Not hair algea????

[delira5cal]

I have this dark red hairy stuff on half of my sand in the front side. It is not on any rock or anything else only on a small part of the sand. I went to the LFS and they told us it was bacteria from the phosphates in the water. So I bought a filter system and put the little bag with the white balls in my sump. I guess I am supposed to leave it there for 5 days and take it out. My question is should I suck the stuff out from on top of the sand or just leave it? Also my fish have ich and I want to treat with the ich attack, do u think it would be safe to do this with the bag of stuff in the sump?

 

[symon]

Red and Hairy, Sounds like Cryno Bacteria, there is a product out there called red slime remover, works great! If you have shrimp, snails and LR you can not treat Ick in the main tank! You need to QT the fish! But, the real quiestion is why do you have ick, to many fish, water quality, what type of water!
So let us know what size you tank is , stock list, water and filtration, Makes it much easier to help!

 

[tjs]

I had the same problem. I left it alone for a week and it turned into a layer of reddish slime. I did a little research and decided to go the no medication route.
I made a whole bunch of water ahead of time. Then every other day (it grows back fast if you don't do this immediately so I had to do it several times) I vacumed it up with my siphon vac while doing a ten percent water change. On the sixth day it was under control and I had to do it one more time a week later when the red hairs first showed up again.
Now I'm just doing regular water changes again without having to vacum any stuff off the substrate.
Good luck!
Tracy