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NYC/NJREEFS
06/17/2013, 09:03 PM
I setup my upgrade back in April so it's been up two months today. I started noticing redslime on the sand bed aprox a couple weeks ago and now the coral is starting to get a coating as well as the glass. I've been doing 10ga WC every week and have been running GFO and a biopellet reactor with 500ml for aprox 3wks and my phosphates are nearly undetectible on my Hanna tester. What is wrong? I used the "Redslime" powder today but the water got a yellowish film and the skimmer went crazy overflowing. I'm frustrated need advise.

Thanks

Tank 100ga w/25ga sump
Po4 - .03
ReefCrystal Salt

disc1
06/17/2013, 09:43 PM
The red slime is cyanobacteria. They are really very efficient at pulling phosphate out of the water. It isn't unusual to test and find no phosphates during an outbreak because the cyano is sucking it up faster than you can test it.

Are you using RODI water? How have you been feeding this tank? Did you use live rock or dry rock? What kind of lights do you have?

Cutting the lights out for a few days will beat it back. You have to get rid of the nutrient source before you can really get rid of it.

Dapg8gt
06/17/2013, 09:57 PM
That's a really common side effect of bio pellets. Maybe do some searching on what guys did to combat the pellets causing cyano..

And as for the red slime remover it states I believe on the directions to remove carbon and turn off skimmer for a set time.. Best to follow those directions to a T and don't over do it.. I've read horror stories of people nuking the tank with it.. I think mostly from overdose though..

I recently had a bout of cyano in my well established reef that hasn't had cyano in Prob 8-10 years after switching carbon sources and after months only thing that worked was cutting back on the carbon source and a few lights out for 72 hours.. It's been gone for about a month now and no signs of it yet.. I would in the future try to light starve it other than using the red slime remover.. If you reused your old sand could be leaching also..

If i was in your situation I would for one cut back on the pellets and make sure the output is all going into the skimmer and do a 3 day lights out after siphoning out as much as you can before each one.. Make sure your skimmer is clean and ready to pull out the crap cause it will need to be tip top to catch the die off during lights out.. That's just my experience and recommendation..

bertoni
06/17/2013, 10:35 PM
I'd start some fresh carbon and some 15% water changes to remove the red slime treatment. That's normal to have to do.

If the red slime returns, I'd probably look into tuning the pellet quantity, but at this point, I don't think there's much to do but wait to see whether the problem returns.

downbeach
06/18/2013, 06:39 AM
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Here is a good article worth reading:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/bluegralgae.htm

The use of “Red Slime Removers”, can work in the short term, but if the issues that generated it are not resolved, it will simply keep reoccurring.

Make sure your bio-pellet reactor is set up properly. The flow should be enough to keep the pellets from sticking together, too much will simply slough off the bacteria that are trying to colonize them. Keep it in a dark area. Direct the effluent into the intake of your skimmer (a good skimmer is important here), since this is how you’re exporting the bacteria, and the N’s and P’s they have consumed. Start your reactor incrementally, using only about 1/3 the recommended amount of pellets, adding the other 1/3’s about every two to three weeks, while monitoring your N’s and P’s.

I don’t know how the use of “Red Slime Removers”, may affect your pellets, so maybe someone else will chime in on that. If you had them running when adding the remover, it might be prudent to restart with fresh pellets, once the BGA has subsided.
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joekidwell
06/18/2013, 08:18 AM
I had a major outbreak covering 80% of the sand and rocks, I went bb to see if it helped and it just went 100% in the rocks. I didn't have a nutrient problem due to the 20% weekly rodi water changes. Turned out that my tank didn't like having the halides on for 8 hours a day, I cut it back to 5 hours and no more red slime. Some times it could be as easy as that.

NYC/NJREEFS
06/18/2013, 09:35 AM
I will cut down on my lighting cycle and step up the WC to 15% weekly. I use RODI my meter states 0ppm, I run Ecotech Radion LEDs turn on at 9am and begin night mode around 9pm they run about 45%.

Thanks

tmz
06/18/2013, 09:54 AM
The chemical removal products are too risky for me.
I used them years ago ,followed directions rigorously resulting in a short term reduction in cyano which came back in about a month. There were no discernible negative side effects,ime.
Since then I've read of and seen a number of failures and tank crashes some experienced by very experienced reef keepers who followed directions and siphoned out much of the cyano before treatment too.So, I won't use them anymore.



Further I don't know if chemical remover will effect the bacteria associated with bio pellets.or teh soluble organic dosing I do( ie, vodka and vinegar)

I rarely get any cyano at all in my main sytem .
If I do it's a very small patch near some detritus or some allelopathic activity between corals. Once I puff,siphon or brush it off it stays away. Keeping PO4,at a consitently low level keeps it away.

I run halides about 7.5 hours per day, fwiw.


I also run other heavily fed tanks for seahorse fry.They are lit for leather corals as well and did produce some cyno. Siphoning the cyano and detritus out , skimming ,gac and a little gfo to remove PO4 controls it well even in these heavily fed tanks The corals help too a they compete rfor dissolved organics and other nutrients.

Cyanobateria occurs in every tank I've seen at some point. Siphoning out waste and the cyano ,good flow , good skimming and low PO4 help it wane and stay away.

joekidwell
06/18/2013, 05:26 PM
I will cut down on my lighting cycle and step up the WC to 15% weekly. I use RODI my meter states 0ppm, I run Ecotech Radion LEDs turn on at 9am and begin night mode around 9pm they run about 45%.

