red cotton growth.

[Dave57]

recently saw this red cotton growth spreading on my button polyps coral.

i tried to remove them by lightly scratching them off with a plastic fork. but they regenerate daily. and my scratching goes on daily...

think my buttons is depleting with days. not spreading to other places of my tank.

what is that? and how do i remove it completely? and what had i done wrong? hope to learn about my mistakes.

[Hondace]

If there is also bubbles present then it should be cyanobacteria aka red slime algae. guess u must be over feeding or too many LS. so the bio-load is too high.

u should :

reduce feeding

change 25% water

or use red slime remover (if i remember the brand correctly, it should be Ultra Life or Ultra something)

[ervine]

Photo would be good...

[Gouldian]

Hi Dave57,

I agree with hondace, it could be cynobacteria. But it will be good to have a picture to confirm.

Anyway, never, scrape on cyno, it will cause the spores to be release and results in more areas of your tank covered with it eventually.

Red slime remover seems to be the easiest method. But there are some reeffers out there that are against nuking their tank - they will use a siphon to suck to cyno out.

Being a typical Singaporean, I have tried Red Slime Remover and I have no complains.

[Dave57]

yeah, got bubbles release while i scrape them...

think i better leave them alone.

if i reduce feeding and change water, will they disappear by themselves? must i add chemicals? i'm quite reluctant to adding chemicals to my tanks.

is there any LS that feeds on these algae? i doubt i got too high bioload, cos only 1 tomatoe clown and 2 fire shrimps in the the 2' tank.

quite worried now, cos they seem to be "eating" my buttons polyps.

[Golden Tooth]

yeah, got bubbles release while i scrape them...

think i better leave them alone.

if i reduce feeding and change water, will they disappear by themselves? must i add chemicals? i'm quite reluctant to adding chemicals to my tanks.

is there any LS that feeds on these algae? i doubt i got too high bioload, cos only 1 tomatoe clown and 2 fire shrimps in the the 2' tank.

quite worried now, cos they seem to be "eating" my buttons polyps.

Yup. It's cyanobacteria.

There's no LS that feeds on it. Takes time to clear.

Try improving the water circulation. Reduce tank photoperiod for the time being. Improve skimming process. Frequent water change.

[Dave57]

ok thanks~

is it harmful to my other LS?