Red Slime HELP!

[IShark]

I hope someone can help me! I have a big out brake of red slime algea in my tank. It is a 95 gal reef tank. My fish, coral and anemones seem to be doing fine. The algae is all over my rocks. I run my 2 175W MH from 11am-9pm. I feed once a day. I have a 55 gal sump/fuge with chaeto and LR, but my fuge has red slime algae too! I tried a treatment to get rid of it. I turned of my skimmer, took out the carbon and did a 25% water change after 48 hours of the treatment and still nothing! I heard about doing lights out for 2-3 days and not feeding during those days as well, but I'm affraid that will hurt my coral or fish! What can I do and what advice can you guys give me? My tank is about 4 months old.

 

[jasoncampbell83]

I have never had this problem but my grandparents did a couple years ago, they bought chemi clean red slime remover from our LFS it worked great, didnt hurt any coral or fish, also I would cut down on the time my lights were on per day until it clears up, since algae is photosynthetic.

 

[IShark]

And I have 1 K4 and 1 K3 on one side of my tank and 1 K3 and 1 K2 on the other side. The tank is 5ft long. So I think the flow shouldn't be a problem either.

 

[89Foxbody]

Cut the lights back to 8 hours.

Frequent water changes will help. Siphon out as much of the slime as you can when you do them. Eventually, it will subside if you continue with the water changes.

You can also try Chemi Clean, it has pretty good reviews and appears to be reef safe.

 

[sslak]

Magnesium.

Test it, and dose it to get it where it belongs. My cyano disappeared overnight after boosting my Mg up to where it was supposed to be.

Cheers!

 

[mrmore]

chemi clean, figure out how many actual gallons of water you have, including sump dont over dose. works great

 

[spieszak]

I had good luck with water changes and knocking the temp down 2 to 4 degrees, and for kicks, I hung a cheap bag of phosban in a tupperware under a powerhead.. no extra chemicals, just kept up on it.. and since it didn't appear overnight, I didn't expect it to disappear overnight. Took about a week on small water changes every day and the temp down.. then over the next week I upped my temp..

 

[bhammer]

If I get it, I cut the lighting back, suck out as much as possible, a couple of WC and cut down on the feeding. It'll go away pretty quick. With the checmicals, you'll have to take your skimmer offline.

 

[IShark]

Thanks I will try all that

 

[J Mac]

Red slime is the worst. I had this problem when I first set up my 90 gallon reef about two years ago. I used chemi clean a couple of times and it was a temporary solution. The red slime will continue to come back unless you find why it's occuring in the first place. Make sure your RO/DI unit is producing pure water and your filters dont need changing. Feeding could also be cut down to once every other day until the red slime subsides. I always rinse and drain any type of mysis or cyclopes before putting in my tank. Since I have been doing this along with a GFO and carbon reactor, the red slime hasn't reared its ugly head in about a year (knock on wood). If your not running GFO or carbon, you may want to consider this an option. Reactors are not necessary as you can simply place the media in a filter bag in your sump. Make sure to turn your skimmer off if you do use chemi clean. If not, it will make the skimmer go absolutely nuts and then you'll have another problem with your skimmate going back into your tank. Bottom line....there is no quick fix as you need to find the source of why it's happening in the first place. Could be a case of new tank syndrome if it has been set up in the last year. It will work itself out eventually. Regular water changes will also go a long way. Go luck with the battle!