Do I stand a chance? GHA and Red Slime

Probably don't need one. They go around $50 plus a powerhead . I use them. In a bag a high flow area is fine. In a reactor the gfo can tumble too much if flow is too high and grind down to dust. Again I'd keep the gfo and carbon in separate bags to allow you to change them at different times.
 
tmz said:
For clarification: I don't know of any crabs that eat cyano. They are all predatory ,However. The sally lightfoot (Percon gibbesi)is particualy so. I've never seen any other variant than the Prcon gibbesi in the hobby. Thee are numerous reports of the damage they cause as they get larger up to 4 inches

. For more on them see : "Marine Reef Invertebrates". by Dr Ronald Shimek,pg 263.

This from it:
"...Not reef safe...;.. 'Jeklyl and Hyde crab',it will seem safe for months and then will undergo a personality shift ,probably due to sexual maturity...;... The crab lunges and often catches fishes. Large one's will tear apart sea anemones and corals to get their gut contents and they will feast on small hermit crabs. These crabs are very fast and nearly impossible to catch,except in baited traps..."
Click to expand...

I'll just add that you do not want these crabs in your tank. When I took over the big tank here there was one already in it and we had basically no chance to get it out. I suspected it was responsible for the disappearance of a few small fish. When we broke down the old tank it was captured and given to another fishkeeper (with the warning that it was most likely dangerous), and he put it in a large aggressive fish only tank. It ended up killing a full grown power blue tang that was more than twice its size.
 
It's been about 6 weeks since I started doing religiously 25% RO DI water changes, cutting back on light and running GFO and Carbon. Although the GHA and Redslime growth has slowed, it doesn't seem to be withering up and dying like I would have expected. The red slime is starting to get on my nerves as its covering the rocks and sand, just looking as ugly as ever.

My question now is, how does URS feel about Ultralife Red Slime remover and what are the precautions of using it? I know this isn't a solution, rather a temporary fix, but I think once I have it removed, the tanks params are back on track and it should grow back nearly as badly. Mainly I'd like it to get down to a manageable level.


Also side note: I will be buying a BRS dual reactor to run my carbon and gfo (since its about 15 cheaper during the group buy) instead of using the filter bags. I think this should make a huge difference in pulling phosphates.

This weekend I will be posting pics of the progress I've made so far. I'm hoping to put together a timeline to give people with problems like I had hope and not give up like I almost did!
 
Hang in there! Like Johny mentioned above, it is likely that your rocks are soaked with bad stuff, nothing that won't turn around with some patience.

I would try to hold off the red slime remover - the stuff tanks your PH and drops your oxygen levels. Not to mention the tank crashing from all the die-off.

FWIW - I'm not at all a fan of cutting lights out for days at a time, you will visually make progress, but nothing that will last after the lights are back on, and the corals will suffer.

a reactor is a very nice to have, stay on top and maintain them.

for the red slime vacuum it out:

(1) you can use a tube and siphon into a bucket (you vacuum, someone else holds the tube in the bucket), bend the tube to restrict the flow, the nice part about this method is you can match the amount of replacement water you have.

(2) use a venturi based vacuum like the Python available at most pet stores.

The red slime should just pull off, if is does not use a Kent scraper (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4072) and SLOWLY scrape off while sucking the bad stuff out.

IMO the key here:
* frequent water changes (exporting the bad stuff)
* on every water change vacuum out as much as you can (exporting the bad stuff)
* when vacuuming the sand you will pull some sand out, no biggie. if it clogs the python reveres flow into a bucket to clean out)
* run GFO (reducing phosphate, exporting the bad stuff)
* continue running carbon
* don't turn off lights for extended periods of time

Hang in there!
 
Hang in there! Slowing the growth is the first step in the process.

Like everyone else said above, keep doing multiple water changes a week, and make sure you remove the GHA and red slime during your water changes. Depending on how long you used tap water, and how bad your tap water is, a lot of phosphates are in your LR. While your numbers may look good, it's probably due to all the GHA and red slime using up the excess nutrients. As those nutrients slowly leach out of your rock during water changes, there will be less and less to replace what was removed. When there isn't enough excess nutrients left, the GHA and red slime will start to die off. So, like I said, seeing their growth slow is a good first step, because it means you are slowly removing all those excess nutrients out of your system.

My bf and I only used Syracuse tap water for ONE month in his tank, and we had a horrible outbreak of GHA that took SIX months of regular water changes with RO/DI water, manual removal, and using phosphate pads and carbon before our GHA/red slime issues were resolved. :headwalls:

Be patient and keep it up!! :thumbsup:
 
Here's a before and after FTS. As you can see, I really haven't had much improvement and I've been following everything by the book. Hopefully once I setup the dual reactor w/ gfo and carbon, I'll start seeing better results.

