move less water as the energy is lost when it encounters the opposing flow
I’m with Al on the whirlpool method. Also, if you kill your light for three days (totally no light) the cyano will make a drastic retreat. Once it does, it’s much easier to keep under control.
JoE PoM
Cyano is bacterial and therefore is not as effected by turning the lights off.
The whirlpool will move a lot of water around the center of the tank )picture the cone) leaving the lower corners dead.