Help! Red slime out of control

[babyduke]

My 55G tank is taken over by red slime. Unfortunately, it's built into the wall so it's hard to get into every corner to thoroughly clean. I've been brushing them out and changing water, lessened the hours for lights, feed smaller, even added an army of ceriths, nerite, mexican turbos, hermits, margarita and pin cushion urchin. It almost seems like as I brush to siphon it out, I'm seeding it all over. I've added more flow to the tank too.

Any more ideas? Reactor? I've never used it before.

 

[Sk8r]

Yes. There's a post on how to cure this stuff, and it's pretty simple. First of all, adjust your skimmer to work at its most efficient; second, turn out all lights (go on ambient room light only) for 3 days, then bring up your blue actinics for the 4th day, and resume regular lighting on the 4th day.

You may have to do this once a month for the next several months. This is a bacterial sheet that eats light, carbon and water, and the deprivation of light is the really effective way to discourage it. Your other measures are not bad for the tank (except maybe the lighting adjustment [depends on whether it was ok in the first place]) but they didn't strike it hard enough in its life requirements. The reason for the skimmer is to uptake the dieoff and get it out of the tank cycles.

 

[babyduke]

I have soft corals like zoas, mushrooms, and frog spawns as well as red bubble tip anemone. Wouldn't shutting off light for that long possibly harm them?

 

[pinnatus]

Lights out for that long will not hurt them

Another way to get rid of it is chemiclean.

 

[Sk8r]

Try the light thing first. And stay with it.

Chemiclean is an antibiotic that is gram-whatever-the-sandbed-isn't, but it leaves problems. Last resort only, in a young tank. I did it once, and it took me a year and a half to get pods to live in the tank.

 

[babyduke]

Ok, I'll go with the lighting thing first. BTW, this tank has been set up for over 5 1/2 yrs.