Cyanobacteria (red slime) woes ...

ravedood

ravedood

Active member
So I was having a problem with Cyanobacteria (red/green) slime for some time now. I dosed my tank a few times with Blue Life Red Slime Control and that had seemed to work. Yesterday I took a look at my refugium and it was cover with red slime but it wasnt in the main tank. I was thinking about trying Boyd Chemi-Clean this time. Has anyone tried this product or can recommend of a better product?

I don't understand why I keep having this problem. I have shorten my lighting cycle to being on for only 8 hours a day max. The 75 watt refugium light stays on 24/7. I do a 10% water change about every 2 weeks. I don't over feed my fish anymore. What else could I be doing wrong?
 
Do you check your intake water for silicates or just TDS? (your RO/DI water)

If you're not getting any in the main display but only in the sump, consider yourself lucky. If that's the case, it means that there's a nutrient problem somewhere in your system, but the flow in your tank is keeping the cyano out, so it only grows in the lower flow areas, like the fuge.
 
I have an in-line TDS meter on my RO/DI unit and it reads 000ppm. How can I test for silicates? Should I increase that water flow in my refugium?
 
I spent months trying to eliminate red slime.

new m/h bulbs
new r/o system and filters
new vho bulbs
upgraded from asm g3 to g6 skimmer

The only thing that seemed to work was 3 rapid water changes. oddly enough i need a filter change (tds at 13) and I have no cyano... go figure.

Some advice i was given was, if its in your sump, let it grow. it may use whatever nutrients it needs and not have enough to infiltrate your main display.

I never used the chemical treatments though.

good luck!
 
What is your flow like? I would up my flow in the tank. Are you running a skimmer? I suggest large water changes often. Myabe every week. Increase flow in the tank. Dump some power heads in the main tank. The flow is restricted in your fuge which is why the nutirents are allowing it to grow in your fuge. Boyds is good stuff but you are only putting a band aid on it that way. Just my 2 cents. Godd luck.
 
You should increase the water flow ...also try to lower ur nitrates.... if u have it in ur sump dnt worry about it.. as long u dnt get it in the main tank u r good..i will suggest try the Dr G's Red Slime remover ITs good... but you MOST turn off ur skimmer,UV and take out all ur carbon... bcz they will absorb the remover and wont do anything in the tank...also add some air pump while u r doing this bcz it will drop the oxygen lever...scrub as much slime as u can, try to syphon it and most likely it will work... well good luck dude!
 
My old refugium always had red slime because of the low flow. I never had tds issues with ro/di or phosphates. I would up the flow in the fuge and see what happens.

hth

-Matthew
 
oh, btw, i think the way i fixed it was to turn my lights on 24/7 in my fuge. the chaeto like doubles in size every month or so.
 
My lights are on 24/7 in my fuge. Actually now that i think about it the problem started after I started leaving the light on 24/7 in the fuge. What I did last night was increase the flow in the fuge. I will do a water change this weekend. I would like to get rid of the problem naturally instead of dosing it with chemicals all the time. I will report back next week with the status of my fuge. Thanks a lot guys for all your help.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13641391#post13641391 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gasman059
Or just simply get rid of your fuge=source of issues.
Click to expand...

x2

And what skimmer are you running, what size is your tank, and what is the bioload like?

Have a rockin skimmer? If so then just shut off the fuge light forever. Maybe leave some rock down there or something just for crypto filtration, and leave the rest to the skimmer. I have found that my tank did better without a refugium, as my skimmer could uptake much more nutrients than a huge tank of cheato ever could, not to mention that the skimmer can significantly reduce organics in the water where algae will keep it the same or just increase it (hence the old tales of "gelbstoff" yellowing the water from having a photosynthetic refugium).
 
It is a 55 gallon tank and a 10 gallon fuge. I am running a Seaclone 100 protein skimmer . I have about 6 fish in sizes from small to medium.
 
yea, a skimmer like that won't get you into the ultra low nutrient club, so in your situation the cheato should keep control with keeping nutrients on the lower end, but the problems with that are again the cyano and probably some nusience algae here and there.

You could cut back on feeding I guess, but you said you've already done that a bit... Maybe feed every other day or so? Trying to up the flow would be very helpful as well. As long as it isn't in your display you're doing pretty well on your own
 
i say as long as its not in the display its no big deal but youve got either phos or nitrates and as long as its not coming from yur water source routine water changes should do the trick along with increased flow.... phosban reactor + rowaphos did the trick for me ;)
 
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