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Red Slime, should I remove manually?

S

sbelyo

Ok, I've got my first problem. I've noticed one rock getting covered with red slime. I researched and found that it's Cyano. Right now it's only one one rock and covers a few square inches. There is one small ball shaped sponge that is covered and two small sponge babies. I'd like to remove the slime without killing "spongebob"

Now, what's the best choice to remove it?

Since it's small and only located on that one rock is manually scraping it off the best way? Or should I use a chemical? I have no idea what I can find locally or what is the best. Is there a way to save the sponges?

Since I'm doing a water change I thought I could take a bowl of water, put the rock in it and scrape the slime off it and the sponge with a soft bristle tooth brush.

What do you think?
 
9supratt4

9supratt4

I have fought and won the cyano battle in the past. Don't scrape it off....siphon it out....get it out of the tank completely. Make sure you water conditions are very good too. If it starts to grow more and more, I've used Red Slime Remover....works very well.
 
lefkonj

lefkonj

I too have battled Red Slime and won. I used a combination of things.
1. Water changed with siphoning out of the areas, this was only temporary and it always came back.
2. Reduced the amount of white light in my tank. So instead of being 8-9 hours of white/blue/royal, I am not 8-9 of blue/royal and only 4 of white.
3. increased water flow. I have to Vortech MP40s on my tank and I repositioned them and increased the intensity so that the bacteria couldn't settle anywhere.

It took 2 to 3 weeks but it was gone and has not returned.
 
S

sbelyo

I'll get a dowel and some tubing so I can make a siphon tool that will reach it. 3/8" should be big enough
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

Agree with the other posters. Might want to either a) increase your water change frequency or increase the amount of water removed. Red Slime remover is effective but the issue will recurr if you continue to feed (or fish poop) more than the tank can export out.

How old is the tank by the way? Do you have a skimmer, fuge or similar export device?
 
S

sbelyo

The tank is about 9 weeks old. I have skimmer on it and it's functioning well, but i've only had it running about 3 weeks. I change 4 gallons every other week. Total volume is 24 gallons including sump. Bioload is 4 small fish, 7 snails, 10 hermits, and 1 conch and 12 small coral frags.

I think I will increase my water changes to 8 gallons every other week and reduce the amount of food I feed.

I was able to remove 95 percent of it with my home made siphon vac. I used a dowel and 1/4 inch tubing ziptied to the dowel with 2 inches hanging over the end of the dowel
 
J

jsciarrino

red slime

I can tell you I have a failsafe way of getting rid of red slime
some people on the board of going to get mad at me for suggesting this but I guarantee your red slime will go away.
250 mg of amoxicillin per 50 gallons of water will clear it up. There are no side effects to anything in the tank that I've seen I've been told that not only am I killing the bad bacteria I'm also killing the good bacteria. I don't believe this I have never seen an ammonia Spike after adding the amoxicillin. The only time I would treat red slime like this is if the red slime was under control to the point that it wasn't spreading like mad. Also I would not use it if my water parameters were out of whack. But no matter what the situation is it will kill the red slime but if your tank has one parameter problems it will probably come back.
 
downbeach

downbeach

jsciarrino said:
I can tell you I have a failsafe way of getting rid of red slime
some people on the board of going to get mad at me for suggesting this but I guarantee your red slime will go away.
250 mg of amoxicillin per 50 gallons of water will clear it up. There are no side effects to anything in the tank that I've seen I've been told that not only am I killing the bad bacteria I'm also killing the good bacteria. I don't believe this I have never seen an ammonia Spike after adding the amoxicillin. The only time I would treat red slime like this is if the red slime was under control to the point that it wasn't spreading like mad. Also I would not use it if my water parameters were out of whack. But no matter what the situation is it will kill the red slime but if your tank has one parameter problems it will probably come back.
Click to expand...

I'm one who would disagree with this.

Read here:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diatomandslimemicroalgae/a/redslimealgae.htm
 
Last edited:
panmanmatt

panmanmatt

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
downbeach said:
I'm one who would disagree with this.
Click to expand...

+2

Antibiotics should only be used in a hospital tank set up. Unless you are testing your water multiple times a day you may not see a spike but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
 
S

sbelyo

I'm not gonna try antibiotics at this point. It seems ok today. There's one or two small spots that I'll siphon off tomorrow, then I'll change 4 more gallons
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

it's a pretty new tank - a lot of us goes thru this...I wouldn't be concerned about it too much unless it was all over the place.
 
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