Warning:Red Slime Remover process can kill coral

[iriejp1]

I've been battling some red slime algae for a while now. I've tried lots of different remedies. Listened to many suggestions. None of it was working.

I tried a combination of all of these solutions:

- Blew it off with a turkey baster
- Lots of water changes
- Added Rowaphos and tried to get my Phosphates down
- Tried vacuuming it out
- Increased my flow on the Vortechs
- Decreased my feeding and increased my husbandry

None of this seemed to do much. Indeed, it seemed to be spreading despite all these measures.

SO....I had used a red slime removal chemical in the past with success. I had it in my sump, used a little bit per the directions and it went away. I had never used it in my display tank...but I thought...what the heck. Nothing else was working. And I still had the box from the sump event.

This is what I used...

It said to use 1 little measuring spoonful per 10 gallons of tank. I have a 150gal tank but only used 10 spoonfuls as a precaution. It also said to stop skimming and carbon use during treatment period which I did. It said to leave in for 5 days before performing a water change. I planned on letting it go no more than a day or so.

Later that evening I noticed things in the tank were looking a little disgruntled. My zoas were all closed up. My acans were shriveled into their holes. But the red slime was still there and my fish and SPS looked relatively normal. I figured the zoas and acans must just be panicking a bit. But didn't think much more than that. So I went to bed.

When I came in in the morning this is what I saw...

 

[iriejp1]

ALL of my SPS was either dead or dying. Mind you...the day before these were all doing fantastic. My dinner plate sized orange monti cap was bright orange and healthy. My Icefire Enchinata was turning a deep blue with baby blue highlights. Heck...even my Lokani was coming around finally. All now dead/dying.

Just for giggles I ran down a mental list of the destruction:

-Icefire Enchinata from Karl
-ORA Red Planet
-ORA Hawkins Enchinata
-ORA Pearlberry
-ORA Purple Plasma
-LE Sunset Monti
-Red Milli from Mikey (one of my favorite pieces)
-Green slimer from Joe (One of my brightest/favorite pieces)
-Dinner plate sized Orange Monti from Ed
-Tyree Ponape Birdsnest
-Green birdsnest from Mikey
-Cali Tort from TFP
-Oregon Tort from Karl
-Tyree Undata from Karl
-20k Lokani
-Bali Tricolor from TFP
-Various other pieces I had collected
-Powder Brown Tang even succumed

Well I scrambled and immediately did a 50% water change. Got my skimmer back online. It started churning out snot immediately. Turned all my hallides off. Was debating turning my 2 T5's off. But left them on for a while. Hoping it might turn some of the SPS around.

Anyways, moral of the story is....don't use this product. Or use it with extreme cauition. I should have listened to my good friend Joe. "Never use chemicals to solve a natural problem." Or something to that effect. Joe...you're becoming wiser to me after every crisis my friend!

 

[bluenassarius]

dang joel. sorry to hear that. you missed one remedy.. the au naturale good ol' fashioned one. get some macroalgae to compete for nutrients.

i bought a tank from a woman who had cyanobacteria problem. when i took it over i put a bunch of macroalgae in there. within a month, there was no sign of it again. keep in mind, i did keep alot of macroalgae. not a lil tennis ball amount.

 

[dblue]

Sorry to here about your loss. I too battled slime algea on my 60 gallon system for about a year, take that the system has been running since 2000 and the aquarium is over 15 years old. I finally won the battle after removing the slime every day using a turkey baster, doing 10% or greater water changes every week, doubling water flow through the system, cutting down on feeding, increasing skimming, reducing the amount of live stock, reducing the light period, added macroalgae to the system, added a phos reactor, made my chemical dosing uniform (2 part calcium alkalinity, iodine, and magnesium) and I also try to use the same carbon manufacturer. All my softies were exploding growing like wild weeds but I was not able to keed any sps corals except for montis but grow slow and their color was laking. But because i did not use any chemicals I was surprised about a year ago when a maze brain coral (LPS) grew on a piece of life rock that had been in my system since 2001 on its own :dance: :celeb3:

 

[Reef n' Madness]

Wow, Joel! I am really sorry to hear this!

 

[funman1]

Sounds like you had so much cyano die off that it depleted your tank on O2 and then snowballed after the first few things died...

Sucks...

 

[iriejp1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15422342#post15422342 target=_blank>Originally posted by funman1</a>
Sounds like you had so much cyano die off that it depleted your tank on O2 and then snowballed after the first few things died...

