Why still so many red algae?

[Joeteng]

I have keep for almost 9months and my red algae is always coming back to haunt me! sad sad!!!!!! My coral are grwing well for mushroom and zoe but others are not doing too well. Probably I dont dare to feed too much as I worried the algae will be back. I have almost 15 fishes in my tanks and most are small size fishes and i only feed a cube size each day once. I dont think it is alot but why still red algae still growing? I have bio pellets, carbon filter, phosphate removal. I have a protein skimmer too. I have chaetos too! but it seems to be not working at all. Please advise?

[TayHongSiang]

I have keep for almost 9months and my red algae is always coming back to haunt me! sad sad!!!!!! My coral are grwing well for mushroom and zoe but others are not doing too well. Probably I dont dare to feed too much as I worried the algae will be back. I have almost 15 fishes in my tanks and most are small size fishes and i only feed a cube size each day once. I dont think it is alot but why still red algae still growing? I have bio pellets, carbon filter, phosphate removal. I have a protein skimmer too. I have chaetos too! but it seems to be not working at all. Please advise?

i had a recent red slime outbreak that wipe out almost my entire sps...i have dose amox, no used..they will come back. In the end, i used threw away those infested rocks n recomm my tank....

pls do not attempt to use toothbrush to clean it...they will spread even faster

likely this is due to massive die-off of beneficial bacteria in the rocks, resulting in po4 leakage from the rocks....no amt of PO4 remover is gonna help...u r wasting $$$....water change will help a little, but not much....try red slime ultraslime remover...this may nuke the red slime, but u have to dose a lot of bacteria to restore the biological system....all the best!....be prepared to have sleepless nights n mood swings...sorry if i sound blunt...just sharing my personal experience

[sherman]

I also have this red slime issue a few months back.Lost a lot of LS especially SPS.

Do daily water change and weekly phos change and now after 3 months then it is slowing

down.

Really don't know what happen

[Rxcp14]

Can i join too? Sighh on off battle nv ends...

[Joeteng]

i had a recent red slime outbreak that wipe out almost my entire sps...i have dose amox, no used..they will come back. In the end, i used threw away those infested rocks n recomm my tank....

pls do not attempt to use toothbrush to clean it...they will spread even faster

likely this is due to massive die-off of beneficial bacteria in the rocks, resulting in po4 leakage from the rocks....no amt of PO4 remover is gonna help...u r wasting $$$....water change will help a little, but not much....try red slime ultraslime remover...this may nuke the red slime, but u have to dose a lot of bacteria to restore the biological system....all the best!....be prepared to have sleepless nights n mood swings...sorry if i sound blunt...just sharing my personal experience

What do you meant by PO4 leakage? Never heard b4? Why there is a leakage? Yes there is always lots of powdery brown stuffs hiding under the rocks.Is that what you meant?

[dulcet]

If you disturb the sand too much, there will be leakage of nutrients,

same for live rock, if there are too much dead zones (no flow area), over time nutrients (debris) will accumulate there, and leakage will happen.

What i suggest is to reduce lighting, i once had a serious red slime problem but i use Chemiclean Red Slime Remover to remove them, works great for me, even my snail's shell became clean lol, but some reefer dun really recommend them.

After tht i just stock more sand dollars and strombus, which kept my sand clean.

[desideria]

i used the red slime remover.. can't remember what brand but it's a yellow powder... worked like a charm to remove all the crap but take note if you use the red slime remover, your skimmer is going to go overboard with the skimming. Caused a mini flood for me as mine is an external skimmer and it started wet skimming like CRAZY... have to tone down your skimmer when you dose the slime remover.

After that throw in copious amounts of bacteria... for those rocks which the red slime didn't go away, I just chucked them.

[limsc]

i used the red slime remover.. can't remember what brand but it's a yellow powder... worked like a charm to remove all the crap but take note if you use the red slime remover, your skimmer is going to go overboard with the skimming. Caused a mini flood for me as mine is an external skimmer and it started wet skimming like CRAZY... have to tone down your skimmer when you dose the slime remover.

After that throw in copious amounts of bacteria... for those rocks which the red slime didn't go away, I just chucked them.

Me too, used this yellow powder red slime remover, I think brand is UltraLife.

Didn't research earlier and my skimmer cup over flows, luckily is in-sump model but still causes water splash in the interior of the cabinent.

Even i tune to the lowest level, still overflows >> End up i go skimmerless for a week but add in air pump into my sump to oxygenate the water.

After a week, water change and dose bacteria.

However i lost my black clown a week after the water change, not sure if its related to the red slime remover. The clown had been with me for 1+ yrs.

Rest of the life stock including corals all ok.

