About Paul Expertise technical and non technical questions about marine tank set up, with a few radical hardware ideas. the compatibility of livestock. i am not much of a coral buff but i know about the more common types.
if you are asking a question please add in your tank spec, including type of filtration, amount of live rock, type of skimmer etc. it helps in the acurate answering of questions.
thanks
Experience i have kept fish for over 8 years
Education/Credentials none in the marine world, only experiance.
Question QUESTION: I have some kind of powdery red colored algae growing all over the inside of the glass and gravel of my tank. I have tried treating it with red slime treatment/no help/ water changes/comes right back within hours. If I clean it off the water is full of tiny red particles. The local aquarium shop exterts have no idea what it is either. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ANSWER: sounds like slime algae, it does come in a red variety and its very fast growing. there are a vareity of contributing factors, its not just 1 thing that sets it off.
Initially you should have a major clean up ensuring that all equipment is clean, and working efficiently. This should include a 20% water* change removing as much detritus & algae as possible & replacing soiled filter media. The role of a well maintained, adequately sized protein skimmer cannot be over emphasised, these remove large quantities of organic material as well as indirectly stopping the accumulation of nitrate & phosphate, these are three of the major causes of algae. Ensure there is plenty of water movement by adding additional pumps if necessary. These help to prevent dead spots where detritus accumulates. Replace any bulbs over six months old as the spectrum emitted deteriorates over time, this helps promote algae growth. There are several products that can help improve water quality quickly these are: -
Polyfilter, these remove large quantities of dissolved organics as well as some phosphate & nitrate.
Rowaphos is an excellent product for removing phosphate, although several applications may be needed to reduce high phosphate levels initially. This product also reduces silicate a more minor algae causing factor.
Kent PolyOx is a powerful oxidizing agent that can speed up the cleaning process that is especially useful if you have a problem with slime algae.
hope that helps, if it doesnt solve the problem give me a shout back and i'll get my thinking cap on.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: I have had the red slime algae before and it's not that, even the aquarium folks said that wasn't it, we're stumped!
Answer is it hard? like calcerous algae?
what shade of red is it? dark, light?
ok after doing some reserch i have come up with nothing, i would treat it like cyno and just get it out ASAP. if your running an external canister filter pack it with filter floss, and then give the aquarium a good clean. this will susspend the algae and hopefully the canister will pick it up in the floss. get some strong powerheads and make sure you have very good flow in the tank, this will stop it settling.
just follow what i said in the previous post along with this one and it should clear up. use the Kent POLYOX as a last resort. just keep running poly filters and filter floss (must clean the floss every other day making sure you wash your hands after, cyno is toxic to us as well as fish)
