red velvet algae

[tim1871]

please help i have a red velvet looking algae on my sand at the bottom of my tank. what is it? how do i get rid of it? and how do i keep it from coming back. thanks any help would be appreciated.

[brody98]

It's called cyanobacteria or red slime algae. You need to lower your nutrient level in the tank by doing a few water changes 3-4 days apart, this will help get rid of any dissolved food and waste particles your skimmer has missed. It is also caused by low current flow, you need to increase to current; the more water flow you have the faster your algae will clear up. It can also be caused by you light bulbs being too old, how old are they? What type are they? You can clear it up faster if you siphon out as much as you can. When changing the water. It happens to almost everyone at some point, the biggest thing is making sure your skimmer is clean and working efficiently and you have enough water flow in your tank, try adding a couple more power heads.

[KillBill75]

Would GAC work for this?

[brody98]

Running some carbon cant hurt the situation but I'm not sure how much it will help, I personally have never tried to clean up red slime with carbon. I always found it to be a flow issue in my case. I always had to rearrange power heads due to growth or scrape coraline off the intakes to increase the flow. I guess I would give it a try for a day or two just before a water change.

[tim1871]

i have a 38 gallon acrylic tank 3 inches of live sand about 50pounds of live rock, im not using a protien skimmer, bulbs are one actinic and one 6500k power compacts one power head with the sp0onge filter still on it, what kind of power head do you recommend

[brody98]

If you’re not running a sump is the one power head the only means of water circulation? Although not completely necessary a skimmer would help a lot to keep the excess nutrients down and if you’re only running with one power head I would say get 2-3 more. As far as pumps go I have had real good luck with maxi-jet power heads, mag-drive power heads are good solid pumps also. I would say add a skimmer as soon as you could, you can get by without one but you really need to stay on top of the water changes. It is just easier to go with a skimmer.

[tim1871]

with the power heads should i leave the foam pre-filter on or leave it off? If i were to install an overflow how big should the holes be and what would be a good sized sump?
THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL THE HELP

[brody98]

Most people take the pre-filters off; the overflow depends on what type of overflow you go with. You can find out if you could drill the tank or you could go with a pre-made hang on overflow. As far as the sump, the bigger the better, you just need to decide where you are going to put it, and if it will fit under you stand with braces and all.

[ReefErik]

Hey gang. I have heard of something else working when yopu are dealing with cyano bacteria. It wont help clear up huge terfs of t, but if you siphon off most of it and your tests are showing normal or even nominally high, try MARINE BIOZYME. I had a bad red-slime bloom years back. I siphoned off th excess and ran 2 heavy doses of marine biozyme 1 wek apart, with water changes the day before the addition. It irradicated the problem. This is not a constant solution as many cyanobacteria become resistant to medications. You need to ensure once you medicate that all levels are normal and do not continue to spike. Hope this helps!

ReefErik
75gal Reef... 110lbs live rock.

[viowyn]

Add some red leg hermits, cerith snails, and nerite snails. I had a bad cyanobacteria problem and I added these inverts and within two weeks it was gone. The nice thing is too that they continue to keep it gone.

[brody98]

The critters will keep it away if you take care of the problem that started it in the beginning. You need to keep the circulation up and the skimmer working efficiently, or if you don’t have a skimmer then you need to keep up with the water changes.

[raven7004]

I totally agree with adding critters to keep away the dreaded Red Slime. I bought the "Premium Reef Cleaner Pack" from LiveAquaria (8 Trochus Snails, 6 Super Tongan Nassarius Snails, 12 Cerith Snails, and 10 Scarlet Reef Hermit Crabs). I believe this compensated for my heavy-handed feeding habits (I’m slowly learning self control). I also added some serious water flow via 5 powerheads and a wave maker switch. So far this has knocked out the slime and kept it away.