algea baby boom

[ping29]

its been six months now maybe more having my tank up and runing,so far so good no fish have died and my coral are all doing great almost doubled. water is all good no nitrate or phos i keep the cal at around 600 or so. but right all this to ask what i can do about the red slimmy algea and red buffy algea sorry dont no any better way to describe. i have no sand on bottom, and 1 tang 1 lawnmower 2 clown 2 purple dottybacks 1 cleaner wrassal 2 peppermint 2 cleaner and 2 hermit crabs should i have a bigger clean up crew and if so can anyone give me some pointers on what to get

 

[IceMan0124]

I might catch a bit of flak for this suggestion, but it has worked quite well for me in the past, all parameters were where they should have been, I was feeding light, but I couldnt shake the cyno, so I dosed the tank with a small amount of maracyn, an aquarium antibiotic(Erythromycin) and it worked quite well with no ill effects to the tank, and it didnt come back either, I used half the recomended treatment dosage, and it was dead within hours, I siphoned off the remains, ran carbon, then did a 25% water change the next day, and that was it. All my corals showed no signs of anything amiss, I was worried I might have an amonia spike and a light cycle to deal with due to the bacteria die off, but that didnt happen

 

[ChrisRD]

Do you have strong circulation (I only see 3 powerheads)?
What are you using for source water (ie. tap, RO, etc.)?
What sort of lighting are you using and how old are the lamps?

IME sometimes Cerith snails will eat red slime algae and the large Turbo snails will eat the red cotton algae.

 

[CG1]

I have to agree, my knee jerk is water flow. Even the power heads I can see are at the top and pointing across – no wires dropping behind the rock, so I bet you have pockets of dead water (isolated nitrate factories per se)

In addition to the questions already asked – I am wondering if you run a skimmer? Most often when people are completely baffled to the cause its going to be circulation and age of bulbs (bulbs never die, they grow old and weak – then they die)

Siphon that crap out of your tank and drop a couple of power heads down bottom, chances are your problem will go away. (Cyano hates water movement)

 

[CG1]

Iceman – No flak from me, I am a big fan of Myracyn II. However, its important to note that you ran it at half strength and ran your carbon and a water change the next day (Myracyn is suppose to run for 5 days) – since it is an antibiotic you do run the risk of an ammonia spike since its going to kill off bacteria (both good and bad).

Seems a bit extreme though – but not knowing the hoops you already jumped through, I think we have all had those frustrating tank moments. Glad that worked for you – I wonder if anyone else has tried that ?

I read a post on RC that a person was dosing his/her tank with sugar to resolve Cyano !! I think I would opt for the meds first !

 

[ChrisRD]

Not to say that antibiotics don't work, but personally, I would rather solve the problem than treat the symptom.

 

[ping29]

There is 4 power heads on top hooked up to a wave maker rated 230gph. There is one power head bottom right rated 315gph, which is on all the time across the back. I have a coral life 125 in sump and an 18watt UV in sump, also a 600gph Rio for water return but being 4 feet under it is about 350gph, which is hooked up to a spray bar in middle pointed down behind the rock. I have a ro unit but don’t use it anymore rated 110 gpd put I get around 20 a day, so I get 5 five gallon buckets filled up from co-op cost 4.99 for five gallons, so for 25 bucks its not that bad I guess. Looking into buying new lights as for mine are only 260watt pc which is very modest and limiting me in what I would like to achieve. Hope this helps I will be Siphon the bottom today. I do have 2 more power heads rate 410gph but didn’t want to put them in there too many wires don’t no maybe I will.