Red Slime - Cyano Causes and Cures

[DaveK]

Keep in mind that control of any nuisance algaes is not something you quickly fix. It's a constant battle, but you keep up with the maintainance and regular water changes and in time you will solve the problem.

A lot of people expect and want a quick fix. In reality, there is no such thing when it comes to algae control.

[incubusboy87]

ya i should know that. Also im sure you all are being annoyed by me and my constant porblem with cyano to. It just frustrating, i clean my tank and its beautiful! just what i want. Next morning get up and dont even want to look at my tank. I cant find the time everyday to clean my tank for the 40 min or whatever it takes either, which i wish i could. 2 days and cyano has taken over the whole tank. So would you suggest to jsut keep turkey basting my live rock and sand bed until it finally goes away? Ive also keeped my whipser 20i internal filter to help suck up mechanical filtration matter when i previously only had my skimmer as mechanical filtration. anyone had any luck with conch snails eating cyano???? i hope so.

[DaveK]

I have merged the cyano bacteria what next? thread wih the main thread on cyano algae control. This keeps all the information on this common problem in one place.

[Moose]

My reef tank is 2 1/2 years old, and all was good until I moved in September 2005. Ever since I have this reddish brown algae growing, and everything I have done has failed. I've tried to manually remove it from the tank with airline tubing, but its back within three hours. It will grow anywhere the water circulation is not extreme especially on the sand bottom. I finally gave in and tried a product called Chemiclean, and saw no results. So my next plan was to try a product called Red Slime Remover, but my LFS said it is the same treatment as Chemiclean. I don't know anything else I can try. My equipment and water parameters are as follows:
30 gal tank with 20 gal sump
Excalibur protien skimmer
pH- 8.4
nitrate- <5
phos- 0
dKH- 8
Ca- 355
SG- 1.024
temp- 74'F.
LIGHTING- one 150W MH & 2 65W PC 9hours daily.
LIVESTOCK
6 hermits and 6 turbos
1 clown
1 yellow gobie
2 twin spot gobies
1 sand sifting star

[ReefNewby]

The first thing that everyone is going to want to know is what type of water are you using. I had a similar problem and used RO water and mine seemed to clear up. I however had high phosphates in my water source that initially caused my problem. Hopefully someone will have better info.

[Moose]

I use RO for top off and mixing.

[DaveK]

Welcome to RAG!

(Obsolete link to this thread removed)

When you have this problem in an older tank, check your water change schedule. This can be part of the problem.

Also, check your feeding schedule. Just because your reading for nitrate and phosphate are at or near 0, doesn't mean that there is not a nitrate and/or phosphate problem. You have one, or else you wouldn't have the algae problem.

Good luck. It takes time and effort, but it can be dealt with.

[ReefTECH]

Okay It's time for my professinal opinion....

In the last four pages of posts about cyano bacteria every single person has failed to elaborate on "nutrient limitation". We can say it until we're blue in the face but most people don't understand what it means to totally limit nutrients.

First things first...
Phosphate-
It enters the water through a variety of ways, food, unpurified water, cheap activated carbon (which has phosphate residue because its made of bone). Natural sea water has a measurement of phosphate at 0.06 mg/l. Through the utilization of this nutriet as adenosine triphosphate, which is used to store energy in ALL biochemical processes, phosphate on the coral reef measures a mere 0.015 mg/l.

In the reef aquarium phosphate concentrations beyond 0.05 will drastically reduce calcium synthesis and enhance algal growth. Even if you do not measure phosphate you probably still have it. Orthophosphate bonds with metals and precipitates and is no longer dissolved (it becomes sediment). Methods of measurement are futile here. Even the use of absorbent materials will only work temporarily because once they are removed these precipitant phosphates re-disolve into the water.

It is a long tedious task to remove phosphate. If you do not attack phosphate over a long period of time in several ways (macro, absorbant resins, water changes utilizing R/O water sources) it will cause problems. Nitrates can be adjusted through water changes, but phosphates will begin to redissolve in a short period of time. This create an imbalance between the two nutrients which will lead to nitrogen deficiency that cause the outbreak of red cyanobacteria.

Nutrients-
The Redfield Ratio (RR) can be used to identify when an aquarium is nutrient-limited, and to identify nutrients that are being utilized. RR refers to the ratio of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate atoms in the water. The RR states that nutrients become absorbed and utilized best in a ratio of 16 Nitrogen: 1 Phosphate (16N:1P) disreguarding carbon in this scenario for the sake of my argument in relative terms to this thread.

This is a simple ratio and reaction that all of us should have learned about in basic high school or college chemistry, it's a relative measurement to marine aquaria in light of a lesson commonly taught as "limiting reagents."

To summarize-
Doing water changes, starving your fish, manually sucking it out, and use of anti biotics are all futile attempts at extinguishing cyano bacteria. If you do water changes your corals may suffer from inhibited growth because N is not occuring in a proper ratio with P to be utilized by the creatures metabolism. Although since your chemistry is already off balance you might as well hit it with these 3 things: water changes, absorbant resins, and macro algae.

Read your Coral Magizine guys!
Phosphate- "Coral Vol.2 #3"
Nutrient Limitation- "Coral Vol.2 #1"

[OpenBrainClosedMind]

The info at the thread Dave posted is good and would be very helpful. I'd just add that your calcium is somewhat lower than I'd say is ideal, so if that isn't what you've kept the calcium at all along before the onset of this problem, it's something to address....Get it up to more of the 400 to 420 range, and adjust your alkalinity, if necessary, and that my well change things. The coraline algae will begin to grow stronger and that would likely help deal with the nutrient imbalance.

[Submerged]

Welcome to RAG, Moose. You're going to get about 20 very different answers for what causes Cyano and how to get rid of it. People will tell you it's caused by water conditions, low water flow, excess nutrients, salt brand, etc. You name it, it causes Cyano. Truth is, no one really knows what causes cyano. Same goes for how to get rid of it. Some will say point a powerhead at it, or do a water change, or switch salts, or stop feeding so much, or use a medication. Sometimes cyano will just disappear on its own.

I know of one, sure-fire way to get rid of cyano...and that is to medicate your tank with Maracyn (E-mycin). Cyano is a bacteria-based algae, and, as such, can be treated with the right antibiotic. Of course, many aquarists will tell you to never medicate a reef tank. Whether to medicate or not depends on (1) what's in your tank, (2) how risk-averse you are, and (3) how much you hate the Cyano.

I had some cyano in my refugium once. It happened after I purchased some macro algae from the LFS. Two weeks later, I had a cyano bloom in my fuge (which coincidentally has low flow). On my next trip to the LFS, I noticed all their display tanks were coated in cyano. Wonder where I got the cyano...

Anyway, the cyano appeared to be restricted to my fuge, and fortunately for me, I could isolate the fuge from the rest of my system (thanks ball valves). So...I isolated the fuge, ran a bunch of powerheads and dosed maracyn for 7 days. Cyano was gone in 2 days--but you need to dose the full course of meds.

I would have been a little more reluctant to dose my display tank, but after seeing how well it worked in the fuge, I would probably dose my display if I had another cyano outbreak.

If you do dose with maracyn: (1) remove all carbon (it will negate the antibiotic), (2) turn off your protein skimmer during treatment (it will go haywire), (3) dose for the full 7 days, (4) run some carbon for two days after you finish the meds, (5) turn skimmer back on.

People will tell you that medicating is a quick-fix and doesn't address the underlying problem. Of course, no one knows what the underlying problem is...