Red Algae

[aquaman]

Ok it is over running the DSB of my tank, what can i do to get rid of it. I have already started to do water changes with distilled water, but so far nothing.

 

[splash1914]

you can use chemi-clean... 13 bucks and any good lfs... then do a 20% h2o change....

 

[karlas]

is it like a red mat? if so its probably cyano. very hard to get rid of.
you can remove it with a turkey baster to try and keep up on it. there are several reasons it shows up.
how much circulation in the tank? it shows up in dead areas of the tank
how are your nitrates and phosphates? this will feed the alge also do you over feed the fish? this can cause the trates and phosphates to become high
how old is your lighting? when lighting ages it will change color spectrums which can cause alge to grow
do you have a skimmer? this will help remove undisloved nutriets that help contrubute to the cyano

 

[clamchops]

I used a product from Ultra Reef its a red slime remover, over a 2 day period my red slime was gone, it worked for me and didnt harm tank inhabitants or ph, although it does say on the box it comes in that it can affect ph so read directions and decide if its right for your tank HTH...............

 

[frankl15207]

The red slime remover from Ultra Reef worked for me too, but make sure you shut off your protein skimmers. The stuff seems to take forever to leave the tank, but no stress on the inhabitants and no more red slime anywhere in the tank.
It was all over a green star polyp, added it on Tuesday and as of Friday it was completely clear from the green star and the star is wide open as of today.

 

[bluemarlin]

Be very careful when adding products to your tank. I used No Cyno because the label said that it was safe for fish and inverts. Well what it didn't say was that it would kill any mushrooms in the tank. I only had mushrooms in there at the time so I cannot tell you if the product would have killed other corals but I would guess that it is a vegitation killer! ALl of my mushrooms were eliminated right with the red algae.
Please be careful. I just kept up the water changes and I scraped off the algae where I could. I added more water moving devices and the algae has gone. (It had returned in smaller strength after the No Cyno)

 

[wamp]

Actually if you use antibiotics you are harming something. Your bacteria.
I have used the Ultra reef product on my old tank. Worked great BUT, did cause the tank to look dingy until several water changes. But, it did remove the red. Did not see it after that in that tank.

 

[david s]

if it is jelly like with some air bubles in it it is probubly cyano if you want to get rid of it take as much as you can out with a net and siphon then do a large water change and make sure you have good circulation point powerheads were the dead spots are last make sure you dont have real old light bulbs and that should araticate it I wouldnt recomend and additves to try to fix the problem they only get rid of it and the real problem still remains for it to return

 

[aquaman]

Thanks for all the great advice, i have just decided to do the watert changes. This seems to be having some effect.

 

[karlas]

i forgot to mention that in my previous post.we increased the water changes to about 10% a week. added pwr heads and a skimmer. that seemed to get rid of my cyano. i would keep doing the water changes and see how that goes. also i got some sand stirrers that seemed to help also. nassaraus snails are good detrivores and added 2 fighting conchs these thing would get their trunks right under the cyano and eat the junk. i think that helped clear it up also. with all of this the hair alge dissapeard to. after it dissapeared still maintain 5% a week with the changes and it hasnt come back at all