Sucks...

You're probably right Steve. Either way...this solution is dangerous.

 

[Joes210gal]

Time to rebuild.

With a little help from your friends that tank (once stabilized) will be as good as new. We'll start with one of everything from my tanks.

And that's just for starters.

Watch and see.

 

[iriejp1]

Your kindness knows no bounds my friend.

I'll be back. I'm already clearing the forest and preparing for the replant.

 

[RonMidtownStomp]

I'll be happy to contribute. "Chemi-clean" does say to run an airstone while you're using it.

Ron

 

[dots]

Hey those pieces looked just bleached, not dead!! It looks like there are still polyps in those corallites, or am I seeing things?

If so, reduce your lighting with some mesh and/or photoperiod.

Lights off for three days, RO/DI water, rinsing food really helps, in the future FWIW.

Regardless, sorry for the looses.....post this in the "New to the Hobby" forum please, a lot of those folks there could learn from this as well.....

 

[Trevor S]

Sorry to hear about your loss, I tired the same things over the last year and it didnt help.. I finally went to the vodka dosing, and completely bombed my system. I loss all of my corals, and had to have my fish held in another tank.

 

[VacavilleFC3S]

working at a LFS my biggest recommendation to customer is to avoid chemicals at all costs, it's all snake-oil. they give the appearance of solving the problem but they don't remove the source that is causing the problem.

 

[Serren]

I used another product with positive results. It would kill the red slime, but a few weels later it would just come back, as whatever the problem was was still around. This was on my old 34g Red Sea. But the product did work as advertised and I never saw any ill effects on the corals or fish.

My 125g tank has never had any problems with algea, but I credit my tangs for that...

 

[Brian Prestwood]

Hey Joel

Sorry to hear that. I've never been a big fan red slime algecide's.

I think you might be under skimming. 150g reef tank should have a skimmer that draws about 1200 lph of air. That Rio 3100 would only draw about 400 lph of air in a needle wheel venturi skimmer.

Edit: Don't take any of the corals out until you don't see any polyps for at least a week.

 

[iriejp1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15425160#post15425160 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Brian Prestwood
Hey Joel

Sorry to hear that. I've never been a big fan red slime algecide's.

I think you might be under skimming. 150g reef tank should have a skimmer that draws about 1200 lph of air. That Rio 3100 would only draw about 400 lph of air in a needle wheel venturi skimmer.

Edit: Don't take any of the corals out until you don't see any polyps for at least a week.

I'm actually not using a Rio. I've got a Mag 9 on the AquaC. But I'm guessing you're probably still right anyways. That's why I bought Ed's old Euroreef recirc skimmer. Hopefully that will be a little better once I get it online.

And thanks for the coral info...I was kinda wondering how long I should give them. I see a few that have some little spots/polyps all over them. I've taken that as a sign of life. I wonder if I should trim off the completely white tips or just leave them alone. I've also turned my actinics on for a few hours a day to help along the recovery. Do you think I should turn off all the lights as Joe suggested? (Every time I don't listen to him lately I've paid for it...lol.)

 

[Auntbeez]

Don't mess with the corals, they are already stressed and trimming may push them over.
I don't know about the lights, stuff won't die with out them in a couple days
my opinion though, go a head and run the actinics...at least for a short time.

 

[dots]

Turning off the lights for three days helps to get rid of existing cyano, instead of treating it chemically. However, it should be reduced.


You can keep you lighting schedule if there are still other things that depend on it, but make sure you take the ones that are high up and move them down.

Basically, you want to make the "brown out" which is when there is an over population of zoanathelle, and what has been expelled. You should feed a tad bit more as the only energy the corals will be getting will be through feeding, as light provides about 80% of thier daily nutrients, which are produced by the zoanathelle........which are no longer present.

I wouldn't trim them or dip them at all, it will stress them.

If you baby the ones that have the polyps in them, move them out of intense lighting, there is a good chance they will come back in a few weeks.

 

[Underwaterparadise]

I'm with Doug, I still polyps on some of those pieces!

How old is your sand bed? Do you vaccum it on a regular basis?

 

[Backinthegame]

Dizzam! JP I got you Bro! That the same stuff that cause me issues too. I thought we talked about not taking the skimmer off line prior to use, but oh well. Like Rob and Brian said....give it a week or so. I had the same thing happen and only lost one piece. Shout me if you have any ????

Like Joe said....we got you...one piece of everything!