Thanks

Just be sure to keep up with manual removal

Reefertim
06/23/2013, 08:26 PM
I was fighting cyano for months, but cutting my lights down to 7-8 hrs a day versus 12 helped a lot. I also have been closely monitoring feeding.

fazilosman
06/23/2013, 09:04 PM
I setup my upgrade back in April so it's been up two months today. I started noticing redslime on the sand bed aprox a couple weeks ago and now the coral is starting to get a coating as well as the glass. I've been doing 10ga WC every week and have been running GFO and a biopellet reactor with 500ml for aprox 3wks and my phosphates are nearly undetectible on my Hanna tester. What is wrong? I used the "Redslime" powder today but the water got a yellowish film and the skimmer went crazy overflowing. I'm frustrated need advise.

Thanks

Tank 100ga w/25ga sump
Po4 - .03
ReefCrystal Salt

My latest tank is 10 months old and have been running pellets from day 1. Two to three months in, I too experienced a cyano outbreak and treated twice with red slime remover. It cleared up the problem temporarily but the slime came back. To combat I adjusted my lighting (radon), optimized my skimmer to skim wet, changed GFO and GAC every two weeks and changed water religiously.

After a while of this husbandry, I simply let it be for a while and let the tank get into biological equilibrium. It took two more months but the cyano died out and never returned. I never took the pellets offline and in fact added more together with ecobak. I also decided to try microbe-lift special blend which helped alot.

My recommendation is to seed some bacteria, perform maintenance on schedule and just let the tank settle in.

Good luck.

raybyrne67
06/23/2013, 11:02 PM
Chemical treatments will not solve the real problem. High phosphates and too much light. I had a bad out break this spring and defeated it with a 3 day blackout while wet skimming. 2x 20% water changes per week. Cut back on my feedings while using phosguard and activated carbon. I also cut back my lighting time by 4 hours per day. It took 2 months to beat back the cyano. It turned brown and became turbo snail food. Good luck and be patient you'll beat it!

Piper27
06/24/2013, 06:54 AM
My recommendation is to seed some bacteria, perform maintenance on schedule and just let the tank settle in.

Good luck.

+ 1
I always let it run its cycle and it eventually dies out. Using chemicals and lights out have prolonged its "cycle" in some of my tanks.

jazzman7838
06/24/2013, 04:01 PM
Cyanobacteria can uptake *organic* nitrogen and phosphorus for all its nutrient needs. This makes it very different from algae. It is useless to try and control its growth by limiting *inorganic* nitrogen or phosphorus. This is why undetectable inorganic N and P are useless against it. This is why GFO is useless against it. Cyano laughs at these things.

You can think of cyano as a symptom of pockets of organic goo being allowed to build up, the same way that maggots are a symptom of dog poo being allowed to build up. Want to prevent that symptom? Don't let piles of organic poo build up. Ever notice how people say they always have a bit of cyano in that one spot in their tank? That's not an accident. The cyano is not being eaten by some magical creature that for some reason avoids that part of their tank. That part of their tank is where organic goo likes to collect to a point where it tips the scales in favor of cyanobacteria. To prevent organic poo building up run GAC, run a filter sock, have good flow directed at your rockwork, run a good protein skimmer, turkey baste your rocks, vacuum your sandbed regularly, etc. Herbivores like snails, amphipods, and tangs do a remarkable job of keeping surfaces disturbed; not necessarily eating the cyano, but disturbing the surface often enough that the crap never settles there in the first place. You can think of herbivores like little mini-turkey basters that are constantly at work, moving poo out of their way so that it can be lifted up into the water column and removed by your awesome filtration system.

These might be the worst analogies ever, but they work for me. Hope this helps.

bertoni
06/24/2013, 06:52 PM
GFO sometimes seems to help with cyanobacteria. There are many forms of phosphate in our systems, but if orthophosphate (the type removed by GFO) dominates, GFO can do a very good job. There's no cost-effective way to predict which treatment will help in any given tank, which is the source of a lot of wasted time and effort. Sigh!

tmz
06/24/2013, 08:29 PM
sThe study below suggest that DOM, (dissolved organic material) as a source of N and P is helpful to cyanobacteria in an intial bloom but also asserts cyanobacteria is co limited by a lack of organics and inorganic N and P. Competition with phytoplan kton also plays a role .
So, it appears that cyano needs Pi and it can't meet all of it's needs with organics alone . It may also need DIN but many spedies can fix there own.

Reducing ortophosaphte( PO4 related species ) and keeping it low for period of time reduces and eliminates visible cyano ,even when organic waste is visible ,ime. Nonetheless, I think cleaning detritus and minimizing dissolved organic matter via skimming and granulated activated carbon are also helpful for cyano control and a number of other reasons related to the heath of more desirable organisms

http://serc.fiu.edu/microbe/joeprojects/Reports/Organic%20Phosphorus%20in%20Cyanobactrial%20blooms.pdf

rjd0521
06/24/2013, 10:03 PM
I have used the red slime remover with success. Just leave the skimmer cup out for a couple of days then you are good to go. After two or three days, the yellow tint leave leaving a super clear tank. My sps never showed sign of stress. I dropped a air stone in the main tank while treating. Leaving the skimmer running without the cup for days doesn't hurt anything. Now there is no sign of cyano at all and I am running pellets. 0-2ppm nitrate and 0.03 phosphate.