[finbir]

i used the red slime remover.. can't remember what brand but it's a yellow powder... worked like a charm to remove all the crap but take note if you use the red slime remover, your skimmer is going to go overboard with the skimming. Caused a mini flood for me as mine is an external skimmer and it started wet skimming like CRAZY... have to tone down your skimmer when you dose the slime remover.

After that throw in copious amounts of bacteria... for those rocks which the red slime didn't go away, I just chucked them.

Next time b 4 adding, plug a washing machine hose to the outflow of skimmer cup and drop the end into a toilet bucket. That way the skimmed stuff can flow without control n will eventually slow down. Then u can revert back to normal. No messy flr to clean up.

Works like a charm 4 me when I mischievously doused my 4-ftr with a cup of cooked mussel juice. Must be nuts!!

The skimming was tremendous, even after I shut the air valve. God! Luckily I reacted quickly. The whole tank become cloudy n I thought my tank was going to crash.The fishes became zombies. Ugh!

The water only cleared after I added Reef Adv Calcium, bit by bit, the next morn. Thank heavens as everything is back to normal.

[chiya]

is this the only way?

To use a red slime remover?

Has anyone tried a non-chemical way of removing red slime algae?

I've been manually removing them by scraping and suctioning them off.

My blue tang and astrea snails feed on them too.

Along with constant water changes, our battle is long and hard, but I personally would not want to use chemicals as the risk is quite big as mentioned by the earlier posters..

[poomoon]

just had my major battle last night on this. constant water changes still no effect for me after few weeks. as recommended dosed some amox, red slime on rocks quickly disappeared, but under sand (in glass) still spreading. some rocks start to have white patches, so dosed bac. finally, did overhaul last night, removed all sand, brushed and cleaned rocks, cleaned tank, and just tried going bb first. for now i can breathe a little better ...

[Emmanuel]

I've tried red slime remover . And it works for me . Maybe u can consider trying .

Good luck

[sherman]

just had my major battle last night on this. constant water changes still no effect for me after few weeks. as recommended dosed some amox, red slime on rocks quickly disappeared, but under sand (in glass) still spreading. some rocks start to have white patches, so dosed bac. finally, did overhaul last night, removed all sand, brushed and cleaned rocks, cleaned tank, and just tried going bb first. for now i can breathe a little better ...

Hi Bro,

What is amox?

Where to get?

Cheers

[vinccc2009]

I Had red slime outbreak before and killed my sps.

Now, red slime no more.or very minimum...what did I do, maybe it works on mine but not yours..so can try

1) reduce photoperiod.

2h wc twice monthly.

3) use RO water for top up <= main importance.

4) use PO4 remover

5) I actually took out my rocks with red slime n wash it. Never do it in your tank!

[clee123]

IMHO, red slime algae is mainly because PO4 level is high or conducive for them to grow... Unless you can keep your PO4 constantly at lower level or you find an effective way to remove the extra PO4... you will have this problem over and over again..

For immediate remedy here are my recommendations:

1) Do a major water change of at least 25%

2) Do a complete clean up of your sump tank (drain out all the water and sands like if you are starting a new sump tank)

For dosing, I use the following daily during the outbreak (1-2 weeks depend on the condition of the outbreak):

3) half dosage of ZeoBak + Coral Snow in the morning

4) half dosage of ZeoBak + ZeoZym ( mixed and kept for 9 hours) at night after the light out

++Red Slime remover is not that effective for me becoz of my tank size..

The first 2 steps are common sense and they help to immediately reduce the PO4 level or make the envornement less benefitical to the Red algae..

The step 3 is to increase the population of the beneficial bacteria (zeoBak) and CoralSnow helps to break down the particales in the water for better skimming or improve the skimming efficiency..

The step 4 is again dose ZeoBak to increase the beneficial bacteria and the ZeoZym is use to simulate the mulitiplicate rate of the beneficial bacteria.. As the beneficial bacteria multiply to certain level.. they comsume nutrients required as food for the red slime...and therefore reduce the red slime algae food source and propulation..

For long-term maintenance,

1) I suggest look at the skimming performance of your skimmer or find ways to improve the performance by using CoralSnow or GOPO4 as a supplement

2) Use or install a FR to export PO4 constantly

3) constant dosing of beneficial bacteria (best done after water change)

4) maintain regular water change

5) monitor and clean up the debris especailly in the sump area

[xjiahua]

You might wanna try having a black out period. Had a similar problem few weeks back until i accidentally had a black out period of 2 days due to the timer fault. Prior to it, it was spreading out due to my ignorance of scrubbing it away. The black out period kind of turned the red slime into dark brown colouration and my turbo snails started to munch the area clean.

[LittleBurger]

Anyone try bright well redox lean solution? Not sure if the compounds same as ultra life red slime remover.

It seems to break down DOC and make skimmer easier to get them out. Thinking of trying it.