Do I need live rock

[mxett]

Hello from Aussie land :D

I have a question about live rock. I have recently been badly burnt with live rock that resulted in a particular difficult red macro covering my rocks, sand and corals! I sort exptert opinions and was told this is a dead end and I should start again :( (Eric Borneman's advice).

My question is: if I start again, do I have to include "live rock"?

I am sure this is where the algae came from and I'm worried that this problem will happen again if I introduce new live rock from the same lsf( bearing in mind that all my lfs's get their livestock from the same source).

Is it possible to just use white 'base rock', and use a good skimmer and remote dsb as filtration (along with good water movement, carbon, some ozone and Rowaphos reactor) to filter a 350ltr reef tank?

Thanks

Marcus

[Entropy]

If you use base rock it will be live rock eventually. The rest of the contents of the tank will determine how quickly this happens, but live rock is just base rock with life on it. The key difference is live rock you can buy today, base rock you have to wait for. :D

[mxett]

Rich,

I take your point. However to start a tank again from scratch would live rock mean it is cycled or ready earlier to handle bioload, compared with base rock which is effectively dead?

Its a shame I have to start again and I'm hoping that I dont have to get rid of the 10 or so corals I have, just to begin the tank cycling again. Would the remote dsb that I have on the system take the biolad, meaning I could just replace the water, rocks and sand and put the base rock and corals back in straight away without having to wait months for it to cycle and go through various algae phases, as a new setup usually does?

[MJAnderson]

Its going to cycle...no way around that. Chances are you'll bring whatever you had before with you if you are transferring corals or fish. It's hard to not get any water between system and all it takes are a few algae spores...

I also have a red 'felt' algae that took over my tank. I moved all my corals to a frag tank I set up and turned the lights out on my main. i'll lose all my corraline, but it will kill the algae in 6-8 weeks I'm told. Might be an option for you.

[mxett]

What if I took the pieces of live rock that do not have any of the algae on them and placed them in my unlit sump, to continue their filtration. Thenn discarded the effected rocks, and then placed the new base rock in the display with 100% water change. Then placed the corals and fish back in the tank. Would this work? Given the rdsb and live rock would already be cycled I would hope they would cope with any cycling from the new base rock.

I do not have any other means of keeping the fish and corals alive and I dont really want to give them back to the fs.

[cgib831]

i think you are missing something basic but huge. Live rock didn't cause your redslime, nitrates and/or phosphates did. Putting rock into your tank when it has not been fully cured causes dieoff. stuff on the rock dies, and then breaks down into nitrites, then nitrates, which is what redslime thrives on. Have you checked nitrate and phosphate levels? the key is to get those under control, or it is just going to keep happening, rock or no rock.

[markandkristen]

i would agree. i have delt with it in the past. as others have commented on here .. thiers no quick cure

i run bare bottom now and have not had the problem of it . my lighting is up to date good flow around 70x over and run a skimmer that is rated for 400 gallons on a 150. i also run carbon and a phosphate reactor with a refugium on the opposite cycle of my display lights. i would try and syphone what you can with water changes.

can you show pics of the algae your talking about as well

[Entropy]

I am pretty sure there is a product that will kill red slime out there. I just cannot remember where I saw it. I agree with cgib831 though. You need to find out what is causing it (nitrates, or nutrients of some kind) and eliminate them or this problem is just going to come back.

[OliverM3]

I had trouble with red slime myself.
In both my 44g and 12g

It really isn't much of a problem since it's a bacteria it was easily killed off with some mardel antibiotic.
That red slime remover is crap don't waste your time.

And lot's of water changes as the red slime died off. The whole process only took a couple weeks to have it completely gone.
I didn't have any real sensitive corals.

Here's the before and after pics

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/162483Before.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/162483After.jpg

[MJAnderson]

I'm guessing if it was just red slime Eric Borneman would have told him to start over. Some algae, like the stuff i have, loves high flow and clean tanks. Besides no light, the only way to kill it is very high nitrates.

[cgib831]

MJ, high nitrates cause it, not cure it. Redslime remover does kinda work technically. it helps kill the stuff, but then all of the dead algae dissolves in the water and keeps the nitrates very high. You don't have to start over, but you do have to be diligent (?) water changes and cleaning are the real key. you dont want to just kill the stuff, you wanna get it out

[MJAnderson]

It's not redslime, it's a red macro algae. I think Eric Borneman would know the difference.

I went through a similiar hassle when I first started reefing. As soon as people see the words "red" and "algae" in a sentence, I got a ton of responses about clearing redslime. There are other red algaes besides redslime and it seems Marcus has one (as did I).

[dheinze]

I too have a red macro algae, and it does very well in my tank with my sps...It's a pain because the only thing I can do is trim it back every time I change water, which is quite a chore. On the bright side, I think it's a pretty algae:)! I do wish it grew a little more slowly though. You can see some pics of my tank in my gallery, some of which show the red algae.

On the lighting side, I have noticed that it doesn't grow very well at all under the PC light on my sump/refugium. It is possible that the "no light at all" solution is more drastic than necessary..just a thought, not really any science behind it.

[RichConley]

Is it the red hair algae looking stuff? IIRC mexican turbos love it.