chaeto question

jba6511

Member
Looking into getting some chaeto to help with my cyanobacteria problem. Can chaeto be placed directly into the tank, or does it need to be in a fuge? Also, I think I read that it needs light to grow, but if I only want to use it to win against the cyano, is this necessary?
 

jba6511

Member
Originally Posted by dfurbee
Do you have any tank cleaners? What kind of water do you use? you might try a phos sponge.
have a few turbos, 3 nas. snails, 2 blue leg hermits, and 4 astrea snails plus a cleaner shrimp. I am running phosguard in one of my filters as well. The water I use is LFS saltwater, usually testing anywhere between 1.022 - 1.024.
 

1journeyman

Active Member
Chaeto is not going to help you to any huge degree against Cyano. While it is a good exporter of nutrients, you'll accomplish more faster with water changes.
Make sure your tank has plenty of water movement, do water changes with RO/DI water, make sure your lighting is using good bulbs, etc.
 

thud

Member
I used chemi-clean when i had my cyano problem.
It was very easy and did not have any negative effects.
I have a reef tank...
Make sure you do water changes 48 hours after you use chemi clean and be prepared to empty your skimmer often!
Some recommend taking a turkey baster and sucking off as much cyano as you can before using chemi clean, this way you have less dead cyano in your tank.
Just do a search for "cyano" or "chemi clean" or "red slime algae" on these forums, youll see a lot of success stories.
 

sly

Active Member
I second the above suggestion. I tried absolutely everything to get rid of slime algae back when I had it and the only thing that got rid of it was a bottle of "anti-red" and some water changes. You must use a skimmer though...
Do all other things first before going to any treatment. Make sure your parameters are good and that you have no phosphates in your topoff water. Make sure you have good lighting that is not more than a year and a half old. Have good water flow in the tank. Clean your prefilters out regularly. Don't over feed. Get a good cleanup crew (turbo snails work best for me). And then once everything is good, use some red-slime remover. Follow directions completely and do a water change a few days later.
Don't scrub your rocks trying to remove the slime. You will only spread it and make it worse. You can use a siphon hose to suck it out but don't scrub it.
One other thing... slime algae grows better when your salinity (SG) is low. If you are using a plastic hyrdometer, throw it away. They absorb salt over time and will show your water to be more saline than it actually is. It turns out my SG was VERY low even though my hydrometer showed it to be 1.023. This causes red slime aglae... Get a refractometer and you won't have that problem.
 

jba6511

Member
thanks guys. I am doing pretty much all of those things. I need to throw away the hydrometer though. Had it for about 2 months. I will continue what I am doing/what you guys suggested and see if anything helps for another week before using chemi clean.
 

renogaw

Active Member
btw, chaeto does need to be in some type of fuge, and does need a light. (the battle vs cyano has already been talked about)
 
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