Red blanket of stuff HELP!!!

lost_snow

Member
I have a red blanket looking material on my rocks and on my sand, i heard its backteria, its growing like crazy!! Any ideas?
 

mr. limpid

Active Member
It is red slim alge and yes its not a true alge nor is good. You can syphon it out it will come off in sheets and then I use a close hanger with a nylon over it to filter the water and pour the clean water back in. I have the problem when my protein skimer isnt working properlly. I hope this helps.
 

garnet13aj

Active Member
cyanobacteria is a phase in most new tanks, although it can come back at any time. The best way to combat it is to increase water flow and use RO/DI water.
 

lost_snow

Member
I dont know how i would increase water flow? i have a sump that pumps it up. I do use DI water as well, is there any chemical that will remove it or medication?
 

garnet13aj

Active Member
It's best to fix the problem rather than treat the symptom or it will just come back. To increase water flow you are going to have to add 1 or 2 more powerheads and for the moment I would suggest pointing them directly at the disaster areas.
 

autofreak44

Active Member
ive never had a cyanobacteria problem, but my guess is that it feeds on a mix of detritus and phosphates. i would say make shure you are not overfeeding your fish, as well as running some carbon and phosban in your filter. and like garnet said get the powerheads.
also if you could give us your tank paramaters (size, stocklist, chemichal tests etc.) that would help us rule out any obvious reasons
 

lost_snow

Member
I have a 55 with an overflow. 55lb of live rock, 40lbs of sand, 2 clowns, 1 BTA, golby, foxface, shrip, 3 turbo snails, 3 snails, 6 Hermit crabs, sail fish, long nose butterfly, my amonia is 0, ph is 8.0 buffer is not as high as it used to be but still in the good range (dont remember the number) and nitrait is at 20
 

michaeltx

Moderator
yes there is but when useing it you also risk the chance of NUKING your tank. I do not suggest you use it. some have good success with it and others loose their entire tank. Its called chemi-pure if you want to get more info on it though. ** as you can tell I do not recomend it. The bacteria is there for some reason need to find the root cause or it will return and it turns into a viscios cycle of treatments.
mike
 

lost_snow

Member
Humm well i will have to find out what my fish guy at the fish store says. He said that what he had was totaly safe
 

michaeltx

Moderator
well in general this is considered safe BUT people have nuked there tanks with it. I assume that this is what they are talking about though. Its better just to increase the water flow and and get to the bottom of the underlaying reason that its there. 90% of the time its a flow issue namely not enough of it.
Mike
 

lost_snow

Member
I was also told that if there arent enough things stiring up the sand that it can start this, im thinking of getting a sand sifting sea star or a sand blenny. Im only worried cuz i had a pretty orange seastar that died a week after i got it, so i dont know if the sand siffting one would live
 

michaeltx

Moderator
sand sifting stars are not a good idea they will deplete the sand of benificial bugs and other fauna we want in there and slowly starve.
how big is the tank and what size sand do you have in there.
Mike
 

lost_snow

Member
I have a 55 gallon, all i know is i have live sand, full of shells and all. I upped my skimmer but i dont know if its working, nothing is flowing into the collection bin, and its all the way up. before i cleaned it if i had it up high tons of bubble would flow into it.
 
G

goodcook

Guest
yes dont use cempure i mg a pet store and we took it off the shelf
 

nigerbang

Active Member
Originally Posted by lost_snow
I have a 55 gallon, all i know is i have live sand, full of shells and all. I upped my skimmer but i dont know if its working, nothing is flowing into the collection bin, and its all the way up. before i cleaned it if i had it up high tons of bubble would flow into it.
Live Sand...Full of shells?....Crushed Coral..?
 

lost_snow

Member
im guessing there might be some crushed coral in it, but i know there are shells and sand. All i know is that i got it from my fish guy and it was in a bag with salt water
 
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