New purple slime?

[beckywaller108]

I recently got a new light system for my 75 gallon tank. I now have 2 Actinic 460nm bulbs and 2 6500K Natural Daylight bulbs. Both are Odyssea 65W Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. I got them for my new anemone who is now thriving because of it. Only problem is now I also have a new purple slime that is thriving as well. It looks like it has bubbles underneath it and my cleaning crew wont touch it. I don't know if they haven't found it yet or what, but it literally showed up over night and is now EVERYWHERE. Ive read to stop feeding my fish, or keep my lights off for a few days or to skim the sand and remove it, and im just wanting to know what is best. Im nervous to touch it because my nitrates are high (I don't know if that's because my engineer goby moves the sand every day, seriously he re arranges the entire tank every night when I go to bed) or what? Should I leave my night time low lights off as well or maybe alternate the nights that I leave it on? Also, if I just scrape the glass on the back of the tank with that glass cleaner magnet thing (work with me here) would that be ok or would that hurt the levels of the tank? Im just worried that if I move or clean this stuff that im going to release some toxic something that will kill off the tank. Or is that even possible?

First picture is with just the night time lights on, the slime is highlighted all throughout the tank. The next 2 pictures are of it on the sand. The other 2 are of my live rock (used to be white 72-ish hrs ago) and the back glass of the tank now has red algae all over it.

[beckywaller108]

***CORRECTION***
the 2 middle pictures are on my sand bed and the last 2 pictures are of the live rock and the back of the tank

[whosurcaddie]

Its not because of your Goby its because of poor water quality. You probably always had the nutrient level to grow algae but with insufficient lighting it wasn't able to take off. By adding a stronger light source you gave the cyano the necessary photosynthesis it needs to grow.

If you can list more parameters exact nitrate and phosphate numbers would help. The key to beating red slime is to starve it of nutrients. IE nitrate and phosphate. You will want to take what your feeding now and cut it by half. Increase to 25% water changes a week. I don't know if you have a GFO reactor but now would be a good time to get one. You can also do 3 days lights out and cover the tank glass with trash bags or cardboard. Basically you want no light entering the tank. But the big thing is nutrient reduction.

Don't stress about the situation every algae problem can be fixed and nothing happens fast in this hobby so just take your time. Also in research you will probably read about a product called red slime remover. While it will kill all the cyano, unless you fix your nutrient problem it will just come right back.

A few more questions what is your source water? what type of food do you feed? How long do you keep the new lights on?

Also there is nothing toxic in cyano so feel free to siphon it out. But it will come back as long as your nutrients remain elevated.

[beckywaller108]

I got my nitrates tested yesterday and it was over 160 and the phosphates were high, but not as high. I use just tap water and put Prime in it, I have gone from feed once every other day to every 3 days and the lights are on for around 10 hrs a day. I scooped it out last night with my hand. It was kind of stiff so I just rolled it up like a rug and removed it. It was easier then I thought. I don't know how I will get it off my live rock though.

[garyinco]

As soon as you said purple I thought cyano bacteria. It can also be a very rich emerald green color. The clincher was when you said you rolled it up and removed. As mentioned your nitrates and apparently phosphates are high, the nitrates are very high. The tap water will kill ya and run you out of the hobby. Buy distilled water to make your salt mix until you get an RO filter unit.This hobby has high startup costs. But after that is very manageable. Your tap water may be usable but until you can test it you will not know. I would just bite the bullet and buy distilled until you know what you're dealing with.

Increased flow in the tank will help immensely with the cyano. Do you have some sort of powerhead you can use to increase that flow? Use it. You can use a piece of tubing to remove ("vacuum") it from your rocks. Discard the vacuumed water and replace with new. You need to replace some water to get that nitrate level down anyway.

Cyano is very common in new tanks and it will go away quickly if you get aggressive with it. You will face much more challenging hurdles later on.

[beckywaller108]

I have a power head but it blows towards the back of the tank, and all the algae is at the front. So that makes total sense and I will have to figure out how to adjust it without causing a sand storm in the tank lol. The tank is about 3 years old now. But, it has that brand new light system. The one before it was pretty cruddy. My local fish guy sells pre made salt water for $1.25 a gallon, already mixed and people in my town swear by it. I was in there yesterday buying another chocolate chip star fish and several people came in with 5 gallon buckets to buy his magic water lol. So I may have to bite the bullet and spend the extra money.

[Crooked Reef]

In the long run it is cheaper to buy your own to/di system and salt mix, which is likely all your lfs does. You should be topping off with ro/di, or at the very least distilled water. It seems like a big expense when you look at it but you are going to have to do a few major water changes coming up to get the nutrients under control. A couple of 50% water changes will land you about 93.75 in the hole in your lfs "magic water". You can get a refurbished spectrapure system for not muchore than that and be set for the future. The tank will much healthier in the long run.

How much flow do you have in the tank? How many powerheads, what type, return pump?

[whosurcaddie]

BRS sells a very nice RO/DI unit. It has all the features that you see on more expensive units at 3/4 the price. Its actually on sale right now.http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-4-stage-value-plus-ro-di-system-75gpd-1.html

For a 75 gallon tank its a good idea to make your own water. You will need to do some massive water changes to lower those numbers good luck.