Nasty wispy red algae growing in/around my SPS ... help?

[NewSchool04]

looks like cyano to me

 

[ostrow]

It turns out Mike Hurley was wrong

It turns out Mike Hurley was wrong

Ding, ding, ding, ding!!!! Someone on the other thread called it red cotton algae, and his was caused by overly old RO/DI filters.

Well, so it turns out Mike Hurley was wrong: zero tds isn't zero tds!

I had focused on that number. Tonight I looked at the filters. Not only were they black, but the housings were coated in green algae. Yuck. Couldn't seem to get the membrane out and with no spare I didn't want to chance it (how are you supposed to get that sucker out of there, anyway???). But flushed it real good -- 15min. Hopefully whatever was in there is also gone.

And now I have 5 brand new cartridges going, in clean housings.

Let's see....

 

[miztic]

Nice! I've been having the same evil algea and a year+ old membrane.. did swap out all the other filters a few times..
I HOPE thats it!

 

[Sullyman]

Joel, have you ever put a power head right up to your RO/DI and really blown them out, LOL.
I'm thinking it may still take a while to clear up but that's got to be the problem, glad you found it.
Nice to put a name with a bad thing.

 

[NewSchool04]

Ostrow, that is cyano. If you can take a turkey baster to it and it blows away, it's definitely cyano. Replacing your filters can't hurt but that doesn't change the fact that it's . . cyano!

Red cotton algae is hairy and much worse. You're lucky

 

[badazztealcobra]

Joel, are you still going to somehow remove it manually, or are you thinking that changing the membranes alone should take care of the problem ???

Are you just going to start doing rather large water changes to try to get that old water out ???

 

[icenine2005]

Good lord man... is it really the RCA and not cyano?

Better evacuate the house... I've heard that stuff crawls outa yer tank and will plant itself on your upper lip.
True story... I've sen pics on the interwebz.

I still bet the chemi clean Doug offered will clear it up if you figured out what was setting it off.

good thing it's not cyano, eh?

:lol:

 

[kimoy]

that is definitely a cyano. I had this before on my old 55 and chemiclean took care of it. do a 25-30 percent water change 1-2 days after dosing. I did a double dose than the recomended and it never came back.

 

[JNye]

i got the stuff too, mine is in high flow areas too and its makes these long hairy strands...wispy. I think its cyano too. My filters are all brand new and membrane. As stated this can't hurt but i don't believe its the problem. I actually stopped doing water changes because i thought it might be something in my salt mix fueling it. I use Oceanic currently. Its been 3 weeks since a WC and its actually helping. I had my water tested by AWT about 1 1/2 months ago and my results had high molybendum and they indicated this can cause cyano blooms. I also had high silicates.
I am planning on a retest soon.
From what I have read the stuff needs high nutrients too bloom, but not to sustain. Meaning if it gets a foothold its hard to get rid of it. I guess it uses light once it takes hold. I think the answer is manual removal and fixing any problems with nutrients you may have(sounds like that has been done) and then kill it via chemi-clean. This is my plan as well. I will be dosing chemi-clean later this week. good luck.

 

[ostrow]

I've just read too many nuked tank stories from chemi-clean to go that route. Experienced folk following directions exactly.

 

[MBasile]

Does it look like that?? Thats that red cotton stuff. It was all over my tank while I was away and my dad was trying to figure things out. Turbo fluctuas, the giant mexican turbo does eat it though, so after lots of cleaning and changing R/O, they were able to eat it all.

good luck!

-Matt