4/5/2011:
<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/SQQHaaEycoldM_TaKdjUcw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_MoIvsMXqKTM/TZuldi41mYI/AAAAAAAAABk/w7c8_lTfZTg/s640/2011-04-05_18-32-41_659.jpg" height="361" width="640" /></a>

5/22/2011:
<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/n_pFw7W5MhlAZoqtJRdetA?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_MoIvsMXqKTM/Tdl5tq8bT1I/AAAAAAAAACU/7TxK4CBBHa4/s640/DSC00593.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a>

4/5/2011:
<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/S00h-EB_928eFPqEutPlkg?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_MoIvsMXqKTM/TZulqpcUmiI/AAAAAAAAABQ/DSiC7FlUyu8/s640/2011-04-05_18-33-16_438.jpg" height="640" width="361" /></a>


5/22/2011:
<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3eXexAgt28l8d_c0oEDH3g?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_MoIvsMXqKTM/Tdl54iX-SrI/AAAAAAAAACk/UmtNNgaOD_A/s640/DSC00596.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a>
 
Agree, seems improved. Have you been siphoning out with a python? The reactor will help! It's going to take a month or two at minimum to get on the other side of this. Chances are your system is heavy on phosphate
 
Consistancy is key here. I just finished battling it in my tank... regular water changes, running carbon and chaeto in the fuge, heavy skimming, and filter pads (long with regular vodka dosing) has gotten me through.

I think the most important thing is not to freak out and start dumping all kinds of chemicals in your tank. Take things slow, easy and methodically.
 
the "battle" against nuisance algae never ends!

I scrolled through this thread quickly. Tom posted a lot of things that I would have posted.

Perhaps I missed it, but I have two questions: what kind of skimmer are you running and what S.G. do you run the aquarium at?
 
Have you measured your Magnesium level? I had an issue like this with a tank in the past and I did two things: ran a good amount of GFO and I bumped Mag up to 1500 or so. The green hair died off in a week and the red slime went away with a few water changes. I wouldn't have believed it had I not witnessed it first hand. Do a little reading about Mag and green hair algae.
 
The gfo would take down the PO4. Green algae is limited at .03pppm PO4 or less.
using it often causes nuisance algae to wane without any magnesium addition.

I don't think 1500 mag would have much effect on green algae . Higher alk might.

I'm personally skeptical of the Kent M thing which is claimed to work on bryopsis via some unknown impurity in the supplement when large bumps to at least 1600ppm are done . Too many variables to make sense of or to offer a plausible hypothesis beyond a mystery impurity ,imo. Not a lot of data on shifts in alk , coincident husbandry practices occuring or other potentialy significant variables with the Kent M dosing to satisfy me that's it's perceived effect on bryopsis is more than a placebo.

Extrapolating the percieved effect to other magnesium supplements at even lower levels is .

Having said that I don't think it will do harm to run mag at 1500ppm . If , however, there really is is an unknown impurity toxic to bryopsis in the Tech M I'd worry it might harm other organisms too.
 
I used Mag Hexahydrate and GFO together. One of them did the trick for sure. It was within a week and the hair algae started dying off. I think it's worth testing to see if it's low, in any case.
 
Wow, So glad this thread got bumped. Great info here.

I currently use an ASM G1x on my 75g and my salinity is pretty steady at 1.025
 
On another note, I beefed up my clean up crew and have seem massive improvements since adding. I also added a carbon and GFO reactor. From where I started, I'd say I've extracted 40-50% of the nuisance algae. By the end of the summer, I should have this thing beat.
 
Eric: How's your Cyano problem?
I'm on my way out of this problem. My tank is about 3 yrs old. Mine was almost as bad as yours. At first it looks like a nice Red carpet. I could litterally see it multiplying daily. I used Chemiclean & it cleared up almost all of it in a few days. My downfall was: using tap water. I've since bought an RoDi & do faithful WC's. I've since bought a nice HOB skimmer. It has come back a little so I relocated a maxijet 1200 I have in there. Seems to be stabilizing. I've put phosban in a sock & placed it in my FX5 filter( no reactor till today). Its been since May 30 since I began taking care of this. Like I said , I just hooked up a reactor today with BRS GFO hi-capacity & this should do the trick. My Po4 has been through the roof. Hopefully this brings it down. I have a FOWLR. 150 lbs. of LR. I've also added a CUC & vacuum my sand.
Good luck with yours.
 
Last edited:
Nice work! Others have already posted a lot of the great advice that I followed when I defeated the problem a few years ago.

My FOWLR was covered with GHA due to use of tap water and a heavy bio load. It took several months of water changes with RODI, the addition of a refugium, and a skimmer upgrade to defeat it. There are rocks in my system that were completely covered with GHA during that time and they have no signs at all today.

A couple of questions:
-Do you measure SG with a refractometer? If so, has it been calibrated recently?
-Do you use filter socks? if so, how often do you swap/clean them?
 
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