Green slime red slime algae!?!?

[Arrg]

I'm having a hard time figuring out what's what. When I 1st started my tank maybe like 8-10 months ago. I threw in damsels to get it going, started to get a brownishy orange algae that was fine I got a fire shrip and he took care of that. Then I went to the pet store got some frozen brine and thats when the fun started.

I started getting a bright green algae/slime? on the coral, then clusters of red started to appear which I was pretty sure was the bad stuff, so I took a picture and showed the owner of the pet store and he told me it was the bad stuff so he sold me some powder to get rid of it which I guess killed it because it turned black so then I vacummed what I could up, did a water change, and it was all pretty until that bright green stuff came back, can someone please tell me if that's good stuff or bad stuff?

[Blown 346]

If the algae is for sure slime algae than yes it is bad. You should cut down on feeding and or thaw the food before you dump it into the tank.

[dastratt]

[welcome]

Going through a phase with algae is very common. But having persistent alge problems is not a good sign, algae is a nuisance. Who wants a bunch of green and red algae in their tank.

You can definitely get rid of it, but you need to provide a lot of information for us to help you.
What kind of filters do you have, for what size tank? How much LR?
What is your bioload, and how much do you feed?
What kind of clean up crew (snails, crabs etc.)
Do you use tap water or RO/DI water?
Do you change 10% of your water every week or how often?
Do you test for nitrate? phosphate?
Do you know what your CA and Alk levels are?

Generally trying to fix algae problem through chemicals, without addressing the root cause, will not fix the problem. The algae will just keep coming back. Start reading up on all the good info on this site and forget about LFS salesman who push powders.

[Arrg]

I have a Magnum 350 Bio-pro system and Bio-wheel pro 60 filter. If LR stands for Live Rock then I have none at the moment. I’m trying to get a reef tank setup, right now it’s fish only though. I’ve got a 55 gallon tank, it’s rectangle it’s 48 inches long, and I think like 12 or 12.5 inches deep, and roughly 20 inches or so high. Right now it’s housing assorted damsels 2 clowns and a hawk fish.
They get fed twice a day once in the early morning like 6am and once in the evening around 5-6pm

As of right now I don’t have any clean up crew, I had a sand star which died on me and I had a blood shrimp that recently died. :o( I was thinking about going to like an emerald crab, I’m afraid to buy snails because I remember when I was younger I them in fresh water and I had like millions of them, they took forever to get rid of.

I use tap water but I add that stuff for new tanks every time I do a water change.
I roughly do a 20% water change every… well I’d like to say every 2 weeks but I get yelled at if I pay too much attention to them at work. So probably 20% every month.
I’ve got 2 little test kits, one that checks I think the PH, the Alk, Nitrate, Nitrite and the other checks for ammonia. Every time I check it, it’s either safe or in the okay zone but most of the time everything is where it’s supposed to be.

[boomsticks]

Couple of Turbo Snails and keep the nitrates down along with a good skimmer algae problems will be gone. Man those Turbos are great and they don't breed like rabbits. Usually fish, and/or other inverts will eat most of the babies anyway. My Nerite snails breed like crazy and I only have about 5 babies that I know of or actually see.

[TekCat]

Where do I begin...... it looks like you have nutrient problem with less than adequate bio-filtration.

First and foremost is RO/DI Water. Tap water has too many nutrients that fuel algae growth. If you don't want to invest in RO/DI unit then there are options of buying RODI water from LFS or use distilled water from grossery store.

Second get LR, at leat 55lbs. Then you could get rid of bio-wheel.

Third, I strongly advise on getting good Skimmer, and unplug Magnum filter alltogether. Ocasionally you might want to run some carbon in it, but it has to be replaced every 2-4 weeks.

As far as test kits go, get sample of your water (before you going to perform next water change) to your LFS, and have them check it. If the results don't agree then get new tests. I suspect you'll get high reading on nitrate/phosphate side. If this is the case, then it would explain high mortality rates of your inverts.