Tang is eating Red Slime (Cyano Bacteria)

[cgbexec]

My tang is eating the Red Slime (Cyano Bacteria) on my sand. When I first cycled my tank back in March, I had the Red Slime problem, but it slowly dissapeared. Just a few weeks ago one of my heaters stuck and raised the water temp from 79deg to 86deg. Red Slime reapeard within days. My yellow tang is eating it. Is this safe for him/her. I am keeping my lights off for a couple of days to clear up the Red Slime. Just want to know if the Tang is going to get sick. So far he/she looks normal. Thanks for any help.

Chris

[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: cgbexec ]

 

[jmeader]

I would say that it's not safe for him to be eating it. But normaly the animal itself, unless retarded, is the best judge of that.

 

[cgbexec]

^

 

[Rick]

Hi Chris,
I think you're prety fortunate to have the tang do the job . Besides the cyano.theirs probably some diatoms mixed in with it that the tang has a real tast for .If he ate it before with no ill effects he'll do fine .
good luck.
Sounds like you have a keeper .

 

[Worm]

i had a powder blue do the same thing..
it then consumed an entire patch of xenia as well, though..not near as nice of a surprise

 

[outerbank]

My PBT eats all kinds of algae as well. He also nips at the xenia and I thought this was because he was pestering my clownfishes home. Hopefully he will not consume it all. SO far no harm done.

Scott

 

[pez]

is the tang actually eating the algae or merely foraging around in the sand near the algae?

-Tom

 

[cgbexec]

Pez,

The Cyano is patchy on the sand. He was actually picking at the Cyano and eating it. I have since cleared up the Cyano by cooling the tank back to 78deg and keeping all lighting off for 48 hours. This did the trick. All of the Cyano is gone and does not appear to be growing back. When I first cycled the tank back in March I had the problem for a few weeks, but it went away. I believe the sudden rise in Temp from 78deg to 86deg in a 24hour period caused this second outbreak, but I could be wrong. None of the other parameters changed other than the temp increase. I took 3 days to reduce the temp. The tank parameters are as follows.

125 gallon AGA with a 40 gallon Sump/Refugium
PH - 8.3 4:00PM 8.1 3:00AM
Temp - 78deg to 80deg
ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 0ppm
Phosphate - .5ppm
Alkalinity - 3.5meq/l
calcium - 420

Chris

 

[fishgills]

What kind on tang do you have?

 

[cgbexec]

fishgills,

It's and Atlantic yellow Tang about 1.5 inches long. I caught it about 2 months ago. It looks great. Stomach is full and it is quite active. Just the other day I found it letting itself be cleaned by two anenome shrimp. It eats macro algae, micro algae, and flakes when I feed the other fish. It looks very healthy. I was just worried when I saw it picking small pieces of Cyano and eating at it.

Chris